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Living and Learning – NSPCC’s Speak Out Stay Safe

Posted on Friday 31 January 2025 by Rachael Poole

As part of our learning about knowing how to seek help and keep ourselves safe, we joined the NSPCC for an online assembly about Speaking Out to Stay Safe.  We loved discussing what we might worry about and how we could get help.

Shae’s reflection at the end of the session summed it up perfectly:

Children can have a sack full of worries and may need help.

It’s great that the children know it is normal to have worries and even more importantly that they have lots of ideas of how they can get help for those worries.

Living and Learning – Personal boundaries

Posted on Saturday 25 January 2025 by Rachael Poole

As part of our learning this week, we have thought about assessing risk and ensuring we, and others, are happy and healthy.  As part of this we thought about personal boundaries.  We thought about why personal boundaries are important to us and to others.

17.01.25

Posted on Monday 20 January 2025 by Mrs Palmer

Please continue to practise your spellings for the next two weeks. We’ve read these words as part of our daily phonics lessons. Please practise using the look, say, cover, write and check method. Your child will have a spelling quiz on Friday 24 January. 

  • many
  • any
  • again
  • who
  • whole
  • where
  • some
  • what
  • when
  • why

Festivals and Remembrance

Posted on Saturday 09 November 2024 by Miss Ward

This week we have been talking about Diwali- The festival of light. We explored the meaning of Diwali and what happens during this festival. We also talked about Bonfire Night and why we celebrate this day.

The children were very creative this week and got stuck into lots of messy activities. We made Diya lamps from clay and decorated them with lots of bright colourful paints and glitter. We also made some firework pictures using our favourite colours. We made a cut out using a tube and used this to make prints on our paper to look like fireworks.

Help at Home: Next week is World Nursery Rhyme week.

We have been learning lots of new nursery rhymes since the start of September. Can your child remember which ones we have learnt and can they sing their favourite using the actions?

This Sunday is a special day where we remember all those who faught in the war. This can be a sad time for many, so here is a little video that the children in Nursery have watched this week to help them understand more. From this, we made our own poppies to display on our wreath in Early Years.

Notice:

  •  World Nursery Rhyme week.
  • Tuesday 12 Nov– ‘ Odd socks day’ this is to symbolise that we are all different and that children should be themselves and be accepting of one another.
  • Friday 15 Nov – it is non-uniform day for Children in Need.

Have a lovely weekend

The Nursery Team

Community Week – Identity

Posted on Friday 08 November 2024 by Rachael Poole

In transition week during the Summer Term, Year 4 used the book The Barnabus Project to consider how we are all unique and are ‘perfectly imperfect’ in our own way.

It was exciting to return to this learning as part of Community Week when we considered ‘Identity’ in more detail. We enjoyed considering what makes us special and recorded this in an identity map.  The children were wonderfully creative and found lots of things that they have in common with each other as well as features of their identity that make them unique.

The importance of attendance

Posted on Thursday 26 September 2024 by Emma Kendrew

What did you do today? ‘We just played’…is the answer many parents of Reception children get. But here’s just a few of the things your child would miss if they’re absent for five consecutive days.
Phonics: Children learn four new graphemes and three tricky words each week.
Reading: Children practise reading books that closely match their phonics, plus loads of stories are read aloud and celebrated. We visit the school library once a week to choose a book to take home.
Poetry picnic: There’s a poetry session every day –another valuable activity which helps children learn to read.
Writing: We write every day using the graphemes that we’ve learned.
Handwriting: Children learn how to form letters correctly, otherwise joining letters will be difficult in Key Stage 1.
Maths: We’ve four maths sessions a week, setting the foundations for children to be successful in using and applying numbers in the future.
Alongside all of this, children learn Science, Music and other subjects. Even more importantly, children learn to concentrate in a large group, to share resources, take turns when speaking, answer in full sentences, regulate our feelings and prepare ourselves for future learning.
There’s a lot happening when ‘we just play’!

Living and Learning: I folllow the school rules.

Posted on Friday 06 September 2024 by Mr Freeman

Our Living and Learning statement for our first week is:

I follow the school rules.

Our three school rules are short and snappy to remember:

We are respectful.

We are ready.

We are safe.

As a class, Year 3 have discussed what the rules mean and how to follow them in school. We know that being respectful covers lots of things, such as listening to others, being kind to everyone and using our manners in school.

Help at home:

Talk about the three school rules with your child. Which is the easiest to follow? Which is the most difficult? Come up with some top tips on how to follow our school rules every day.

 

Pie Corbett (Wings) inspired writing

Posted on Friday 28 June 2024 by Mr Freeman

In our reading sessions, years 5 and 6 have been practising our reading fluency, using the poem ‘wings’ by Pie Corbett. In this poem (below), Pie Corbett uses his senses to influence his ideas on what he would do if he were to have wings.

The children were really inspired by his work, so we decided to create our own versions of the poem. We still focussed on our senses to guide our writing. Have a look at some of our fantastic pieces below!

 

Seaside Poems

Posted on Saturday 15 June 2024 by Emma Kendrew

This week our focus book has been Seaside Poems.

We have really enjoyed looking at the rhyming words and reading the different poems. We also talked about and compared two environments, a city (Leeds) and the seaside. The children did a great job talking through their ideas.

“A city has lots of tall buildings. At the seaside you see boats.”

“I can see lots of people in the city. I can see lots of sand at the seaside.”

Our  world of the week this week was City the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.

“I have been to a city called Leeds, it is bigger than Wetherby.”

“London is a really big city. I have been there.”

Poetry Picnic

This week our poem was I Have A Little Frog

I have a little frog,
His name is Tiny Tim,
I put him in the bathtub,
To see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water,
And gobbled all the soap.
And when he tried to talk,
There were bubbles in his throat.

The classroom Challenges this week have been

  • to sort the images of the seaside (coast) and the city.
  • to write an I can see sentence about what you can see in the seaside picture.
  • to pick two animals and add the amount of feet they have together.
  • to find the tricky words hidden in the outdoor area.
  • to use the loom bands to make a shape in the board.

Next week our Focus book is Sharing a Shell 

Reminders and Notices

Class Photos- are on Wednesday, please send your child to school in their school uniform. We will still do PE, but in our school uniform for this week.

Forest School- Is on Thursday please send your child to school in their PE kit with their forest school water proofs and wellies in a labelled plastic bag.

Please can you send your child to school with a sun hat and sun cream already applied on sunny days.

Waste Innovation- Please don’t forget to send in any donations for us to be creative.

Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjames@spherefederation.org thank you as always for your support.

Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman.

One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab.

Posted on Saturday 08 June 2024 by Emma Kendrew

Welcome  to Summer 2!  Our theme this half term is Seaside and Cities and our first focus book has been One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre and Jeff Sayre.

This book is a counting book that counts familiar animals and how many legs each one has! We have had lots of fun with this story making up our own lines.

“5 is a snail and a dog!”

“6 is a dog and a man!”

“11 is a snail and a crab or 5 people and a snail!”

“100 is 10 crabs or 100 snails!”

Our word of the week was country the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.

“I went to another country on my holiday.”

“We live in the country called England.”

Help at home: how many different countries can you name with your grown ups? can you write a list?

Also this week we released our butterflies, Mrs Rippon looked after them for us over the holidays and we had two to set free on Monday. It was great fun to watch them fly!

The classroom Challenges this week have been

  • to write a message to the school fairies
  • to join two materials together
  • to find some shapes in the outside area
  • to draw a shell or crab
  • to order numbers from 1 to 10

Next week our focus book is Seaside Poems

Reminders and Notices

PE- is on Wednesday, please send your child to school in their PE and in trainers they can fasten themselves.

Forest School- is on a Thursday please can you send your child to school in their PE kits with waterproofs and wellies in a labelled plastic bag.

Please can you send your child to school with a sun hat and sun cream already applied on sunny days.

Waste Innovation- Please don’t forget to send in any donations for us to be creative.

Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjames@spherefederation.org thank you as always for your support.

Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman.