Click the link below to download a full copy of the inspection report: SIAMS inspection report (March 2019)
Author: Scott Grason-Taylor
Wow in the Forest
It was the most beautiful day to explore Spring changes in the forest. The Pioneers were tasked with finding things to make them say “WOW”. Once they had found something they were seen writing labels and “WOWs” all over the place. I heard one little voice say,”I’ve found 5 WOWs .” A reply was heard,”And I’ve found 7″. The WOWs ranged from flowers to worms. We also checked out the pond, where we are due to release our tadpoles into the wild.
Very beautiful learning.
Painting Flowers,Hearts and the Odd Tractor
I set a table with a selection of paint, pallets and brushes. In the centre, I placed a few jugs of flowers. They were not the usual jugs-usually I use a red rubber vase for our classroom flowers. The children painted. Some painted flowers. Some painted hearts. Some painted tractors. Some painted the flowers in the red vase that is usually there, but wasn’t there this week. Some enjoyed moving the paint to create patterns and mix the colours.
The resulting works are now displayed in a classroom near you.
Beautiful Learning
Tadpoles Cause Great Excitement
A lot of time this week has been given over to finding out about tadpoles and watching how they are changing. This has caused great excitement, squeals and whoops. We have had a go at using Pic Collage on the iPad, drawn story maps of the development and gazed in awe and wonder at the little wrigglers. The children added some new words to their vocabulary – yolk, gill and they may remember amphibian. We discussed who might be eating who and what might be eating what. This learning will continue for a little longer, hopefully allowing us to see the development of limbs over the course of the week.
A Tree For Everyone
This week the Pioneers got the chance to handle a range of saplings provided by the Woodland Trust. We discussed the structure of the tree and use the related vocabulary. We wrote labels, having first discussed the links with our phonics. There were a few new teachers leading the learning during this session. The children all wrapped and packed individual trees to provide every family with a tree to take home and plant.
Pop into the classroom to see the wonderful writing that goes along with the photographs.
Leaders’ Class Blog
Friday 24th May 2019
This week has been a lot more relaxed than the previous, as we have our SATs out of the way and lots of fun things to look forward to. This week we have enjoyed writing our setting description for our new theme in literacy, Fairy tales! We have also been looking at geometry in maths and finding coordinates on four-quadrant grids. Today we had fun with the Pioneers, we helped them to practise for sports day.
Friday 10th May 2019
This week we have been preparing for SATs, we have worked so hard to remember our learning, and put it in to practise when answering revision questions. We are looking forward to showing off what we have been learning in the tests next week, and proving that all of our hard work was worth while.
Apart from revising, we have learned more about George’s Haemophilia, he has recently started to give himself his own medication, through an injection, and we are all so proud of this. He showed us how he did it, see the pictures below:
Tuesday 9th April 2019
This week The Islamic Diversity Centre visited us here at Sleights. We had the chance to learn about the religion Islam, and find out about Muslim’s everyday life. We asked lots of great questions and found the session very informative. We even got to dress as a Muslim, see our pictures below:
Friday 22nd March 2019
Hello all – Finley and Maddie here. This week has been busy in leaders. In English, we have planned and began writing a newsletter on Fair Trade and how it helps farmers in the poor region of the world. In maths, year 6 have been doing algebra (which has been quite a challenge) and Year 5 have been learning about graphs. This week in P.E, we have been playing volleyball, which was quite difficult for some of us. We have been learning different techniques to volley the ball and to serve.
This Friday afternoon, we have written a report on Hinduism and how they worship. Whilst that was happening, others were painting on a cross to set up on our next worship area, which is based on forgiveness. The most exciting part of the week for most is our new class book called ‘The Ghost Of Grania O’ Malley’ by Michael Morpurgo. On Thursday, we wrote a short paragraph about this book (some were quite gory!)
Friday 22nd February 2019
Today is our last day of this half term, even though most schools broke up last Friday! I think we are tired now as Miss Stubbs wrote ‘Friday 22nd Friday 2019’ on the board.. As we prepare to break up, it is a time for reflection upon the hard work and achievements of this half term. We have been working extra hard, with only eight weeks left until our SATs, and on top of this we are preparing for the Eskdale Festival, which will soon be upon us. Leaders were tasked with the challenge of preparing our very own worship, and we certainly rose to the occasion by including two, separate dramas. We have included some pictures below.
Friday 8th February 2019
This week began with the most exciting day, ‘Chocolate Day’. Following on with the theme of chocolate, the whole school has now finished writing their very own stories, named ‘Chocolate Cake’. In Leaders, we were so excited for others to hear our stories, we teamed up with the Adventurers class and read them to each other. The younger children read beautifully, and listened very carefully, all we needed was a slice of chocolate cake!
We are now moving on to writing about how chocolate is made. We’re learning lots of new vocabulary, specific to this process, such as: fermentation, cocoa pods, nibs, and lots more. We will bring this leaflet home, when we have finished writing it, and can share these interesting facts with you.
Friday 18th January 2019
Today’s authors are Maddie, Katie, Isaac S and Miss Stubbs. We’re back in to the swing of things now, after being back at school for two whole weeks. The days seem to have passed fairly quickly and we have started learning a few new things.
We have been trying (and failing) to resist chocolate cake! That’s right, our current topic is ‘Chocolate’ and in English we are writing a story based on Michael Rosen’s story poem: Chocolate cake.
Our topic in science is Sound, we have certainly made more than a ‘racket’ with instruments, looking at how sound travels through vibration.
We will keep you posted with any Chocolate themed news.
Friday 21st December 2018
After a very busy December, we have so much to fill you in on. Earlier in the month we were spreading the love. We created small hearts, including positive messages, and spread them around the village. Keep a look out for them: on railings and lampposts mainly.
We also visited some members of the local community, singing carols and catching up in general, I think we made a few people cry! (Happy tears of course!)
We have also enjoyed getting to know the younger children a little better, sharing stories together and showing them our fantastic reading skills.
Here are some photographs that capture these moments:
Friday 23rd November 2018
We have concluded our formal writing this week, after three weeks of focusing on what we want to celebrate as Sleights turns fifty! We will be posting our letters to the Gazette, for the editor to select the most relevant information to publish. Keep a look out for our work!
Friday 9th November 2018
This week, we had a delightful guest, the ambassador of Children in Need: Pudsey Bear! Here we are celebrating with him, making preparations for next Friday, when we will hold a bake sale, raising money for the worthy cause.
Perhaps you are wondering as to why our blog sounds formal this week? We have begun writing a formal letter, informing the local newspaper, the Whitby Gazette, of all Sleights’ spectacular qualities. Keep reviewing the Gazette for our published results.
Friday 19th October 2018
Leaders here, what a fantastic week it has been! We have had such success with the girls’ football team and managed to be placed fourth, out of fifty-five school in total! (See our picture below).
We have now finished writing our instructions on how to bake Yorkshire puddings. We are going to take home the recipes and persuade our families to let us cook! We are also having a baking day next Friday, keep checking back for pictures of the results!
Friday 12th October 2018
Hey there, it’s Finley, Jaedon and Isaac, from Leaders’ class. This week has been exciting, as people have doing Bikeability, whilst others have been baking Yorkshire puddings! Well done to everyone in Bikeability, as they all passed Level 2. This week, we have also been looking at instructions to prepare Yorkshire puddings. In maths, we have been looking at estimating answers. In P.E we have been doing tag rugby with Mr. Gokool. With Mrs Gurney we were doing coding on Kodu. The most fun part of the week was the engineering trip to Scarborough Spa, where we did loads of activities and got loads of freebies! We finished our Christmas cards and finally the girl’s football team came first so are in the finals, well done!
Friday 5th October 2018
Hi there, it’s Rosie, Milly and Amelia, and we’re all in Year Six. This week in class, we have been learning about our Christian values, these are: respect, perseverance and trust. We have also had our Harvest Festival, in which we made Autumn lanterns and tasty bread. In addition, the boys’ football team played against other schools and persevered throughout the whole game. We are so proud. In English, we have finished our non-chronological reports for our attractions, and they are now on display outside of our classroom, for people to read and choose the one that they would most like to visit, feel free to give us your responses too!
Our bake off!
We had a spontaneous Sleights Bake off, some of us baked apple pies/ crumbles at home, and brought in the delights to share.
Our first week in Leaders’ class
Hi there, this is Katie, Jack and Ben from the Leaders’ class. This week we have been thinking of ideas for our non -chronological report attractions. We all went into the school forest to write a practise report, get ideas and have fun. Also in our class, in numeracy we’ve been rounding numbers to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand, including decimal places. Apart from maths and English lessons, we’ve had swimming, P.E and dance –taught by Hannah Verity. You may have heard about the open afternoon, where parents came at 2.30 pm to have a look at their child’s work.
Chocolate Tasting
18th March 2019
As part of their Design and Technology topic Discoverers have been doing some product investigation. This afternoon involved chocolate tasting – such a difficult afternoon!!
They investigated the difference in taste between bars with a small amount of Cocoa solids compared to others with less.
Lucas & Ruby
The 85% dark chocolate was revolting compared to the 0% of the white chocolate.
Lilac
I liked tasting all of the different chocolate although I didn’t like the dark chocolate.
Noah
I was surprised that the Milkybar did not contain any Cocoa solids, only Cocoa butter.
Rachael
I liked the 85% chocolate because it was spicy but I didn’t like the 0% Milkybar.
Joshua
I like the 85% chocolate because I don’t really like milky chocolate.
Discoverers were surprised to find out that the dark chocolate was better for them.
Juicing Oranges From Sunny Spain
After reading The World Came To My Place Today, we made some orange juice. Mrs McGill cut the oranges in half and everyone got to have a go with the electric juicer. some were fascinated by the bits that were left after juicing. We enjoyed our freshly squeezed orange juice at snack time. While we were drinking, some of the children acted out parts of the text we have been learning. Ask a Pioneer to tell you all about it.
Such happy learning.
Double It Up. Find Half.
We have worked really hard with some challenging maths this week and the children persevered and did not give up. This was impressive. You could almost see their brains working. They were talking to each other and making suggestions, showing each other ways of doing stuff. They are making full use of Numicon and we added the pegs to experiment with sharing.
Persevere Pioneers
Sometimes play happens on your own. Sometimes play happens in ones and twos but this week big play has been going on with everyone getting involved. The Pioneers have been building assault courses with prizes at the end. They can be seen helping each other across obstacles and making adjustments to equipment to ensure safe crossing. This play has been going on everyday and has not been curtailed by the bad weather. It has been a privilege to stand back and watch our school Christian Values in action.
Trust, Perseverance, Respect -Very Happy Learning
