Staying safe and secure
Many of you are aware that there have been some safeguarding concerns in Leeds schools today. The concerns affected only some Leeds schools – we were not affected. Be assured that if we had become aware of anything that compromised safeguarding, we would make sure you were informed.
We have comprehensive site security and safeguarding arrangements in place at all times. The advice from the local authority remains the same as always: continue to adhere to these robustly.
Please be assured that we place your child’s safety as the highest priority.
This week’s message (Friday 08 September 2023)
Another school year – welcome back.
And, just as importantly, welcome to all our new parents, carers and children, whether in Early Years or to those who have join us in other classes in school.
Our first weekly message of the year has some important information for the year ahead at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School…
Dates for the year
Key dates for the school year are in our school calendar. We’re preparing a list for you to print out and have ready to check, too.
Attendance
Last year’s attendance rate across England was 92.5% – a figure which is considerably lower than before Covid.
We’re really pleased that last year’s attendance at Scholes (Elmet) Primary was 95.3% – let’s see if we can beat that this year.
Read this help helpful guide from the NHS to decide if your child is ill enough to have to miss learning.
Homework
This Homework Guide sets out what we expect children to do and why. Reading, spellings, times tables and number facts are essential for all children to be confident with. The focus of your support at home should be ideally around these areas. Your comments in the Reading Record book (at least once a week) are really helpful for your child’s teacher.
Every child in Key Stage 1 and 2 has a Reading Record. Please sign the Reading Record so we know your child has been reading at home. You might also include a comment that relates to how they got on. In the Key Stage 2 Reading Record book, there are activities – one of these is set by the teacher each week. There are other activities for children to engage with in the Reading Record, too.
Your child’s first Talk Time task is published today.
Check out the weekly Living and Learning theme in our school calendar, too – there are more learning ideas here (usually showing on each Monday of the school year).
Each child in Key Stage 1 and 2 has a new homework book. The book is for your child to practise spellings, writing, times tables and number facts. It doesn’t need to be sent back to school.
Uniform
A uniform develops a sense of belonging, prevents competition and saves money. Wearing school colours helps us to keep up our high standards of behaviour. Please make sure your child is following our Uniform Policy. If we notice any problems, we’ll send home a reminder. A few things come up most often:
Hair: Long hair should be tied back, and hair accessories should be small and simple (this is so that it does not distract from learning and for hygiene reasons)
Jewellery, watches and other accessories: Only plain stud earrings (no more than 4mm wide) and items that are absolutely required by a religion are allowed. Advisors recommend no earrings are worn for PE; therefore, we’ll ask your child to remove earrings before the lesson. This needs to be done by the child. If they’re unable to remove or put their earrings back in by themselves, they must not wear them on the day they have PE.
PE kit: Keep it simple and non-branded – check out page 2 of our policy for a handy guide.
Our school rules
We’ve three school rules:
- We’re respectful.
- We’re ready.
- We’re safe.
Help at home. Talk with your child about the rules:
- Make sure your child knows the three rules.
- Is one more important than another?
- Is there a rule that your child thinks is missing and should be included?
- Make a link between our school rules and home: are there similar rules in your home?
- Discuss these rules and other rules in a wider context, including the country’s laws.
Read our full Positive Relationships Policy.
Reading in Key Stage 2
In Key Stage 2, once children have become independent readers, they’re involved in the process of choosing what book they read at home. To make sure children read a wide range of suitable texts, we rotate between ‘solo reading’ and ‘group reading’:
- solo reading happens in the first half-term of each term: Autumn 1, Spring 1 and Summer 1
- group reading happens in the second half-term: Autumn 2, Spring 2 and Summer 2
So, this half-term is solo reading – each child in class has taken home their own book.
- Each child’s book is checked by the teacher to make sure it’s appropriate in both content and challenge – please check that your child’s reading a book at what seems like the right level, so they can read it fluently and enjoy it.
- Your child should read the book at home on a daily basis – 10-15 minutes should be the minimum.
- In ‘Book Club’ sessions, teachers may direct children to an activity to complete alongside their reading for that week.
- A signed Reading Record allows parents to communicate with their child’s teacher that reading at home has happened regularly – please make sure your child is reading at home, and add comments in the Reading Record.
- In the weekly ‘Book Club’ session, children discuss their book with their class mates and celebrate a love of reading.
As always, contact school if you’ve any questions or concerns about anything we’ve said here.
Children settled into the new school year really well this week. It’s likely they’ll feel tired after a busy (and hot!) week back. Have a restful, happy and healthy weekend.
Is your child starting in Year 6? You can now apply online for a Year 7 place.
Nursery open morning: Saturday 30 September, 10am
Come and have a look around our happy and healthy Nursery!
We’re holding an open morning on Saturday 30 September at 10am.
No need to book, just turn up!
15 & 30 hour places available for 3 & 4 year olds.
This week’s message (Friday 21 July 2023)
This is our last message of the school year. We hope you and your child have had a good one. Thank you for all your support throughout the year – it’s always very much appreciated.
You might remember a few months ago we celebrated the sporting achievements of one of our pupils. He goes from strength to strength: at the weekend, he came an amazing third in the Taekwondo International World Championships. Well done!
Perhaps his next challenge is to do some extreme reading at the same time…
Extreme reading
We’re already getting some entries through for our Summer Competition this year. Here at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we love reading and thought we’d celebrate that this year with the theme of extreme reading. Here’s a couple of pics – one from Scholes and one from another Sphere Federation school – we love them!
To enter, email your pics to scholesoffice@spherefederation.org by Friday 08 September. Enter ‘Summer competition’ as the subject. All entries will be displayed in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.
Talking of reading, check out the Leeds Libraries Summer Challenge.
Our school day
A reminder…
From September 2023, the school day starts at 8.45am and ends at 3.15pm every day. This is to meet the government’s expectation for a minimum school week of 32.5 hours.
In the schools white paper published in March 2022, the government announced that all mainstream, state-funded schools would be expected to deliver a minimum school week of 32.5 hours by September 2023. The white paper was subsequently abandoned. However, an email from the Department for Education this week reiterates this expectation.
Measles
The following comes from the Department for Education for all parents and carers to read.
Measles can be very serious and spreads easily. Children and adults who contract measles can end up in hospital or suffer long term health consequences. In rare cases, it can be fatal.
Measles is completely preventable with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first dose is offered to children at 1 year of age and the second dose at 3 years and 4 months. Measles outbreaks happen when not enough children have been vaccinated and can be very disruptive in educational settings.
Schools are also encouraged to remind parents to check that their children’s vaccines are up to date. You can catch up on your MMR vaccine through your GP whatever your age.
Read more about the MMR vaccination.
Whatever you get up to, have a very happy and healthy summer. We’ll see you again on Tuesday 05 September – remember the 8.45am start!
Scholes in Bloom
We met the Britain in Bloom judges today, with the winner of the flowerbed competition showing off her design. We talked about the litter picking we had done, plants we had grown and how proud we were of our beautiful village.
Living and Learning (Being Healthy week) : Yoga and mindfulness
Reception, Year 1, Year 2, Year 5 and Year 6 all enjoyed yoga sessions from School of Yoga this week. This helped us learn about the importance of mental wellbeing and wellness, as well as physical health. Time to be mindful is important for our mental health.
This week’s message (Friday 14 July 2023)
This week’s message comes from Miss Hague…
Although there’s just one week left of school, we won’t be slowing down at Scholes. We’ll continue to keep structure to our school day and ensure learning is the priority so that our school can continue to be a happy and healthy place to learn.
Speaking of being happy and healthy, we were sad to cancel our KS2 Sports Day this afternoon. We made the call early to ensure any adults attending could re-arrange their plans. We’ll (weather permitting, of course) look forward to enjoying this on Tuesday afternoon instead.
Just this week, we had another reminder about how amazing our children are. Year 6 SATs results were released this week and we’re so proud of all of them. For each subject, the percentage of our children who met the expected standard was in-line with or above the national average (around 72% for each subject):
- Reading: 74.4%
- Writing: 76.7%
- Maths: 72.1%
- Grammar, punctuation and spelling: 72%
Great results – a massive well done to all of the children, to you for your support, and to all of the staff who have taught them over the past few years. (The figures here are subject to change because we may ask for some test papers to be re-marked.) The Year 5,6 end-of-year production was also fantastic – well done to all!
Our Key Stage 1 children have also been busy with end of key stage assessments. At the end of Year 2, 68.1% of our children are achieving expected level or above in Reading, 61.4% in Writing, and 72.7% in Maths. In Y1, 97.8% of our children reached the expected standard in their phonics – this is amazing!
We’ve had many other highlights this year. We invited Year 2 parents in recently to celebrate the amazing progress their children have made in reading throughout their time in Key Stage 1.
I’d like to say well done to Miss Young, Mrs Patterson and Mr Robson who have all finished their first year of teaching. Thank you for all your hard work.
Sadly, we’ve several goodbyes this year: Mr Robson leaves us to work at a school nearer to home; Mr Nash leaves us to embark on his teacher training (though he will be based at another school within Sphere Federation: St James’ CE Primary School, Wetherby); Mrs McCormick leaves to focus on her personal training business; Miss Lowry leaves to begin her maternity leave; and Mrs Allaway leaves us for a year to work with the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. We wish them all the very best and thank them for all of their hard work.
As you know, we pride ourselves on being a happy and healthy place to learn. We’ve been even healthier this week because it’s been a Health themed week. Amongst many healthy highlights, we’ve welcomed visitors from D:Side, iMoves and enjoyed taking part in some yoga. Check out our recently updated guide to Physical Activity. Also, make sure you child completes the health questionnaire alongside you – it’s this week’s homework.
Finally, I’d like to thank FOSP. They’ve worked tirelessly this year to raise funds for our school including raising money to kit-out The Hub with a range of cooking equipment for children to use in our Food and Nutrition lessons (part of the Design and Technology curriculum). You’ll also have noticed FOSP selling refreshments before big events such as productions.
As we move ever closer to the end of the school year, I’d like to thank you all for your ongoing support. I hope you have a fantastic summer with your families, making memories and having fun.
Living and Learning (Being Healthy week) : Soggy Sport Roundabout
A big THANK YOU to everyone who came to support our rather wet Sport Roundabout afternoon today.
We all still had fun, despite the rain. The winning team was France – but check out where your team came.
Another THANK YOU for sending children in fantastic coloured clothes to match their country team too.
1st France
2nd England
3rd Nigeria
4th Spain
5th Italy
6th Portugal
7th Germany
8th Colombia
9th Norway
10th Netherlands
11th Argentina
12th Brazil
This week’s message (Friday 07 July 2023)
This week’s message is a short one, starting with a reminder of the our annual Summer competition…
Big brains
A recent news article caught our eye – front page of The Times (28.06.23):
Here’s an extract from the article:
Young children who love reading grow up to be cleverer teenagers with better mental health, a study has found.
Research by Cambridge and Warwick universities found that reading a lot between the ages of two and nine was linked to better academic performance at secondary school, greater happiness and a reduced likelihood of depression, anxiety or behavioural problems.
Bookish children spent less time on their phones or watching TV. Scans revealed that they had bigger brains.
The research authors stressed the value of parents and carers ‘doing their best to awaken the joy of reading in their children at an early age’. The reaserch suggests that the ideal would be for children to read about 12 hours each week.
Talking of reading…
Extreme reading
Here at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we love reading. Over the Summer holidays, we’ve a challenge for your child… Show us how reading-obsessed they are by sending us a pic of them reading in an extreme place or position.
Here’s someone who’s already getting stuck into some extreme reading. (can’t think who it could be!)…
To enter, email your pics to scholesoffice@spherefederation.org by Friday 08 September. Enter ‘Summer competition’ as the subject.
All entries will be displayed in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.
Governance
Each year, the Sphere Federation governors produce a document that outlines their work over the year. Read the 2022-23 Annual Governance Statement.
Finally, in case you missed it, check out Miss Hague’s post from a few days ago which describes the themed week coming up next week.