A Message From Miss Quarmby
Hello! It’s high spirits all round today with a sunny half term ahead! The warm weather feels long overdue, and it’s fantastic that it looks like a lovely week for everyone to enjoy. I can’t quite believe we’ve reached the end of another half term - and that we now only have one more left in this academic year. Time really is flying! This week has been full of lovely moments, including our House Award for Polar Bears, our Diamond and Platinum pizza parties, and our first governors’ meeting with our new parent governors—it was great to welcome them into school. A special shout out to Jake in Year 4CO—we are so proud of him for completing the Yorkshire Ability Triathlon last weekend. A real superstar in the making, and a wonderful achievement! As I’ve mentioned previously, this is the time of year when we begin planning ahead for September. With that in mind, at the end of this academic year we will be saying goodbye to Miss Kaur, our Year 5 teacher, who will be getting married over the summer and then heading off travelling. She will be greatly missed, and we wish her every happiness and success for the future. This week, we have also been busy with recruitment and interviews for her replacement, and we are looking forward to sharing updates on this, along with new class arrangements, shortly after the May half term. Looking ahead, all of our Summer 2 staff development time will focus on transition, ensuring that it is as strong and supportive as possible for all children. Our aim is for teachers to know their new classes well so that we can fully hit the ground running in September. It is often thought that things begin to wind down in schools during the final half term - but in reality, the opposite is true. This is one of the most important times of the year as we prepare children for their next stage of education. With that in mind, we would really appreciate your continued support in ensuring children are in school every day wherever possible. We are working closely with children on building resilience and helping them feel ready for the changes ahead - this consistent attendance really does make a difference. Have a wonderful bank holiday and a relaxing half term break—we look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday 1st June.
KEY DATES FOR SUMMER 2:
- Year 4 multiplication check - w/c 2nd June
- Year 4 multiplication check - w/c 8th June
- Year 1 phonics screening check - w/c 8th June
- Whole class photos - 15th June
- Year 2 trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park - 23rd June
- Sports Day - 24th June
- Year 6 St Mary's Church experience - 25th June
- Training Day - 3rd July
- Year 3 Egyptians trip to Leeds City Museum - 9th July
- House Film afternoon - 15th July
- Diamond & Platinum Awards - 16th July
- Break up for Summer Holidays - 17th July
Attendance
This week, finishing in first place with 100% are 1VM. In second place are 2KD, with 99.5% and in third place are 5AS with 96.77%. The whole school attendance this week is 94.29% Please remember look at the NHS guide Is my child too ill for school? - NHS (www.nhs.uk) This is used to determine which reasons for absence will be authorised or unauthorised.
let's take a look at what each year group has been up to this week!
EYFS
This week in Literacy, Pre-School have shared Jenny Peckles Lays Eggs with Speckles! One of our key words this week was “speckles” and our creative superstars used paint to decorate their own colourful, speckled eggs by flicking and tapping their brushes. Another key word we focused on was “grow” and the children worked together to create a height chart to investigate how much they have grown. They enjoyed comparing heights with their friends, using language such as taller and shorter. Miss Tree has also been incredibly proud of the children as they begin to recognise rhyming pairs and find rhyming objects around the classroom. Some fantastic examples included egg and peg, red and head, and bee and tree!
This week in Reception, the children created their final art masterpiece of the term inspired by the artwork of Martin Bulinya. Throughout Summer 1, the children have explored his artwork using charcoal, oil pastels and, over the last two weeks, clay. The children used lots of fantastic clay skills including rolling, patting, pinching and twisting to create their own dancing figures. They carefully attached each part together using sticks and worked hard to bring their creations to life. We were so impressed with the children’s creativity and their amazing finished artwork. Well done, Reception!
LOWER SCHOOL
This week, Year 1 have really enjoyed learning about the seven continents and five oceans. The children confidently labelled the North and South Poles and identified the location of the Equator on a map. To enhance their understanding, they created animals using modelling clay, carefully thinking about where in the world each animal lives and which habitat it belongs to. It has been wonderful to see their creativity and growing knowledge of the world around them.
This week in Year 2, we have explored volume and capacity by measuring in litres and millilitres. We have enjoyed using different containers to compare how much they hold. In Geography, we created a leaflet all about Yorkshire. In Music, we performed using the djembe drums and showed great rhythm.
What an exciting week for Year 3! We had the opportunity to consolidate our learning of what it is like to live beside the seaside on our visit to Saltburn. We spotted the sediment, the tide and signs of erosion. Our Year 3 superstars were excellent role models!
UPPER school
This week, Year 4 have published their stories based on A Series of Unfortunate Events. The children have really impressed us with their creative ideas and ability to build suspense into their narratives. Hearing their final pieces read out to an audience has made our whole Year 4 team very proud. We absolutely have a year group of authors in the making!
Year 5 have loved creating their own news reports using iMovies this week. They used green screen technology to add realistic backgrounds to their films and are currently editing them and adding the finishing touches. In between the numerous rainstorms, the children have been practising their fielding and batting skills whilst playing Kwik Cricket 🏏 and learning how to throw javelins for distance.
After all their hard work building up to SATs, Year 6 haven't taken their foot off the gas. This week, they have been straight back into learning. They have written narratives based on 'In the Hall of the Mountain King', which has given them the chance to let their creativity go wild (and they have enjoyed taking advantage of this). During Maths lessons, they have tackled a range of fiendish investigations and challenges. In Science, they used their knowledge of shadows to create brilliantly inventive shadow puppet plays. On top of all this, they also worked in teams to develop exciting business proposals - we were so impressed with all of their hard work and enthusiasm for this!