Roecliffe Church of England Primary School
Roecliffe, Boroughbridge, York,
North Yorkshire. YO51 9LY
Tel/Fax: 01423 322302
Newsletter
Spring 1 2015-16
Happy New Year to all of our pupils, families and friends at Roecliffe.
Warmest wishes for a joyous and peaceful start to the New Year, we hope that 2016 brings happiness to you all.
After an extremely busy Christmas time, with so many events and opportunities to celebrate this unique and special time
of year in the Christian calendar, Spring Term beckons new starts, refreshed enthusiasm, and excitement. This term is the
shortest, and we teachers are very conscious of that; as always at Roecliffe, this term brings new challenges in the shape of
sporting competitions and fixtures, new PE skills, the thrill of live theatre and much, much more. The teachers have new
themes planned for each of the classes; lots of new learning opportunities, and a rich curriculum for our pupils to
experience – from reading to a Rio Dance Festival, swimming gala, spellings and singing concerts! And tessellations to times
tables! We also have a new offer of fabulous after-school clubs and extra-curricular opportunities for all to enjoy. Staff very
kindly offer to give up their time to offer such clubs as singing, Messy Church, and new this term is a dance and a
gymnastics club, sewing with Mrs Bowes and a book club with Mrs Holloway.
Our School is one we continue to be proud to be a part of; we aim to provide the very best opportunities for all of our
pupils, nurturing talents, skills and creativity amidst a well-taught and balanced range of subjects at all ages. We look
forward to sharing our successes with you over the coming weeks and months, and would like to thank you all for your
continued support in all aspects of school life.
With best wishes for 2016 from Mrs Dalton and all the Staff at Roecliffe C of E Primary.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
New Diary Dates will be sent
with the Weekly Bulletin.
Here’s what’s coming up…
January 2015
5 School Opens
6th Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
8th All classes taught
cultural dance every Friday
ready for the Road to Rio
Dance Festival
12th Marrick Information
Evening 3.45-4.30pm
15th Year 5/6 Swimming Gala
at Queen Mary’s
19th Key Stage 2 Dodgeball
Festival Boroughbridge High
4.00-5.30pm
w/c 18th Key Steps in-school
gymnastics competitions
22nd Young voices Singing
Concert – Sheffield Arena
25th Boroughbridge Cluster
Gymnastics competition
th
The most Fantasmagorical musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, was enjoyed by the
whole school on Wednesday January 6th 2016. Thanks to your generosity and
support, we managed to raise enough money to take the whole school to West
Yorkshire Playhouse for a very memorable, toe-tapplingly-good, singalong musical
treat! We all had an amazing time! Singing along ever since, and all classes will be
focusing literacy work around the story over the coming weeks too.
After School Clubs
A new programme of extended learning opportunities is being offered for Spring
Term. We have Mondays Computer Explorers, Tuesdays Book Club, Sewing Club,
Wednesdays Messy Church, Young Voices, Thursdays Gymnastics, Fridays Dance
Club. Thank you to our fabulous staff and Club Leaders that offer these opportunities.
We also have our Chess Club running on
Thursdays, run by a group of children who
wanted to continue the success of our longestablished Chess Club, which the late Mr
Lloyd used to run. Well done chess team!
Parent Helper Request
If any parents or grandparents out
there have an hour to spare each
week to listen to readers, we would
love to hear from you. Thank You.
February 2015
2nd Year 5/6 Hockey Festival
Boroughbridge High
4.00-5.30pm
11th Road to Rio Dance
Festival – (all classes) Galtres
Centre 9.00am-3.00pm
12th Big Schools Birdwatch
24th Cross Country Finals
Advance Notice Parents
Evenings 1st and 2nd March
PE & SPORTS NEWS… Competitions Spring 2016… Events… Opportunities…
Road To Rio! Brazilian Dance Carnival!
Taught by specialist dance teachers
This half term our whole-school focus is Cultural Dance, we have
organised a Dance Festival for our local schools to take part in so
we can showcase the talents whilst learning about the unique,
diverse, and enjoyable global dance opportunities. Last year over
500 pupils from across the Cluster joined us at the Galtres Centre
for this Grand Finale! Each Friday for this half term, each class will
be taught a different dance theme – there will also be an afterschool club who will also have the opportunity to showcase their
work at the festival.
Due to the high numbers (and to eliminate pressure on the
children), we will not be able to host parent spectators, however
the event will be filmed and DVDs will be available to order in
advance, so you still get to see your child’s star performance!
Individual Class Sport Focuses
Early Years Foundation Stage (Class 1)
Multi Skills (Mondays) and Dance (Fridays)
Year 1/2 (Class 2)
Gymnastics / Athletics (Thursdays) and Dance (Fridays)
Year 3/4 (Class 3)
Gymnastics / Athletics (Mondays) and Dance (Fridays)
Year 5/6 (Class 4)
Gymnastics / Athletics (Thursdays) and Dance (Fridays)
Cross Country Finals
Qualification for 38 Key Stage 2 Pupils!
100% Participation in the Festival in September
HUGE congratulations to all of our talented runners who
have qualified for the Thirsk Schools X-Country Finals to be
staged at Knayton Park on 24th February.
You whole school are behind you and are very proud of you!
We have also provided an additional lunchtime coaching club
for this half term to offer long distance running skills
development for those that wish to take part.
Hockey Success! Our year 3/4 team took part
in their first Boroughbridge Sport Cluster
Hockey competition on 8th Dec and came
away in 2nd place!
They had a fantastic
time and comments
were received about
them playing so well
as a team and passing
the ball to each
other. The team play
contributed towards their success along with
their eagerness in attending Mrs Houseman’s
after school hockey club. Well done everyone!
Meet our Sports Council at Roecliffe who work as part
of a team of other Sports Leaders from across our
cluster of schools. Their role is to promote the Olympic
values in school sports, and to ensure we have
maximum participation. They will also be acting as
sports reporters, ensuring that we have a detailed
sports report on our fixtures, linking PE with literacy
very nicely! This is the third year that we have been
able to offer this additional leadership opportunity at
Roecliffe, with Alfie now our Ambassador for Sport,
continuing his second year of service, and Fleur,
Annabel and Will appointed this year. This provides a
superb opportunity for our young sportspeople at
Roecliffe.
Olympic Swimmer Joe Roebuck
We were delighted to welcome
Joe Roebuck to Roecliffe on
18th November, thanks to the hard
work of the Sports Council who
'won' the visit because of their
keen persuasion skills. Joe told us
about the work and commitment
needed to become a top class athlete. Joe started swimming aged just
6 and won his first medal aged 10. He did not start to compete at a
high level until he started at Loughborough University where he met
the coach who would help him achieve successes such as setting
British Records and winning medals at Commonwealth and European
Championships. Joe will now compete at the Rio Olympics this summer
.
Maths… Measure… Mental Maths…
Calculations, Calculations,
Calculations!
Last term, we spent the first half term in
each class developing confident, clearly
understood methods for calculating in
addition and subtraction. We then moved
onto multiplication and division for the
second half term. In doing so we have given
our pupils the best possible start to
understand place value, and having a
method that children are happy with to
calculate in all four areas.
Superhero Maths – Mental Maths
A Passport to Success
Mental maths groups focussed on addition
and subtraction for the 1st half term, and
multiplication and division for the 2nd half
term. We will continue to further develop
mental multiplication and division for this
half term too.
Spring Term - Measures
This term we turn our mathematics learning to being all about
measures. Measures in every possible way… length, weight, capacity,
angles, time… Classes 2, 3 and 4 all have a measuring task on their
homework grids. It’s simple but aimed at getting children weighing.
What can you do to help?
We are asked this a lot, and with measures the answer is simple – let
children experiment. We often find that children have difficulty
understanding measures, e.g. what 500g might ‘look like’ and ‘feel like’
compared to 5g. The best way is to weigh, pour, measure using
different tape measures and rulers, play around with water in the bath
–pouring in old bottles that have the measure on e.g. 300ml shampoo
bottles, travel sizes of shampoo or hotel-sized bottles so they or 150ml
bubble bath. Let them rake through the food cupboard, seeing that
cereal boxes may be 500g, same as pasta, but a bag of rice may be
200g. Weigh leaves, mud, sand, shoes, pets (?!), pasta, socks, pebbles,
books, spoons… Anything! Play games… the best thing about measures
is… its fun! If you have any scales – analogue, digital,
the type with weights – let them play!
Homework
One of the homework grid tasks is to weigh! Class 2 are to bring in
something that weighs 500g, Class 3 are bringing in an example of
something that weighs 100g and Class 4 a selection of items that
weighs 10g (small weights are particularly troublesome). Be creative –
I want children to know what different measures look like! What does
10g of wool look like compared to 10g of cheese? Can you weigh out
500g of Michael Morporgo books? 100g of teaspoons? Be creative!
Inspiring and Celebrating Learning at Roecliffe
Specialist PE coaching
Class 1 and 2 Nativity 2015
Class 2 in their Christmas hats
Harvest festival and Bible
Presentation at St Mary’s Church
Anti-Bullying Week
Class 3
Romans
theme
day
Class 4 human timeline
at Yorkshire Museum
Class 1
making
chocolate
apples
The ‘likely lads’ – Class 2 theme launch day
links to the our global community…
… a positive climate in which to learn
Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development
Collective Worship – Themes for this half term…
Living Well – Developing a Christ-Like Character
New Beginnings “Well done!” To reflect upon and celebrate the past year and to make plans for the
coming year New Thinking Thinking about God – who is He, what is He like, what does he think of
me? Thinking well about others – making friends out of enemies. Thinking well for ourselves using our
amazing minds. What is important? God treasures peace, love and generosity - enjoy these precious
jewels and share them with others. What we are like on the outside is not as important as what we are like on the
inside. Relationships God cares for us and asks us to care for one another. Jesus calls us to make up
and mend relationships, seeking to live in peace together. What is worth learning? The
importance of learning for life – spiritual, moral, social, cultural as well as intellectual and academic skills. To
help the children appreciate the value of things they don’t have to pay for – costing less but worth more.
Learning not to be defeated by our mistakes but to see them as a positive learning process. Behaviour
Following Christ is not about keeping rules, rather it is being a particular type of person, one who is shaped by
Jesus’ teaching.
Autumn Term House Points
Trophy
Congratulations to
West, and their House
Captain William Hughes, for
winning the house points
trophy for Autumn Term 2015
Attendance Awards
Congratulations to the
children above who have
been recognised for their
100% attendance in Autumn
Term. As a school we
achieved 98% attendance in
Autumn Term.
West have a non-uniform
day on Friday 9th January
to celebrate
Well Done to all of our
Houses and their House
Captains
Keep up the good work in 2016
Class Themes
Collective Worship
An invitation to join us
Each class taking a turn in leading
Collective Worship in School once per term
and parents, families and friends from that
Class are invited to join us. It isn’t a
performance or a show, it is an invitation to
join us for this special part in our school
day.
This takes place 9.10-9.40am - please do
join us if you can.
Class 4 – Wednesday 20th January
Class 2 – Tuesday 2nd February
Class 1 – Tuesday 1st March
Class 3 – Tuesday 8th March
This term each class will start a brand new theme; please take a look…
Class 1 – Science Investigators
The children will be exploring the world around them, growing plants, looking at the seasons and finding out how
things work and how materials are different.
Class 2 – The Toy Shop
Learning about our favourite toys, old and new, and going on a journey of discovery to find out where they are made
and what they are made from.
Class 3 – America and Europe
Researching and exploring human and physical geography within America and Europe.
Class 4 – World Kitchen
Learning about the world and it’s most extreme locations through food exploration, linking healthy lifestyles, map
work and continued development of knowledge and geography skills.