Category: Latest News

Friday 8th July 2022

Scott Grason-Taylor

Leaders have had another enjoyable week at school.

On Thursday, Leaders put on an incredible performance of the song ‘Happy’ at the church service and spoke about the Christian value ‘truthfulness’. I’m sure families in attendance would agree that it was a fabulous afternoon and showcased the many talents of the children at Sleights School.

After a busy term, Leaders enjoyed time in the forest on Friday morning and spent some time drawing their surroundings, using pencil and charcoal, and applying the techniques they have learned about in art this term. The children also worked together wonderfully to create pieces of art with the natural resources on offer in the forest. Finally, they worked in teams to create a variety of dens.

Preparations are also underway for the Leavers’ assembly, which will take place on Friday the 22nd July. We are looking forward to celebrating Leaders’ time at primary school with their families and the rest of the school community.

A Musical Extravaganza!

Scott Grason-Taylor

What another wonderful week we have had. It is SO true, Learners class love to learn!

Today (Thursday), has been our amazing musical extravaganza in Church. It was fantastic! We all felt so amazingly proud to be part of such a wonderful school community.  Every class performed and each were outstanding. We could all feel the positive energy within the Church this afternoon. 

In Learners Class we reflected on the value of Trust and performed our music focus song of ZooTime. This was so much fun and we loved sharing this fun song with our friends and families.

In Science this week,, we have been thinking about the nutrients we get from the foods we eat and how this helps our bodies to grow. We have been paying particular attention to our school dinners, seeing if we can spot the proteins and carbohydrates on our plates.

We have been continuing to learn more about the artist Paul Klee this week. His love for colour inspired us to create our own personal colour charts – linking each colour to our feelings and emotions. We also perfected our skills of blending two colours together – this was harder than it sounds – we found that using oil pastels made the technique a little easier!

Another wonderful week of learning. We are Learners by name and learners by nature!

 

The Wise Man Built His Classroom on Strong Foundations

Scott Grason-Taylor

We have been retelling the story of the wise man and the foolish man and where they chose to build their houses. At the same time we have been able to see the foundations being laid for the new build. The shutter pans went in and then they were filled with concrete. Andy the builder told the Pioneers all about how they used a laser to check the measurements. This was fascinating for all. Some Pioneers drew a map of the area and others wrote sentences about the building work and all of the equipment being used.

Back in the classroom,we all did some story maps and the resulting writing was simply stunning.

A great week of learning.

A Thunder Storm Didn’t Stop Us

Scott Grason-Taylor

Hello Visitors,

This week, we have enjoyed lots of learning inside and out. We spent all of Friday in the forest, and tackled lots of new challenges: following tracks, creating maps, finding and hiding treasure and shelter building. Despite the thunder storm, we had an amazing time, and it made the atmosphere even better! 

The weather has given us some interesting thought for poetry, whilst we have been using figurative language within our English work. We thought about some interesting new language when we were outside, and we also used the stimuli of the amazing building work that is happening right outside our window. 

In RE, we are continuing to thinking about how life can be seen as a journey for some people. We are considering our life’s journey so far, and perhaps what our future may look like. We will be looking at religious events in some life journeys over the coming weeks. 

During collect worship, we have considered how many acts of service happen throughout our day. From the building creating our wonderful new classrooms, to the small gestures from our friends in class, we think about those who we serve, and who serve us, and send thanks to them.

 

 

Friday 1st July 2022

Scott Grason-Taylor

Wow! I can’t believe that it’s July already. The weeks are flying by in Leaders Class.

This week, the children started the week with a morning of history and drama, producing a performance that consolidated and extended their knowledge on the Ancient Greeks. The rest of the school enjoyed watching the performance at the end of the day. It is available on Tapestry if you haven’t seen it yet. 

On Wednesday, the children took part in an athletics event at Eskdale School. The children had a wonderful time and represented the school brilliantly.

In addition to our events this week, we have been continuing to practice our singing ready for the church service next week. We hope that lots of families can join us.

The children have also completed their free verse poetry, using a range of figurative language to describe the demolition work that they watched a few weeks ago.

In the wider curriculum, the children have learned about Alexander the Great, considering why he has remained significant beyond Greece and through different time periods. In art, the children applied the drawing techniques that they have been introduced to to animal drawings, using the art work of Leonardo Da Vinci and Henry Moore as inspiration.

Fun in Adventurers!

Scott Grason-Taylor

Hi families,

 

We have had another fun packed week in Adventurers this week. We started the week with a special visit from Father Michael who delivered a worship session to our class. The children enjoyed discussing a story from the Bible and asking questions about it.

This week we have been writing poetry. The children have absolutely loved exploring different types of figurative language and creating their own free verse poems. Hopefully we can share some here next week!

Elsewhere, in Science we have been looking at how animals and humans have different body structures. Next week we are going on to look at the human skeleton in more detail which the children are really looking forward to!

 

Have a fabulous weekend! 🙂 

Poetry is in the air!

Scott Grason-Taylor

Learners have embraced poetry in English this week. We have been looking closely at Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘What is Pink?’. We discussed the language and mood the poem evokes. We then began to create our own colour poems, thinking carefully about our word choices and the overall feeling of the poem. We are very proud of our poems so far and hope to put all our ideas together to create a class poem to perform next week. 

In Science we have been learning about our senses, we can identify the parts of the body that enable us to see, hear, taste, touch and smell. 

In Art, we have been drawing in the style of Paul Klee. Drawing on our sills of mark making and using light and dark tone, we drew a Paul Klee style portrait. We listened to relaxing piano music as we drew and our final pieces were wonderful. 

We are enjoying singing in class in preparation for our musical concert in Church next Thursday (7th July) at 1.30pm.

Learners Class love to learn 🙂

All About Animals

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers really enjoyed their time with the visitor from The Dog’s Trust. They were very receptive and were able to recap on the 4 important points from the lesson. They knew not to tough a dog if it is asleep ore eating. The knew not to cuddle a dog and to ask for permission before approaching a dog that was not known to them. This was quite impressive. They all had lots of chat about dogs in their families.

Very useful learning.

After reading Somebody Swallowed Stanley the Pioneers voiced their concerns about the animals in the story-the turtle,the whale and the jellyfish. some had seen videos of animals in distress trapped in fishing nets and discarded plastic. When we went to our forest they noted that their was rubbish and this could be dangerous to wildlife on our site. The Pioneers made their own Stanleys and added labels with a warning “Plastic Bags Don’t Belong in the Forest”. They made story maps and wrote about Stanley.

Happy Learning

We love the outdoors!

Scott Grason-Taylor

We have had a week full of the great outdoors this week. We have enjoyed our first School sports day in two years and it was sensational! The sun was shining, the children tackled each activity with a sense of fun and positivity. They cheered each other on and supported their friends and siblings. Our families were able to spectate this year. There were smiles all round! 

On Friday, we ended the week with a visit to the forest. The weather was beautiful, we found some shade and laid out some rugs and cushions. We read and enjoyed stories together, we sketched using grass and charcoal, we climbed trees, and we even practised our singing for the up and coming church concert. We embraced every moment of being outdoors.

In maths, we have been measuring water this week and learning about capacity and volume. Whilst in science, we have been identifying parts of our bodies.

We were delighted to receive a reply from our hedgehog awareness letters (sent to our neighbours last week) and were lucky to receive a gift of a hedgehog ornament along with a letter. This certainly made our day and we were so thankful to our kind neighbour.

Who knows what next week will have in store?

Read our blog next week to find out!

Learners class.

A fun-filled week in Leaders

Scott Grason-Taylor

What a fantastic week it has been in Leaders class!

On Monday and Tuesday, 11 children from Leaders class took part in Bikeability training, receiving excellent feedback from the instructors. Well done to all involved! Children not attending Bikeability, enjoyed working with Liz Collier on the whole school art project as well as taking part in a visit from Dogs Trust.

On Thursday afternoon, it was brilliant to welcome families in to school again to watch Sports Day. The children thoroughly enjoyed participating in all of the events and a great afternoon was had by all.

In addition to the many events happening in school this week, Leaders have also conducted an investigation into the impact of exercise on their heart rate. It was excellent to see the application of their knowledge from previous science lessons when they were producing their predictions and conclusions. The children also enjoyed working in groups during history this week to research the Peloponnesian war, using the internet and books.