Newsletter – 21 March 2025

Dear Parents and Carers, 

I write to you in the midst of a very busy and jam-packed half-term. The children have been working and playing hard; there have been trips a-plenty, from Murton Park to Barcelona, and children have represented school in cross country, netball, football, hockey and more! Take a look at the class pages below to find out more!

Residential visits 

As you may be aware, we were very lucky to take 15 of our Year 6 pupils along on our first international residential visit to Barcelona, along with Knavesmire Primary School. We couldn’t be more proud of the pupils we took along, who were so confident, independent, polite and such good fun! We learnt so much on the trip, and now feel so much better equipped to run an international visit of our own for Scarcroft. With that in mind, we are excited to get the ball rolling with a Year 6 residential visit to Paris for 2026. Parents of current Year 5 pupils, please keep an eye on your emails for further details. 

Take a look at some of the highlights below.

Sporting events! 

One of Scarcroft’s key characteristics is ‘Healthy’ – as a healthy and active school, we promote and celebrate sporting achievements. There have plenty of them this half-term, with teams from Scarcroft representing us in boccia, football, netball and cross country. Take a look at our school Instagram page to see some of the photos: https://www.instagram.com/scarcroftschoolyork/ 

Parents’ evening

We look forward to seeing you all at parents evening on Thursday 27th March, and Tuesday 1st April. If you are unable to attend on one of these evenings, please do arrange an alternative appointment – the meetings really are invaluable in ensuring that your child receives the best possible support both in and out of school. Equally, I will be on hand, delivering chocolate and hot drinks to staff during the parents’ evenings – please do feel free to catch me if there’s anything you’d like to discuss. 

As ever, thank you for your ongoing support of our lovely school – we’re very grateful to be part of such a fantastic community. 

Best wishes, 

Jen Mitchell 

Head of School

Dates for the diary

Reception – Fishergate:  92.01%

Reception – Petergate: 92.36%

Year 1 – Gillygate: 95.9%

Year 1 – Stonegate: 96.57%

Year 2 – Castlegate: 97.02%

Year 2 – Micklegate: 97.47%

Year 3 – Coppergate: 95.89%

Year 3 – Whip ma whop ma gate: 95.54%

Year 4 – Swinegate: 98%

Year 4 – Walmgate: 98.3%

Year 5 – Colliergate: 98.31%

Year 5 – Skeldergate: 95%

Year 6 – Fossgate:   98.04%

Year 6 – Goodramgate:   97.93%

The children turned into scientists last week and did some amazing experiments. They learned how to make a lava lamp with oil, water and food colouring. Then in the afternoon they did a float and sink experiment.

The children also helped make some playdough this week, measuring out the ingredients and taking it in turn to mix them. 

Lastly, in our maths lesson, the boys and girls helped make a beach. We discussed which bucket had the bigger capacity and how this would help us add more water and sand to our beach. 

Recognition Awards

Fishergate

Milo B – For being so determined and persistent with his writing. Milo has been showing amazing progress and always tries his best. He also never gives up when his writing becomes tricky and this shows his resilience. Well done Milo. 

PeterGate

Monty – For being so brave and resilient since joining scarcroft. Monty has shown his amazing listening skills by following all the rules and routines in reception. Monty has also shown his bravery when it comes to trying new things and making new friends. Well done Monty.

We are really enjoying our DT topic at the moment and choosing our own materials to create our fairytale hand puppets. We carefully cut out the features for our character and joined them using techniques we had learned. Can you guess what our characters are?

Last week we had a workshop with MEG – the University of York’s music department. We explored using our bodies as percussion instruments and created a soundscape of a variety of different locations. We had great fun!

Recognition Awards

Stonegate

Noah – For giving reasons when answering questions using our new vocabulary.

Tilly – For making words using magnetic letters and writing them.

Gillygate

Finn – For demonstrating such a positive attitude towards his learning, and continuing to make the right choices in all areas.

Isaac – For being a great role-model with such a sensible, reliable nature, and always helping out without needing to be asked.

Eloise – For showing a positive attitude towards her learning and creativity in the Nest.

Year 2 have been practising their oracy skills in literacy lessons. We were reporters and created news reports telling the world about the amazing ‘Bear and the Piano’.

Castlegate class enjoyed a body percussion workshop. They discovered how to use their bodies to create rhythms. They then changed tempo and dynamics.

During British Science Week, Year 2 read ‘Violet the Pilot’, the story of an intrepid young inventor who saves the day in her homemade flying contraption. We had a go at inventing and designing our own flying contraptions…

Recognition Awards

Castlegate

Isla – for her effort and enthusiasm, especially in writing

William – for sharing his ideas so willingly and listening to others’ ideas enthusiastically

Micklegate

Achievement Trophy: Felix – for his amazing effort with his handwriting during the last few weeks.

Ella-Grace – for her effort and determination to improve her handwriting.

Murton Park Trip 

Last Friday, Year 3 ventured out to Murton Park to become Roman soldiers for the day. We began with a tour of our new fort and learnt some interesting facts about how the Romans live – including how they use the toilet! In the afternoon, we had our weapons training to learn how Romans used their Gladius and Javelins for fighting against other tribes and enemies. We also made some clay oil lamps and had a chance to write our Roman soldier contracts in Latin!

Science

Over the last 2 weeks, we have continued to learn about light and shadows.  We have enjoyed investigating how changing the position of a light source changes the size or clarity of shadows.  We also learned how the movement of the Earth can create these changes too!

Recognition Awards 

Coppergate

Yurii – For his beautiful handwriting and presentation of his work in all his books.  Such an improvement!

Edie – Achievement Trophy 

For her incredible efforts to improve her maths.  Her improved confidence means she is tackling ever more challenging questions.

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate

Recognition awards 

Oliver – Showing maximum effort to make each piece of work the best yet and also being determined to impress and make progress within his swimming lessons. 

Ivy – Showing a consistent positive attitude towards all of her learning challenges, particularly in reading!

In Year 4, we have been learning about rivers. We really enjoyed making the three stages of the river!

We really enjoyed our NFU Live Lesson for British Science week!

We have worked super hard in writing to produce biographies for Luca in The Matchbox Diary!

Recognition Awards

Swinegate

Dexter – super role model for good learning behaviours in class

Ada – excellent effort across maths and writing

Ivaan – great curiosity! He always knows how to bring our learning forward in class

Annabelle – super effort in writing.

Mae – Effort Trophy

Walmgate

Eli – fantastic effort with his presentation and phenomenal positive attitude 

Benji – super effort all year! 

Isla – Achievement Trophy – fantastic progress and achievement in all subject but particularly writing!

British Science Week

Year 5 have loved British Science Week. We kicked it off with a BBC live lesson with Tim Peake learning about how to train to be an astronaut. We also had lots of practical science packed in to this week!

The Return

We enjoyed immersing ourselves in the world of ‘The Return’ by Aaron Becker. We created mysterious red doors and strings of paper lanterns like the book in our classrooms. We can’t wait to write a persuasive text all about it!

Here are some of the opening paragraphs…what do you think?

Recognition Awards

Colliergate

Troy – A ninja in our classroom! Always ready to learn and always ready to do his job!

Isaac C – Has made a huge effort to be more engaged in his learning and shows me he is ready to learn brilliantly.

Skeldergate 

Rose – Super star in the classroom. Lots of interesting questions and answers. Impeccable manners. 

Milo – Fabulous member of the class. Super effort with presentation of his work. Amazing on the basketball court. 

Praise – Brilliant member of the class. Brings loads of energy and enthusiasm. ‘On fire’ in maths this week! Well done 

Trophies

Frankie – Effort Award – Amazing effort in everything she does. She has always completed her work to the best of her ability and she is super helpful and second guesses my every move. Thanks you, Frankie

Rafa – Kindness Award – Rafa always looks out for everyone else and is so thoughtful.

Science

We have continued to learn about circuits. In our final practical session we were set various challenges to complete.  One example was could we construct a circuit that would allow a pet to signal its owner when it was hungry.  Here are the children building these final circuits.

Music

In music we have just finished our unit on the songs of World War II.  We learned the melody and counter melody and here we are singing both parts.  It sounded really effective.

Recognition Awards

Christine – Christine could have won this award at any time during the year.  She is positive, hard-working and presents her work beautifully.  And with all this, Christine is really humble too, which is a lovely quality to have.

Arlo – Arlo has a special power which is his determination to know things in detail.  This means that he remembers things that other people forget and it pays dividends in subjects like maths and science.