A message from Miss Quarmby
It may only be the second week of the new school year, but we've fit in so much already! We were delighted to welcome our new Reception children and families officially on Monday as children started big school! We are very proud of how they've been adapting to school life: making new friends, following new rules and routines, and even starting to learn new sounds in phonics with the help of Fred the Frog!
In classes and in assemblies, we have looked at some amazing photos from Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, celebrated her life, and commentated what a fantastic monarch she was. Please remember that school will be closed on Monday to give the opportunity for people to pay their respects on the day of our late Queen's funeral.
On Tuesday 20th September, children will be having their individual school photos. These will take place in school, and children with siblings in school will be able to have sibling photos. Unfortunately, we're unable to have photographs with siblings in Tiny Tots or with those who don't attend school.
Finally, we have a very special member of our community who has reached the final round of the Leeds Children's Mayor competition. Mason attends the John Jamieson Partnership based at Whitkirk, and has reached the final 12 with his idea for he they would make Leeds an even better city for young people. Mason's manifesto is to create a ‘Leeds School Olympics’ event to bring children together from all backgrounds including those with special educational needs and disabilities and refugee children. Mason needs your votes! Children who go to school in Leeds have until 5pm on 26 September 2022 to cast their vote. Please follow the link, and vote for Mason - we're so proud of him! https://surveys.leeds.gov.uk/s/LCM2022VOTE/
Attendance
Our attendance winners this week are 3/4CO with 100% attendance, well done class that’s amazing! In second place it’s 5AR with 99.26% and third place goes to RJS with 99.01%. A big well done to all three classes. Our whole school attendance at Whitkirk this week is 97.24% which is slightly down on last week, can we get this to 98% next week? The only way we can do that is for everyone to come to school as much as they can.
Let's see what's been happening in our classes this week
EYFS
What a brilliant first week in reception. The EYFS team are incredibly proud of how the children have settled into school life at Whitkirk. This week the children have been exploring their new classroom, learning our unit rules,’ Choose it, Use it, Put it away and making lots of new friends! The children have learnt how to share books in the reading area, tidy resources away using the labels to help them and taking turns, remembering that ‘sharing is caring! Our class text this week has been ‘Whiffy Wilson, the Wolf who wouldn’t go to school’. The children have been comparing their experiences of starting school with those of Whiffy! They were glad at the end of the story when Whiffy enjoyed going to school, just like they do! What an excellent first week, well done!
Key Stage 1
We have had a very productive week in Year 1! In Maths, we have continued to delve deeper into our numbers to 10. We have been counting forwards and backwards from any given number and learning how to find ‘one more’. In Talk For Writing, we have ‘innovated’ the story of The Little Red Hen to be based around another farm animal. 1JL have created the story of The Small Brown Horse and 1JC have created the story of The Little Pink Pig and have began to write them up. We can’t wait to invent our own stories next week.
In Geography, we looked at landmarks we can find in Leeds. We used Google Earth to look in more detail at the Town Hall, Elland Road Stadium, Leeds Airport and more! We made them using junk models and then came together to make a 3D map of Leeds! This week, we discovered a new artist in Art: Arcimboldo! For our new project, we will be creating self portraits in his style (using lots of fruits and vegetables!). To begin, we made a colour wheel by finding all the colours we will need for our portraits. Well done Year 1!
It has been another busy, exciting week in Year 2. We have started writing some marvellous narratives based on Edward the Emu. We have lots of exciting new characters such as Ella the elephant, Lennie the lion and Charlie the crocodile. In Geography, we have learnt our 4 compass directions North, East, South, West. We used compasses to direct our way from the classroom to the playground. In Science, we have set up our own exciting investigations to find out the best way to grow a beanstalk.
Lower Key Stage 2
What a week it's been in LKS2! Our class text, Stitch Head, by Guy Bass, has really hooked us in. In our Reading lessons, we are enjoying exploring the descriptive vocabulary Guy Bass uses to engage the reader and create a picture in their minds. In English, the children have amazed us with their creative ideas for their writing. In order to support us in writing our diary entries next week, the children have been using prepositions to describe the journey up to the mysterious castle. We have been really impressed with the vocabulary choices from the children, showing they have a real sense of who will be reading their writing. In Maths, we have continued to develop our understanding of place value, where we have focused on partitioning and finding 1, 10, 100 or 1000 more or less. As scientists, we have begun exploring the different parts of the digestive system - learning their names and functions. The inquisitive questions the children ask in their Science lessons always makes us smile. A great week LKS2!
Upper Key Stage 2
What a fantastic week it's been in year 5! In English we have been developing our persuasive skills ready for our first big write next week; look out for those modal verbs and adverbial phrases! In Geography, we have used the iPads and atlases to learn more about the Tropics and any countries that lie within them, whilst in Science we've written a fact file for aliens all about the orbit of the Earth and how that creates a year. Above all that, Year 5 had their first swimming lessons this week and impressed us all with their maturity and enthusiasm - well done!
Year 6 have had yet another incredible week. The children have been engaged in their learning and are embracing their roles as role models for the rest of the school. We have continued our Geography work by looking at 6-figure grid reference which they found very tricky at first but demonstrated excellent perseverance. In Science, we ventured out of the classroom yet again to help us learn about the four chambers that make up the heart. In English and Reading we have read more of Kensuke's Kingdom. We have continued to work on character development and have also focussed on literary techniques to help enhance our level of description. We have been rounding numbers up to 10 million in Maths with great confidence and have now moved on to adding and subtracting using negative numbers. We had an interesting and valuable discussion about physical changes in RSE and have also considered the importance of teamwork during team games in PE.
