A message from Miss Quarmby
I do not know where the days, weeks and months seem to go! It feels as though we blink and we're at another weekend. Thank you to everybody who attended our Parents' Evenings last week and this week. It was fantastic to be able to share your child(ren)'s learning with you - it is always a delight to share their successes, and there are so many of them too! Thank you for all of your feedback - as always, we really appreciate hearing from you, and it was fabulous to hear so many positive responses. Here are just a few examples:
- "We are over the moon with our sons progress in Year 1. He’s teaching us Spanish and Geography and LOVES his eco warrior badge! As a family we’re loving our Whitkirk journey."
- "Such a fantastic team, offering support and encouragement, but still challenging when needed to help my child develop his learning. Thank you so much for all you do!"
- "We are very impressed with how fantastic Whitkirk have been since we were offered a place. The communication and transition has been brilliant and our daughter is absolutely thriving."
- "Our son loves coming to school. He sometimes says he wants to come at weekends to “do more learning”. He has some lovely friends and is really enjoying himself."
- "My child feels safe, valued in school and is making good progress. The communication home is always clear and as parents, we love having such good links with the teachers and what happens in the classroom."
- "We are so happy with Whitkirk PS! Especially with the communication, it's really helpful having dates which we can put in the diary with lots of advanced notce. Lovely staff! My child is very happy!"
This week, we've been marking Remembrance through sharing stories, and holding a two-minute silence. In KS2, we've read the book of Remembrance, and in KS1, we read 'Where the poppies grow'. As always, our children make us proud with the care and empathy they show, and their thirst for knowledge. Mia in KS1, even went home and created her own book of remembrance including the different coloured poppies and what they symbolise.
Last but by no means least, we were all in awe on Tuesday as Mason, the newly elected Leeds Children's Mayor, met King Charles. Mason was elected last month after campaigning on his manifesto of children's mental and physical health, promoting kindness and community spirit, and the creation of an event to bring children from different backgrounds together. We could not be prouder of Mason's achievements if we tried. He is an astounding role model, and an inspiration to all.
Road Safety Week - 14th - 20th November
Road Safety Week is Brake's biggest annual road safety campaign, and with the work that we do to ensure our families' journeys to and from school can be as safe as possible, this seems like the perfect initiative to get involved in. We're going to use this opportunity to continue to shout out for our right to make safe and healthy journeys every day. Road Safety Week 2022 will take place from 14 to 20 November 2022. The theme of Road Safety Week 2022 is SAFE ROADS FOR ALL. Children will be at the bottom of Templegate Walk supporting us in our efforts to make our roads as safe as possible. We hope you can join is by parking safely and legally, or even better, could you support Road Safety Week by choosing to walk, cycle or scoot to school instead of driving?
PAN Disability Team Welcomes Jesse Marsch
Oscar Langan in Year 6 plays for Leeds United Foundation and was surprised last week when Jesse Marsh, the Leeds Utd Manager, turned up to coach them for an hour! Jesse Marsh and the club wanted to show their support for child with neurodiversity and physical disabilities, everyone was over the moon. For more information on the story and how Leeds United supports inclusive football please see the attached website: https://www.leedsunited.com/news/community/30582/jesse-marsch-spends-time-at-disability-camp
Children in Need - Friday 18th November
We are excited to announce that we will be joining many others around the UK to participate in this fund-raising event. On Friday 18th November, children are welcome to come to school dressed from head to toe in spots! How spotty can your outfit for the day be? The most ‘SPOTacular’ in each class will win a certificate for their efforts! You can donate by following the link: https://app.parentpay.com/ParentPayShop/Foc/Default.aspx?shopid=8435
Attendance
This week, the class in first place with 100% is 2RD. In second place, 5JC with 99.3%, and 3/4CO are in third place with 98.6%. The whole school attendance for Whitkirk this week is 95.2%, which is still lower than our whole school target of 97%. Let’s see if we can beat this next week! The only way to do this is for everyone to come into school as much as they can. See you all next week for another fantastic week of learning.
Let's see what's been happening in our classes this week
EYFS
This week in Reception, our new class text is 'Stickman', written by Julia Donaldson. The children have enjoyed identifying the rhyming words and retelling the story using pictures from the text. The children also explored using new vocabulary such as ' deserted' and ' clattering' within the story! They then practised identifying the initial sounds at the beginning of words such as 's' for Stickman and then started to write CVC words (consonant, vowel, constant). such as 'man' and 'dog' to label pictures from the text!
In Geography this week, the children learned that Tim the Travelling Turtle has traveled to India! They explored landmarks in India such as the Taj Mahal and beautiful Indian jungles. They then used Google Maps to compare Whitkirk and Leeds to India.
On Thursday, the children learned about Remembrance day. They learned that millions of soldiers went to war to fight for their country to make sure that their country and their families were safe. Many, many of these soldiers sadly died. It is these soldiers we remember on Remembrance Day. The children then used collage techniques and Damien Hirst, inspired 'spots' to create their own poppies.
Key Stage 1
What a lovely week we have had in Year 1! It has been jam-packed from singing hip-hop, to flying to many countries to learning different styles of dance. We continued with our Big Idea by looking at the concept of similarity and difference. We reminisced on our favourite toys we had as babies and compared them to what our favourite toys look like now. We can’t wait to find out more about the toys our grandparents had! This week, we launched our Design and Technology unit on ‘structures’. Our design brief is to make a windmill suitable for a mouse! We have started our planning by designing the structure and turbines for the Windmill. In Science, we have begun our topic of ‘Using our Senses’. We began by making life size models of ourselves. We drew around our partner and labelled their body parts. We then linked these to the 5 senses we have, which we will explore throughout the half term!
We've had another fantastic week of learning in Year 2! In Maths, we started our new shape topic. We have been recapping our knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes from Year 1, as well as counting the number of sides and vertices and drawing our own shapes. In English, we wrote some spectacular pieces of writing using verbs and adverbs. Miss Dougan and Miss Dougall were blown away by the amazing vocabulary used! In History, we sorted pictures and written sources to explore the similarities and differences between school in Victorian Britain and the present day. Well done Year 2!
Lower Key Stage 2
It's been another busy week in Year 3 and 4! In English, we are hooked into our writing where we are building up to write a diary entry. This week, we have focused on including adverbials of time to help us structure our diary, as well as using subordinate conjunctions to add more details. We can't wait to write our final piece next week, in role as a Roman soldier! As Scientists, we explored how different sounds can be made using a range of musical instruments. We learned that sounds are made through vibrations and enjoyed using the instruments to put this to the test. As Designers, we will be making our own Bird Boxes to attract more birds to the school grounds. This week, we have been busy exploring a range of existing products and using the findings to begin designing our own. Another super week Year 3 and 4: well done!
Upper Key Stage 2
We've had another incredible week in Y5! In English, we've started to craft some effective sentences, which have been including all of our features, ready for our sinister setting description next week. Miss Quarmby couldn't believe how amazing we were at levelling up boring sentences! We have developed our understanding of mixed numbers and improper fractions in Maths and applied our knowledge to trickier problems. In DT, we became designers for our top-secret Christmas present (shhh, our lips are sealed!). Finally, a huge well done to everyone during your swimming and dance lessons this week: the progress is phenomenal!
Well, we've been popping, locking and busting some moves this week in Y6. The children are thoroughly loving learning how to Hip Hop in our dance lessons. As you can see from the photographs, we've got some real superstars! In English, we've been getting to grips with using the active and passive voice and learning how to use journalistic language in preparation for our end of unit writing next week. All the staff have been impressed with how easy they have made it look. In maths, we have been fine tuning our fraction knowledge and skills by simplifying and converting improper fractions and mixed numbers. In History we learnt about the Blitz and the blackout; we even discovered that some people painted cows white, so nobody ran them over!!! Finally, we started our Design Technology project (' Designing an Earthquake Proof Bridge') by constructing and testing strengthening techniques with weights.
