Yeadon Westfield Infant SchoolOur blogs
Date: 13th Nov 2024 @ 2:49pm
Year 1 children have been creating anti-bullying themed graffiti in the playground.
Date: 13th Nov 2024 @ 2:00pm
Spinosaurus and Dilophosaurus Class Blog - Autumn Term 1
Date: 25th Oct 2024 @ 9:42am
Welcome to the first blog of the year! This first half term has gone incredibly fast as we have all been busy settling into a new year. The year 1 children have transitioned extremely well into KS1, they have made new friends and settled into new routines. KS1 comes with more responsibility for the children who are now the role models of the school! There are lots of weekly jobs the children can volunteer for such as ‘Playground Friends’, bell ringers, door openers, chair monitors and more. Year 2 children who have school dinners are given the opportunity to be ‘servers’ and help at lunch time, and we have found that the children have risen to these roles brilliantly. Well done everyone.
The topic for this half term has been ‘Dinosaurs’. It is such an interesting and engaging topic and will run through until the end of the next half term too. Our highlight was having the dinosaurs visit!
Year 1 children have been consolidating their phonics knowledge from reception and have been introduced to lots of new digraphs and sound families. They have been working hard on letter formation and writing simple sentences based on the phonics they have been taught.
In English, year 2 have consolidated key phonics skills that were taught in year 1 and looked at the story ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. The children used adjectives to enhance their own versions of the stories and adapted them to, ‘The Dinosaur Who Came to Tea’. We have been impressed with their originality and unique ideas. They have been working hard on the presentation of writing, correct letter formation and spelling key words correctly.
In maths, year 1 and year 2 children have impressed us with their understanding of key concepts. This half term we have looked at place value, counting in 1, 2, 5,10s, naming familiar 2d shapes, doubling, halving, addition and subtraction. We continue to use practical games and methods to work out the answers. We have a bank of favourite maths songs on YouTube, ask your child to show you these!
In Topic (science, history, geography, art, DT, PSHE), we have looked at continents and were amazed that dinosaur fossils have been found on all 7 continents! We have classified living things (living, dead and never been alive) and identified and named dinosaurs that were carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. In art, the children have been looking at the work of famous artists (Michelle Reader, Barbra Hepworth and Eva Rothschild) and have made their own abstract sculptures inspired by these artists. Did they tell you about their marshmallow dinosaurs? It was been lovely watching them work individually, in pairs and in small groups.
In PE, we have been looking at body management and how to control our movements. The children have also spent several weeks developing their ‘send and return’ ball skills. Rolling, pushing, bouncing, catching and working out which is their dominant and non-dominant side. We stress the importance of being physically active in school and encourage the children to develop these key skills at home. If you don’t have a ball to hand, you could play catch with a pair of socks!
The children in Year 1 and year 2 take part in whole class reading sessions. These sessions help to develop confidence, pace, fluency and reading with expression. Please continue to read at home with your child at least three times a week. Please return reading books promptly and we will exchange the book and send a new one out.
Thank you so much for your support this half term. It has been a great start to a busy and fun year. If you have any questions then please speak to a member of staff and we will be happy to help.
Many thanks,
Mrs Sharp & Miss Dales
Stegosaurus Class Blog - Autumn Term 1
Date: 25th Oct 2024 @ 8:53am
Well that first half term went quickly! The Nursery children have been fantastic and have settled beautifully into their setting. We have been so proud of the bravery they have shown coming in on their own and organising themselves.
We have been learning new routines, rules have been established and it has been a pleasure watching friendships beginning to form and grow.
The children have been developing their gross motor skills outside with lots of climbing, running, rolling and riding bikes.
They have also been developing their fine motor skills through mark making, painting, building using duplo and wooden bricks.
All of this gross and fine motor development will be getting their muscles and their brains ready for writing.
Lunchtimes have been a hit and the children have been learning to speak clearly using sentences and remembering their manners when talking to each other.
We have also seen lots of imaginative play both inside and out with dinosaur lands being conquered, operations taking place in the Westfield Hospital and opening up Nursery’s very own ice cream café serving fabulous food and drinks.
Nursery, well done on a fantastic first half term. Have a lovely break and we’ll see you after the holiday ready for lots more learning and fun.
Diplodocus Class Blog - Autumn Term 1
Date: 25th Oct 2024 @ 8:13am
Wow! We’ve made it! This half term has seen the children settle into school life incredibly well and it has been a joy to watch new friendships form and the children develop their independence. It’s been tricky for the children to learn all the new rules and routines but they are working hard every day to follow these to the best of their ability. We are super proud of all of them.
The children are working hard on speaking in clear sentences and listening to others when adults or children are speaking. We have learnt lots of new, interesting and amazing things about our reception class already and have loved receiving the Family Bags!
The class have been busy learning new sounds in phonics and are trying hard to sound out words and blend them together in order to read. We will continue to learn new letter sounds next half term too.
We are having lots of fun developing our gross motor skills. Climbing, crawling, and using chalk outside, ‘painting’ large areas with water and much more. We are also busy developing our fine motor control by using Lego, being creative in the DT area, using scissors and investigating ‘funky fingers’ activities. All these activities (and many more) will help your child develop strength in their fingers and will help them to gain more pencil control.
In maths we have been learning all about a number each week. So far we have learnt all about 1, 2,3 and 4. Within these number sessions we have looked at 2D shapes, objects that have 1, 2, 3 and 4 things. We have been counting lots of things in the classroom (saying each number as we count each object).
We have been enjoying our weekly PE sessions learning new skills and developing on existing ones. We have been concentrating on body management and the fundamental skills such as hopping, skipping, jumping, walking and running. They have learnt lots of new warm up games and they are becoming quite competitive!
They have had a really busy first half term in school and are so ready for a week off ( as are the staff!) They were amazing in the Harvest Assembly and definitely perfected those actions! Well done reception for a successful first half term. We look forward to seeing you all after a week off and starting a new half term of learning and fun.
Thank you to all the grown ups as well for your support.
Team Reception 😊
Velociraptor Class Blog - Autumn Term 1
Date: 25th Oct 2024 @ 8:03am
This might have been a long term but it has flown by and the children have blossomed into proper Year 1s! We have been incredibly busy and have had some great fun.
So first of all let’s congratulate all our children on learning the songs for the Harvest Celebrations this week. They have worked very hard on this in our weekly singing practices, a time together as a key stage that they seem to greatly enjoy.
Over the past eight weeks we have not only worked on our daily phonics (don’t forget to check out the FFT Phonics Parents’ Portal by the way), reading and writing lessons and maths lessons, but have covered a full range of other subjects.
Under the umbrella topic of Dinosaurs, the children have learned about the amazing lady fossil hunter Mary Anning in history lessons. This week they have reflected on what they learned about her and I was so pleased with what they could recall and what good historians they are becoming! To tie in with this, we learned in geography about the countries of the UK and where in the country Mary Anning found her fossils, as well as learning that dinosaur fossils have been found in every one of the current seven continents of the world. If you want to know what the world looked like in the time of the dinosaurs, just search for Pangea Time Lapse on YouTube!
In science, the children have learned about the different groups of animals and their characteristics, about grouping them into carnivores, herbivores and omnivores and whether they lay eggs or give birth to live young. Currently we are thinking about seasons, so please help us with this by supporting the children in their Autumn Scavenger Hunt (sent home this Friday). They should bring this back completed after the half term holiday so it can be stuck in their science books and they will then receive a certificate.
With Mrs Gilligan, we have learned about different religions and stories in RE and the children have done some fantastic work in computing using all our laptops to explore digital imagery. Favourite lessons with many have been PE times in which the children have practised a variety of jumping and ball skills, including using rackets to hit a tennis ball that has been sent towards them. Why not work on some ball skills over the holiday? You don’t even have to have a proper ball – they seem to be quite happy to use a screwed up piece of paper! Try using your hand as a racket too!
Thank you for all your support over the half term. We do hope you all have a well-earned rest and come back refreshed at the beginning of November ready to learn why we celebrate Bonfire Night on the 5th.
Mrs Nolan and the Velociraptor Team
Date: 25th Oct 2024 @ 7:49am
It has been a busy half term. I cannot believe it is almost Halloween! The children have made a great start to the year and it is so lovely to see them enjoying their learning every day. Reception and Nursery have settled really well and it has been lovely getting to know them. Have a lovely break and we will see you all on Monday 4th November at 8.40am.
Date: 16th Oct 2024 @ 11:39am
The children at STARS have enjoyed reading and sharing books this week.
Date: 10th Oct 2024 @ 8:11am
The children sorted dinosaurs into carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.
Date: 10th Oct 2024 @ 8:08am
Subtraction partner game - the children had great fun doing this!
Dinosaur Building in Velociraptor Class
Date: 10th Oct 2024 @ 7:50am
The children have been making model dinosaurs with cardboard boxes.
Date: 8th Oct 2024 @ 2:03pm
Date: 1st Oct 2024 @ 1:47pm
At Stars this week we the children have enjoyed creating their own shape sandwiches. They had fun with star, circle and square cutters.
End of year message from Reception
Date: 19th Jul 2024 @ 2:53pm
Hi all,
Thank you so much for your generous gifts, kind words and overall thoughtfulness. Mrs Thacker and I are touched and feel very lucky to have worked with you and your children this year. A very special year.
Have a super summer.
The children have enjoyed playing games on this website Maths - Topmarks Search and they wanted me to share it with you so on a rainy day they could perhaps have 5 minutes screen time to play a fun educational game.
Thank you again and take care,
Date: 19th Jul 2024 @ 2:47pm
What a fantastic year we have had! We hope everyone has a relaxing Summer Holiday.
From
The Year 1 Team
End of Year Message from Nursery
Date: 19th Jul 2024 @ 2:41pm
We would like to wish everyone a very happy summer holiday - it has been an amazing year in Nursery!
Mrs Shaw, Mrs Waterworth and Miss Roberts
Date: 19th Jul 2024 @ 2:37pm
As we near the end of the school year, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the incredible journey we have been on in this summer term. It has been an action-packed and memorable time filled with growth, learning, and exciting adventures.
Transition has been a significant focus for us this term, as we prepared the children for their move to the Junior school. We organised visits to the Junior school, allowing the children to meet their new teachers and familiarise themselves with the environment. Additionally, we invited the Junior school teachers to visit us and share story times with our children. These sessions have helped to ease any concerns and build excitement for the next chapter of their journey.
Our children have shown immense enthusiasm for our topic this term—Seas and Oceans. From learning about marine food chains, life cycles, and offspring, along with engaging in plenty of practical experiments, to understanding the history of Scarborough beyond living memory, the children have expanded their horizons and embraced the wonders of our world. They have explored geography by studying the oceans and UK seaside locations. Their creativity has flourished through making 3D ocean shoebox dioramas. So much incredible learning and fun has been had by all!
Writing has been a highlight this term, with the children showcasing their incredible skills and imagination. They have improved their ability to communicate effectively with a focus on making their writing more detailed by using expanded noun phrases and conjunctions. Their non-fiction shark reports have displayed their research skills and given them a deep understanding of ocean animals. We are so proud of their progress!
In recent weeks, we have devoted a lot of time to rehearsing, singing, and acting in preparation for our leavers' performance. The children have poured their hearts into this project, and their dedication and teamwork have been truly fantastic. Watching them shine on stage during the assembly will be a moment of pride for us all. They have shown tremendous growth in confidence!
We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your support throughout the year. As we say goodbye to Year 2, we want to wish our children all the very best as they embark on their new journey into Year 3 and the Junior school. We have no doubt that they will continue to thrive, and we are excited to see the amazing things they will achieve!
Thank you once again for all your support over the year. We hope you have a fantastic summer break filled with joy, relaxation, and wonderful memories.
Best wishes,
Miss Dales & Mrs Sharp
End of Year Message from Ms Lowry
Date: 17th Jul 2024 @ 10:31am
The end of another great year! We have watched the children grow and flourish! Thank you for all your support this year. We say goodbye to Year 2. We will miss them and their families but they are more than ready for Year 3 (honestly!) Have a restful Summer and we will see you in September ready for another adventure!
Date: 24th May 2024 @ 10:08am
Dear Parents,
We hope this blog post finds you well. We can't believe how quickly this half term has flown by! It has been a busy and successful six weeks in Year 2, and we wanted to share some of the highlights with you.
One of the overarching focuses of this half term has been the KS1 SATS. The children have been working incredibly hard, and it has been wonderful to witness their resilience, determination, and concentration as they strived to achieve the best they could. We couldn't be prouder of their efforts, and they should be proud of themselves too!
In maths, we have spent time recapping and consolidating arithmetic and word problems. The children have shown great progress and confidence in their mathematical skills. In English, we have been learning all about the Snail and the Whale. The children have written some interesting newspaper reports detailing the events!
Our topic for this half term was "Oceans and seas". In science, we learnt all about sea animals and their habitats. In Geography, we investigated the oceans of the world and used this in History to track the adventures of Christopher Columbus. In Art, we have made incredible shoe box dioramas showing underwater habitats. The sea creatures that the children made out of clay were fantastic!
Physical education has been focused on developing skipping rope skills. Although it can be a challenging skill to master, every child has made good progress and should be commended for their efforts. Additionally, our classrooms have been transformed into temporary homes tadpoles. We've had a fantastic time watching them grow and we are still waiting on our tadpoles to become froglets!
As we head into the holidays, we hope you all have a super break and take some time to relax and recharge. We are excited about the final half term ahead, which promises even more exciting activities. One of the highlights will be the Year 2 leaver’s assembly, where we will celebrate the wonderful achievements of our amazing students.
Thank you for your continued support throughout this half term. We look forward to working together in the upcoming summer term, which we are confident will be a successful and enjoyable one. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
Best wishes,
Year 2 Teachers
Date: 24th May 2024 @ 10:06am
It is hard to believe that another half term is already over, and we only have one more half term together before the long summer holiday and the transition to Year 2! The children continue to blossom and grow in their learning and in their enthusiasm and are soaking up everything we teach them in our Oceans and Seas topic.
Their reading is amazing, and the classes have become very proficient at partner and shared reading lessons, developing lovely expression, great vocabulary and good comprehension skills. The children are brilliant at answering questions in full sentences! They are building up their stamina for writing too, and we have been very impressed with the quality and quantity of work they can produce.
In maths we have been doing lots of work on number, counting in 2s, 5s, 10s (using coins and objects) and 100s as well as counting in 1s forwards and backwards. Skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are always a focus. We have also been getting to grips with telling the time to o’clock and half past on analogue clocks and have linked this to digital clocks too – it would be great if you could keep practising this at home because it is such an important skill.
Our topic this term is Oceans and Seas. In science the children have been learning about different habitats with a focus on oceans, classification of animals into mammals, insects, reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians, classification into carnivores, omnivores and herbivores and finally an introduction to food chains.
The focus in geography for this first half term was oceans, and particularly the Atlantic Ocean due to the UK’s proximity. We have linked this to our history, following the life and voyages of Christopher Columbus from Italy and then Spain over to the Bahamas. Columbus arrived there by mistake over 500 years ago – see if the children can remember where he meant to sail to and what he brought back from the islands that changed people’s lives!
To bring all our work on oceans together, the children have had great fun making their ocean dioramas, learning about colour mixing, tinting, shading, working with clay and collage. They have also learned what goes wrong if their clay models are too delicate!
Added to all that, they have learned about keeping money safe (PSHE), have had hands-on lessons using laptops for word processing, had skipping and games lessons, and in RE they have learned about Ramadan and Eid as well as stories Jesus told. Phew! We can all have a well-deserved rest!
Have a great break next week. Thanks everyone!
Date: 24th May 2024 @ 9:54am
Well, what a busy half term we have had!
We have focused on Fairy tales and so far have learnt the story of The Three Little Pigs, Golidlocks and The Three Bears and The Gingerbread man.
The children have loved acting out and retelling the stories have made their own pig houses, designed and built a raft to save the gingerbread man and have explored different materials and amounts at the Three bears house developing their language along the way.
In maths we have been continuing our daily Little Big Maths sessions where we have been counting to 20, learning to read flashcards, recognising numbers to 10 and learning the skills needed to count carefully and accurately.
This term though has really all been about the language of amounts. We have been learning about more, less, hot, cold, tall, narrow, wide, thin and exploring these in relation to our Fairy Tales. We also learnt about ‘just right’ can you guess which fairy tale this came from?
In phonics we have been learning to love sounds and language. We have been singing our Nursery Rhymes and chanting, making sure our tongues and mouths are in the right position when we say words and sounds.
We have been learning about sentences and how they are made up of lots of words that together must make sense.
We have been practising finding syllables, listening for rhyme at the end of words and alliteration at the beginning.
We have also learnt all our initial sounds (s,a,t,p,I,n,m,d,g,o,c,k,e,u,r,b,f,l,j,v,w,x,y,z) and have even started blending those sounds together to read word. Nursery, I am so proud of you!
This term in Drawing Club we have loved doing the Gingerbread man. The last challenge was to imagine what it would be like if the Little Old Woman had made a stinky cheese man instead of a gingerbread man. We really loved that one and the children have been so excited to pick up their pencils and let their imaginations run wild. It has been a joy to watch!
We lost Mr Roberts for a little while to Year 1 but have now found him again and he’s been helping learn how to get ready for sports day in the mornings.
Well done Nursery, you have worked so hard this term and we are so proud of you.
Have a lovely break and see you next term.
Date: 24th May 2024 @ 9:51am
This last half term has been wonderful as we have seen every child continue to flourish.
The children have continued to work hard to develop their phonics and writing skills. The children are using their phonic knowledge to complete some lovely independent pieces of writing. Most children are accessing the challenges and are working hard to complete them. Please continue to work with your child at home on any unfamiliar sounds. New sounds and red words will be introduced in Year 1 so it is helpful if your child is secure on most/all of the sounds we have introduced this year. The red words we have looked at so far are being sent home today.
In maths, we looked at symmetry and the children enjoyed creating their own symmetrical patterns. Can you spot any butterflies in your garden? We also looked at grouping and using the language of ‘lots of.’ We have continued to look at simple addition and subtraction. Can you continue this skill at home?
We enjoyed looking at life cycles within our topic. What can the children tell you about ladybirds, frogs, butterflies and spiders? They all have a very interesting life cycle and go through metamorphosis – I think the trickiest word Reception have learnt this year! We enjoyed looking for mini beasts in our outside area. The children love being outside when the weather suits – they have such a fantastic area to play and enjoy.
The children thoroughly enjoyed the visit from the author and interacted beautifully with her story telling. A lot of children then took the story telling drama into the creative areas within the classroom. Fantastic! The theatre performance of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was also a great hit and the children were excited about it for days.
Next half term we begin by looking at recycling, please can you start at home and collect any suitable materials for our junk modelling/creative area. Thank you.
Have a lovely holiday and get some rest. Next half term is a very busy one!
Thank you for your continued support – the Reception team.