A message from Miss Quarmby
Hello, and what a start to 2025! Thank you so much to everyone for your understanding and patience this week, especially with our closure on Monday and delayed start on Wednesday. It’s been a team effort, and I’m so grateful to our amazing staff team who were out in force on Wednesday morning clearing the ice to make it safe for everyone and ensuring the children could still enjoy some outdoor play.
A group of children had an incredible experience at the Sheffield Arena on Wednesday afternoon and evening for Young Voices. The children (and staff) had an amazing time, behaved impeccably as always, and made us all very proud. A big thank you to Mr Sadler for leading the trip and to Mrs Gale for making sure the children were all ready to perform thanks to her Choir club. We’ve had so much positive feedback, and we’re already looking forward to hopefully taking another group next year! Our Year 3 children have also been out on an exciting trip this week. They have been to the Playhouse to see 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. I received a lovely message today following this trip from a member of the public. She called to praise our Year 3 children and staff. She described the children as absolutely delightful. She said that the joy and excitement they brought made her trip to the theatre magical. We couldn’t be prouder of our Year 3 students, and we’re incredibly lucky to have such a dedicated and lovely team supporting them.
Thank you all again for your support this week, and I hope you have a lovely weekend.
School lunches
On Thursday 16th January, all the children in Reception class, Year 1 and Year 2, will receive a school meal to try. Your child can still bring their packed lunch, if they wish, but we would like them to try a school meal - it is free for all children in Reception to Year 2.
Attendance
Congratulations to 1JL, who finished in first place this week with an outstanding 98.85%! 5AK followed closely in second place with 98.21%, and 3RD secured third place with 97.85%. This week’s overall school attendance is 92.47%, which is notably lower than usual. Let’s hope the snow and ice clear up by Monday, and let's aim for our highest attendance yet to kick off 2025!
Let's take a look AT WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON THIS WEEK
EYFS
This week in Reception, the children discovered that our new Big Idea is "Who Can Help Us?" We began by exploring and discussing the various people who help us in school and within our community. The children were thrilled to share that many of their parents hold important roles in the community, such as nurses and doctors! The children then engaged with new classroom resources, learning about key community helpers like police officers, firefighters, dentists, doctors, and nurses. We're especially excited to meet our local PCSOs this term and spend time with the ambulance and fire services! In literacy, we focused on the book The Feelings Doctor, which helped the children explore the Zones of Regulation. Through this, they began to understand their feelings and emotions, and learned strategies to manage "big emotions".
Key Stage 1
What a wonderful start to 2025 Year 1 have had! This week in Geography, we jumped on a 'tour bus' to London to launch our new big idea 'How does London compare to Leeds?'. We used maps to explore the city of London, had a virtual tour of the city and identified and named some key landmarks. We brought the capital city to our classroom by using junk modelling materials to build Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge! Well done Year 1!
Year 2 have had a fantastic start to the year, launching our topic 'What Will I Discover on a Kenyan Adventure?' with an exciting flight to Kenya and exploring maps to trace the countries we’d fly over. In Maths, we have started learning about equal groups as a foundation for multiplication and division. Despite the icy weather, the children have shown great enthusiasm and curiosity in all their learning!
Lower Key Stage 2
What a fabulous start to 2025 we have had in Year 3! In English, we began reading 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', in addition to starting some persuasive writing. In Maths, we have been learning to multiply using the grid method. In Science, we grouped rocks by their physical properties and, in Geography, we explored the different layers of the Earth.
Despite it being shorter week than expected, we’ve been exceptional busy. We’ve started our English writing unit, where we are going to be writing in role as a Secret Agent based upon a short animation called Pigeon Impossible. In maths we’ve been learning about factors and even learned about prime numbers! In Science we’ve been hands on, investigating and explaining the properties of solids and liquids. To start of our new geography unit, we even made own mini rivers!
Upper Key Stage 2
Year 5 have had an excellent first week back this week! We have been super impressed with the amazing similes the children have been writing to describe the Amazon Rainforest. We have loved identifying the different features of a non-formal letter and learning about Hinduism in R.E. Well done Year 5!
It has been so wonderful to welcome our Year 6 pupils back this week. They have certainly returned to school with an incredible attitude towards their learning, being the best they can be and certainly ready to achieve great things in 2025! We have launched our new big idea this week: 'What makes the Galapagos Islands unique?' We located the islands on a map and learned a little bit about what makes them so incredible; we can't wait to learn more throughout the half term! In Maths, we have begun our unit on converting measures. We have been blown away with the children's resilience when solving some tricky problems! Well done Year 6: we know that 2025 will be a great year!