Newsletter – 20 December 2024

Dear parents and carers, 

We’ve made it! We’ve had such a jam-packed Autumn term, and as usual, the children have done us proud with their hard work, determination and Scarcroft spirit. They certainly deserve a well-earned rest (as do all the staff)!

Please be reminded that Monday 6th January is a teacher training day, so children will return to school on Tuesday 7th January, 2025.

Thank you so much for your continued support for the school. We have such a special community, and we’re very proud to be part of it. Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas, and a happy new year. 

Dates for the diary

Take a look below at what your children’s classes have been up to! 

Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas holiday. 

Jen Mitchell 

Head of School 

Reception – Fishergate:  94.12%

Year 1 – Gillygate:   95.51%

Year 1 – Stonegate:   96.22%

Year 2 – Castlegate:   97.5%

Year 2 – Micklegate:  97.67%

Year 3 – Coppergate:   94.98%

Year 3 – Whip ma whop ma gate:   95.22%

Year 4 – Swinegate:   94.87%

Year 4 – Walmgate:   97.5%

Year 5 – Colliergate:   97.14%

Year 5 – Skeldergate:   95.58%

Year 6 – Fossgate:   96.96%

Year 6 – Goodramgate:   95.74%

In the Creative Area we have really enjoyed making collage reindeers using different types and textures of brown paper. We followed the instructions independently and were really pleased with our finished artwork.

This week in EYFS we were so lucky to have Magic Bethan come to our class. We had a full magic show and it ended with a real white rabbit magically arriving behind a balloon.   Thank you so much to FOSS for arranging this for us.  

In Art we used paper plates to make our own Christmas Trees. We had to cut the plates, paint the plates and then use glue and glitter to finish off our beautiful Christmas creations. It was a messy job but we are very happy with the finished trees. 

Recognition awards

Marius  – For always working hard and contributing fully to lessons. He is a great friend and has the most amazing ideas for games in which he includes all his friends. 

Cariad– She has been inspirational in our Dance lessons. Cariad is able to think up very creative movements to match actions from a rhyme. When it came to giving feedback Cariad was very positive and gave top tips on how a performance could be improved. 

In Year 1 we’ve enjoyed getting our classrooms ready for Christmas, especially decorating the tree. A couple of us have made decorations as well to make the rooms look more festive!

What do you think of our creations?

As part of our observational drawing, we were challenged to draw pictures of a key with a guard across our pencil. This meant we couldn’t see what we were drawing and had to look carefully to create our picture. We enjoyed looking at what we’d accomplished afterwards!

Recognition awards

1 Stonegate

Elliott – For always being curious and asking interesting questions in class.

Sofia – For always getting on with her work and setting a fantastic example to the rest of the class.

1 Gillygate

Otis – For always being positive and smiley and a sensible shift in his attitude towards his learning.

Kim – For trying hard to make good choices and always completing maths challenges to her full potential

Effort Trophy – Leo – For always being on the ball during phonics sessions and pure enthusiasm when working in a small group.

Christmas Play

We are super proud of all the children for their amazing effort in the Christmas production. Thank you to those who were able to come and to everyone who helped organise costumes and learn lines.

In Design Technology, we have been learning about structures and we explored the stability of different shapes. We had lots of fun making a chair for Baby Bear using our design criteria!

In Computing, we have been learning about algorithms. We created algorithms  for our friends to build our Lego models.

In circle time, we created some positive affirmation postcards for our friends in Reception class

Recognition Awards

2 Castlegate

Bella – for her amazing independence in Writing

Isla – for her resilience and determination in our school play

2 Micklegate

Claudie – for her excellent efforts across the curriculum, especially in writing

Achievement Trophy – Poppy S – for reading comprehension and writing

Escape from Pompeii 

In writing we have been exploring the book ‘Escape from Pompeii’ by Christina Balit. To begin with we became archaeologists to find clues as to what our story would be about. We inferred that it would be about a volcano erupting thanks to the images left and also that we were looking at a place in Italy due to the scrap piece of map we found too. 

French

Our French accents have been getting better this half term and now we can remember the ordering of words to describe 2D shapes based on their name, size and colouring. We have become so confident that we endeavoured on a Tangram challenge to colour in shapes within a puzzle the correct colours- all of our instructions were written in french too! 

Coppergate

Recognition awards

Edie  –For working with such determination, especially on her multiplication and division skills.

Ezra – For his kindness to everyone in class and his increasing resilience in writing.

Eloise – For using her regulation tools to help her learning even in situations she finds difficult.

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate

Recognition awards 

Meera– For always being ready to learn and having a positive attitude towards her learning. 

Shannay– For showing a real determination in her work and having a can-do attitude.  

Rommy– Showing a caring nature to everyone he comes into contact with and showing amazing resilience to get his work done even when things are tricky.

Kindness trophy – Iris

Recognition Award: 

Walmgate: 

Daisy Ellis – super progress in maths – particularly arithmetic and times tables. 

Isla Whitehouse – for being a super star all term, working hard, focusing and being incredibly kind and polite. 

Jesse – for consistent bronze behaviour all term long. Jesse’s focus is phenomenal! 

Trophy: Elizabeth – achievement 

SWINEGATE

Kayla – being a fabulous role model in all things.

Bolu – making a wonderful start to their time at Scarcroft

Bukunmi – making a wonderful start to their time at Scarcroft

Kindness Trophy 

Lyana – for always offering to do jobs around the classroom and being a friend to others

As part of Daily Circles, we made lovely affirmation cards for Year 6…

In D&T, we have learnt about how to make structures stable and balanced ready to make own own pavilion…

Recognition 

5 Colliergate

Amber Bradley – a super enthusiastic member of our class who does everything with a smile on her face. 

Devon Wild – Devon’s progress throughout this term has been incredible. She has gone from strength to strength in her phonics and reading.

Rafa Vallejo-Sundaram – Rafa is such a kind, positive and supportive member of our class 

who gives everything 100%

5 Skeldergate 

Mia Grillo Santi – Excellent independent worker. Always tries her best. Super friend and extra helpful in the classroom.

Eren Timur – !00% effort in every lesson. Always ready to listen. Also asks and answers questions. 

Zofia Bogdanska – Amazing allrounder. Brilliant at learning and a super friend.  

Trophies

Kyla Norman – Achievement – Amazing progress this term. Well done Kyla 

DT

In DT we have been adapting a recipe for bolognese. We designed and made our own labels for our sauce and practised our claw and bridge cutting techniques to chop the onion. We really enjoyed being chefs in our classroom kitchens. 

Computing 

In computing we have been learning about search engines this half term. We learnt about what a web crawler does by becoming one ourselves. We had to find items around the school and rate and rank them based on proximity, quality and quantity just like a web crawler rates and ranks websites. 

Science

This half term we have learnt about materials and their properties. To learn about irreversible changes we burnt different materials to see what was left.

Science

In science, we finished our topic on light by making working periscopes.  The idea was to reinforce our knowledge that light moves in straight lines and that the angle of reflection is predictable given the angle of the incoming light ray.

DT

We finished the term with a DT project – improving a teddy’s image by sewing them a waistcoat. We started by practising stitching on scrap fabric as the children were finding it quite fiddly (though were excellent at threading needles!) They then designed a garment, made it and accessorised.

Recognition

Ben Fricke

I have yet to find something in school that Ben doesn’t excel at: he’s a fantastic sportsperson, a great mathematician and a wonderful writer. Ben’s effort in writing is amazing. He regularly gors back to finished work, rereads, improves and rewrites to great effect. I’ve also been impressed with his willingness to join in with random things like samba dancing and sewing. 

Penny Greaves

Penny, also one of our first children to get to ‘gold’ this year, is an absolute pleasure to teach and a true role model for everyone in school. She is up for everything in school and approaches school life, be it work, friendships, residential, with such a good balance of a relaxed and friendly demeanour but still incredibly hard-working.

Eva Lawson

Eva is another one of the first children to achieve gold this year.  This is because she throws herself into school life and gets involved with as many things as she can.  She is always positive and a super role model for other children in the school.

Isla Price

It is great having Isla in the class.  She is so pragmatic and resourceful. Isla will share a joke with you and is always reliable when I have forgotten something.  She is really building a sense of self-confidence and I think she would do really well in a debating group.

Trophy – Achievement

Yaromyr Bilyi

Yaromyr could already have received this trophy for his outstanding attitude at our residential.  However, he is getting it here because of his achievement in maths recently, particularly his mental maths.  Yaromyr has become one of our most reliable mathematicians, regularly scoring close to full marks in arithmetic books.