Newsletter – 6 December 2024

Dear parents and carers, 

Christmas has most certainly come to Scarcroft! 

Christmas singalong!

Early Years sang their hearts out in their Christmas singalong, with some incredibly enthusiastic dance moves from the children and their teachers 🙂 

Panto! 

Our annual trip to the panto was a huge success, and what a hit Mr Cole proved to be in his starring role as the dame’s love interest! Well done him for being such a good sport.

Excel Learning Trust Christmas Carols

A big thank you to our eight choristers who joined the Excel Trust choir to sing in St Helen’s Square last weekend. They sounded beautiful, and gathered an enormous audience!

A warm Scarcroft welcome!

In other exciting news, we are wishing a very warm welcome to Miss Grewer, our new EYFS teacher, who will start with us officially in January. She will be working full-time alongside Miss Gilmour and know she’ll make a fantastic addition to the Scarcroft team.  She will be in school over the next two weeks as well, so please do say hello.

Collective Sharehouse Christmas donations

A big thank you to those people who have donated winter woollies and wrapped Christmas gifts to The Collective Sharehouse! Please keep the donations coming if you are able. They really will be very much appreciated. 

Healthy snacks! 

Please ensure that if you are sending your child to school with a breaktime snack, please can it be a healthy one? For example, fruit or cereal bars. Please do not send bags of crisps or chocolates and sweets. Please also be reminded that we are a nut free school to ensure the safety of all the children in school.

Dates for the diary

As ever, school has been a hive of activity. Take a look below at what the children have been up to! 

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend. 

Jen Mitchell 

Head of School 

Reception – Fishergate:  94.51%

Year 1 – Gillygate:   97.68%

Year 1 – Stonegate:   96.58%

Year 2 – Castlegate:   98.27%

Year 2 – Micklegate:  97.16%

Year 3 – Coppergate:   95.14%

Year 3 – Whip ma whop ma gate:   96.04%

Year 4 – Swinegate:   97.01%

Year 4 – Walmgate:   97.77%

Year 5 – Colliergate:   97.46%

Year 5 – Skeldergate:   96.39%

Year 6 – Fossgate:   97.17%

Year 6 – Goodramgate:   96.37%

In Geography we have been learning about maps. This week we learnt about story sticks and how indigenous  people used these sticks to remember where they have been . We went on a walk around the school area and collected natural objects to make our own story sticks. 

This week in EYFS we made our own melted snowmen biscuits. When they had dried we ate them and we all agreed they were delicious 

Christmas has arrived in Early Years. We have helped to decorate our classroom and have had such fun working in the grotto outside. The children have wrapped presents at the wrapping station, decorated stockings and delivered presents to their friends. 

Recognition awards

EYFS Fishergate

Chamberlain  – For working hard and putting in 100% effort in all areas of learning. He has made lots of new friends and includes others in his play. 

Amelia- She has worked so hard in phonics and is now writing in the areas independently. Amelia has really come out of her shell and she is a real star. Well done! 

In Art, we have been inspired by Zaria Forman’s work, and used lines to create our own sea pictures. Then, we looked at how Kandinsky used shapes in his work and created our own overlapping shape pictures.

In RE we have been creating collaborative patterns inspired by Islamic art, to better understand how people with different religious views express their beliefs.

Recognition awards

1 Stonegate

Vinnie – For working hard, especially in writing, and carrying his perseverance for learning beyond the classroom.

Esme – For fantastic reading and putting in an amazing amount of expression.

Audrey – For always trying her best and working really hard in reading when sounding out and blending words.

Kindness trophy – Saibh – For always thinking of others and how they might be feeling, and being proactively helpful when she sees something that needs doing.

1 Gillygate

Ellie – For her hard work and positive attitude towards her learning in all areas.

Nia – For being an excellent role model and always persevering, even with things she finds tricky.

Catherine – For her dedication to reading and writing, and consistently putting in extra effort.

Children who have been learning to play the piano did their first performance to the rest of the class. They have made such amazing progress and were excellent performers. We can’t wait to hear more from them in the future.

“Who has been eating MY porridge?” In Writing, Year 2 have been reading different versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bear and are going to discover there are two sides to every story.

Recognition in Y2 Castlegate:

Isaac T – for being so thoughtful towards other pupils in our class.

Tommy – for his increasing independence and his attitude to learning

Maia Cook – for her perseverance and determination in her writing and letter formation.

Poppy J – Effort trophy

Saul – Kindness Trophy

Recognition in Y2 Micklegate:

Elsie Harrison: for fabulous effort across curriculum but especially in Writing and Maths

Hugo Gale: for a fantastic improvement in his writing effort and achievement

Oscar Hill: for having such a wonderful attitude towards his learning and always working hard to improve.

DT

Our children have been hard at work designing and creating a mouthwatering seasonal tart.  We have learned where different foods come from and why eating foods in season is better for our environment.

Pedestrian Training

On the 25th November, we attended pedestrian training.  We learned about rules for crossing, how to identify safe crossing points and what to do if something unexpected happens while crossing the road.  Even the adults learned a thing or two!

Recognition awards:

Coppergate

Fergal – For his amazing curiosity and focus in all lessons.

Bea – For her hardwork in writing, with some wonderfully bossy instructions and excellent speech punctuation.

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate

Senudi- For being an amazing human being and always showing a positive attitude towards her learning. 

Vinny- For being 100% Vinny! Showing incredible effort across the whole curriculum, even in areas that he is less confident in. 

Achievement trophy– Layla

Recognition Award: 

Walmgate Recognitions: 

Lucy – for working hard all day every day with a big smile on her face. 

Matteo – for his outstanding effort with all of his learning. 

Effort Trophy: 

Flynn – for his consistently high effort in his work. 

SWINEGATE

Mabel – Brilliant questioning skills and not being afraid to ask questions

Leuan – super focus in all lessons

Zak – great quality writing

Achievement Trophy 

Lucas – for making so much progress reading and writing in English this term

Year 4 are making great strides forward with their times tables.

Thank you for doing our food surveys. In our geography lesson, we turned this into bar charts and reflected on our food choices and how they impact the environment. 

A bit of snow always brings some fun!  

We loved having Mrs Brown in to show us lots of different animal skulls. They supported our learning in lots of our Science this term!

Recognition Awards:

Y5 Skeldergate

• Erin Campbell – Fantastic role model working really hard. Super attitude to up levelling her work. Amazing sign language teacher. 
• Melissa Turunc – Fabulous Mathematician – working so hard at school and at home. Well done – Melissa should be very proud of herself.  
• Een Timur – Fantastic role model to the class. Always ready to learn. Eren listens carefully and acts on any advice. This is a well deserved award

Y5 Colliergate

• Devon Wild
• Ellie Roberts

Trophies

Achievement  – Kyla Norman – Kyla works so hard in every lesson and she is achieving super results in maths and writing

Fieldwork in Geography. 

We enjoyed going on green and questioning members of the public about our local area. We used an Ordnance Survey map to plan out a route from school. We then followed the maps.

Fieldwork in Geography. 

We enjoyed going on green and questioning members of the public about our local area. We used an Ordnance Survey map to plan out a route from school. We then followed the maps.

Science

We have been continuing our investigation into light.  We had a set of challenges to create different shadows including colour ones.  Then we collected some data on the correlation between the size of a shadow and the distance from the surface it was cast upon.

Writing

We have written some beautiful biographies of the french film-maker Georges Méliès, who inspired our book, the Invention of Hugo Cabret. Since then, we have started looking at a picture book, the Promise, to inspire poems and stories.

Computing

In computing, we have discussed the benefits and potential pitfalls of AI use in schools and in jobs. We ended the work with a class debate, properly structured, in which the children thought of arguments, both for and against using AI in schools, that we hadn’t considered!

Recognition

Sima Farhad

Sima has been so kind to one of our new starters.  They both speak Kurdish Sorani so Sima has helped Mr and Mrs Roper so much.  Thank you Sima.

Olivia Saunders

Whenever someone needs something doing, Olivia always volunteers.  She has shown prospective parents around the school, helped younger children at lunch and she is a peer reader for Year 3.  Olivia is so helpful, we don’t know what we would do without her.

Max Pinder

Max has been so switched on in lessons recently – full of not long ideas but also questions. He always asks if he is unsure so learns loads and loads. Keep it up!

Shirley John

Shirley is an absolute star: kind, helpful, hard-working and easy-going. Her work always shows exactly the ideas and skills we have been learning. She is also an excellent friend and partner in class, working well with anyone and everyone.

Trophies

Iris Green – Achievement

Having found the zip wire a little too high at Peat Rigg, Iris went even higher and abseiled down the bridge.  She enjoyed it so much in the end, she wanted to do it again.  What an amazing achievement.

Kitana Aitchison – Kindness

Kitana is, quietly, one of the kindest students going. She always has supportive words for her friends and for partners in class and she is endlessly positive.

Clara Pierce-Hirst – Effort

Clara puts in 100% effort in literally every task. She is the first to listen and focus and always knows exactly what to do. Her work is full of ideas we have been learning in class.