Newsletter – 7 March 2025

Dear parents and carers, 

What a fantastic couple of weeks we have had in school! Both girls’ and boys’ football clubs have competed at other schools; we are incredibly proud of their positive and determined attitudes.

World book day was also a hit! children took part in a range of activities and were able to enjoy reading texts of their choosing with their peers.

Year 5 enjoyed their visit to Sheffield where they took part in the Young Voices concert, putting their hard work and rehearsals into action; again, they represented Scarcroft excellently.

Next week, our Year 6s go to Barcelona! Both the staff and the children can’t wait to see what they get up to.

Dates for the diary

Hope you all have a lovely weekend

Best wishes

Matt Oxley

Vice Principal 

Reception – Fishergate:  90.91%

Reception – Petergate: 91.94%

Year 1 – Gillygate: 96.2%

Year 1 – Stonegate: 98.15%

Year 2 – Castlegate: 95.58%

Year 2 – Micklegate: 99.23%

Year 3 – Coppergate: 95.98%

Year 3 – Whip ma whop ma gate: 95%

Year 4 – Swinegate: 98.51%

Year 4 – Walmgate: 98.38%

Year 5 – Colliergate: 98.87%

Year 5 – Skeldergate: 96.77%

Year 6 – Fossgate:   99.29%

Year 6 – Goodramgate:   99.48%

Just before half term the children enjoyed making love potions for Valentines day. They worked together to break up the flowers, add food colouring and began to create their own potions. 

The children made some beautiful cards for Valentines day. They created their own strawberry using their hands and red paint. They then added in their own message inside the card, wowing us with their brilliant phonics knowledge and writing skills.

 The children have been loving the slightly warmer weather and have had a go at the obstacle course. They did a great job of following the signs on the ground, including jumping, stretching and balancing.

World book day was this week, we all came in Pjs and brought our favourite teddies. We also went on a teddy bears picnic and enjoyed a yummy snack and a run around. The weather was perfect for this!

Recognition awards

Fishergate

Levon – For always being such a bubbly character in our class. For bringing the most positive energy everyday and always putting in 100% effort into all his lessons. Levon is also super independent and does super well exploring all our areas of provision. 

Holly – For her fabulous dancing in PE. Holly made sure she listened super well to the dance instructor and took her time to learn the moves. This worked very well as Holly remembered the whole routine and wowed the teachers when she performed. 

Petergate

Achievement Award: Mariana – For showing such a massive improvement in so many areas including her learning, writing, reading and her overall behaviour and attitude towards school. Mariana had to learn a whole new language as well as everything else and she has done amazing.  

Ege – For always being such a positive person everyday, coming into school with a big smile. Ege is also such a hard worker and tries his absolute best in every lesson. Ege is a perfect role model for the other children. 

Thiya – For always being a super hard worker and showing the other children in the class how we follow the school routines and be Green! Thiya is such a lovely friend in our class and shows others how to be kind, polite and patient.

Our new DT topic is Puppets. Last week we investigated different ways to join materials. We tried safety pins, stapling and using glue. Then, we evaluated these techniques to say which were more fit for purpose.

Our final art lesson in our ‘Colour splash’ topic was to create a plate inspired by the artist Clarice Cliff. We carefully mixed our own colours and then had to blow the black paint with a straw to make our own tree shapes. Don’t they look effective?

Recognition Awards

Stonegate

Jesse – Fantastic maths work and giving reasons for his answers.

Sam –  For going above and beyond with his learning, always completing extra tasks on top of what is expected of him.

Effort trophy: Nell – Taking time and care with her work and setting such a good example to others.

Greyson – Answering questions and giving thoughtful answers.

Gillygate

Emmy – For his absolute enthusiasm towards his learning and such a positive attitude all the time.

Max – Such a positive attitude towards school and going the extra mile, at home as well.

Kindness trophy: Toby – For always thinking of others and being incredibly helpful and polite.

Sara – For working diligently and producing beautifully presented work all the time.

Arthur – Amazing general knowledge and using it to answer questions and share his ideas with others.

Year 2 have been exploring the properties of materials in our science lessons. Today we have been testing and measuring how stretchy different materials are.

We have followed our design plans in art to create our clay houses. We used clay tools to carve patterns and we used slip to join pieces of clay together.

We have been reading Tadpole’s Promise and we have written our own stories in the style of this author.

We had a virtual visit with the author Harriet Muncaster. She even showed us how to draw the character Isadora from her Isadora Moon series.

Recognition Awards

Castlegate

Isaac W – for persistence and effort with his handwriting

Seba – for her effort in Writing

Micklegate

Naya – Settling so well into her new school and already working so diligently.

Indie – Working so hard on her joined handwriting and reading comprehension

Quinn – Being such a positive, enthusiastic member of the class and working so hard on his writing.

Science- Exploring shadows 

We have begun a new science project focussing on light and shadows and our knowledge is certainly impressive! We conducted an experiment to answer the scientific question ‘Are shadows the same for all materials?’ and found out that shadows differ based on the properties of opaque, translucent and transparency.

History 

This week, we began learning about the Roman Empire.  We have learned about key events and people, including Boudica.  We have located Rome on a map and watched how the Empire expanded across Europe and Africa – it made us all gasp at how quickly it happened!  As International Women’s Day is coming up, we also heard the story of Boudica.

Recognition Awards

Coppergate

Rory – For using the models and helps baskets to start his writing promptly and produce a high-quality piece of work..  He has also been aiming for the super challenges in maths.

Lera – For her wonderful design in DT and using the success criterias to create high quality pieces of writing.

Julian – For his excellent work in writing, using the phonics he has learned to create his own sentences

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate

Treasure – For always demonstrating whole body listening and building upon others ideas within class discussions. 

Rosie – For simply being Rosie! An effortless determined attitude towards her learning. 

Samuel– For sharing his growing cheeky personality with us all and also helping Miss B with her French pronunciation. 

Dylan– Being a ninja of the classroom and pushing himself to make his work the best it can possibly be. Also making very responsible choices to help everyone too. 

Kindness trophy: Vincent

Before half term, we had a great time at Tropical World in Leeds finishing off our rainforests topic!

We also completed our rainforests performance which was great fun!

We have started this half term by looking at the viscosity of different liquids in Science.

Recognition Awards

Walmgate

• Johanna – always a fantastic attitude to learning and great enthusiasm 
• Milo – superb, mature behaviour and good choices. 
• George – amazing effort in maths – particularly with his TT Rockstars 

Effort Trophy – Flynn – for superb effort in every single piece of work he does 

Swinegate

• Louis – super behaviour and attention in lessons
• Mally – great writing
• Anmar – great effort across the subjects
• Asya – being amazing everyday
• Ralph – real improvement in listening skills
• Anya – settling into life at Scarcroft and working really hard

Kindness Trophy – Leo

Science

We planned and carried out an investigation into air resistance. We were investigating the question ‘Does the surface area of a parachute affect the rate at which it falls?’. We found that the larger the surface area, the slower the parachute fell. 

Young Voices

On the last day of term, Year 5 sang their hearts out and had a fantastic day at Young Voices in Sheffield arena. We are so proud of their hard work learning their songs and their enthusiasm and immaculate behaviour on the day. 

In PE we have started our new unit on communication and tactics. As you can see from the photos, there were some intense huddles working out tactics for how to win at noughts and crosses! Fantastic teamwork Year 5!

In English we have been writing our own science fiction stories. Here are some extracts…

We agreed to meet by a tree that Liz showed me on a map, by Mayor Runo’s mansion.Then we’d somehow get in. After that, Elizabeth would hack a computer and we’d get out and be done. Little did we know that wasn’t how it was going to go.

On the night of the heist, me and Liz met by the old tree ready for the break in. Elizabeth took out a piece of rope; handed it to me and I flung it over a wall. My heart throbbed in my throat as I clambered up the bright white wall. Liz right behind me. My hands were drenched with sweat as my feet touched solid ground inside the mansion. By Erin 

After weeks of making gadgets, I was ready to clear my father’s name.

I attached my  belt of inventions round my waist, grabbed my spider robot and clambered into the plane. My heart beat like a drum in my throat as I flipped the switches overhead. A hatch opened above as I pulled the oxygen mask over my face. ”Buckle up 5p1d3r it’s time to fly!”.

The hydro-magnetised thrusters, specifically engineered for a vertical takeoff glowed blue as the V-415 shot into the air. Polarity reversed jets shot the jet into hyper-sonic speed. I attached one of my gadgets to the radar, expanding the range by three kilometres and four bombers appeared ahead. I turned the yoke planning to evade the bombers but as they appeared into view, I realised this wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. By Dexter 

Yep,most kids my age wake up to their favourite song but for me, I wake up to sirens blasting at full volume in my ears. As I streched a drained arm to the pleeding ‘clock’ I noticed a lump of  hair on my hyper bed (bed but with hyper sleep tech) and of course it was a fur ball. “BUTT0N5!” I yelled with a glaring expression. By Arthur

Skeldergate 

Recognition Awards

Lucas – Fabulous member of our class. Always ready – very active listener. We all found his enthusiasm and knowledge for our Space lessons super engaging. Well done. 

Stanley – Hardworking and helpful member of our class who has a fabulous attitude. Stanley has tried really hard with his handwriting this year. Well done. 

Tilly – Brilliant member of our class who is always showing our school values. Also a budding astronomer – her enthusiasm was Infectious. 

Achievement Trophy: Dexter – Dexter always puts in 100 +% in his work. He listens and talks about his work in a mature way. This attitude started at the beginning of the year and he has continued to produce pieces of work to a really high standard with quality presentation.  

Colliergate

Maxwell – A super, enthusiastic and engaged member of our class. HUgely impressed me with his ability to dust himself off and go again in cycle training.

Jack – Jack puts in 100% effort to everything he does and always wants to do his best. He also does it all with a cheeky sense of humour which makes me laugh every day.

Arthur – A great member of our class who makes especially brilliant contributions to our discussions during reading and always has incredible ideas for shared and individual writing.

Science

In Science, Year 6 have been trying to wrap their heads around evolution and inheritance, looking at the work of Charles Darwin and of Alfred Russel Wallace. We also modelled how beak shape and size could affect food gathered as a way to try to understand that adaptations increase how likely an animal is to survive and have offspring, spreading that adaptation to future generations. Tricky stuff!

In Art, the children learned how artists make their voices heard.

Science

Mr Cole’s class were visited by Minahil, a researcher from the University of York, who is teaching us about light, based on her use of lasers for her PhD.

Writing

In writing, we have been working on a “flipped” version of the Three Little Pigs where the pigs are taken to court for the crime of bumping off the wolf. The children have been great at trying to show bias and trying to make sure their voice comes across in their written work.

World Book Day

We celebrated World Book Day this week.  We read with children in different classes and then joined a classroom of our own choice to hear some book readings.

PE

The children have been involved in netball matches between themselves.  It has been really impressive to see how well the children have moved and passed the ball.  Here is a picture of one of the matches.

Recognition Awards

Hani – For making a great start to his time at our school.  He has been particularly enthusiastic in PE and has really enjoyed participating.

Alice – For being a star!  Alice is hard-working, friendly and growing in confidence.  She has really shown this is the last few weeks when she has been coaching netball teams and refereeing matches.

Seb – Seb is cool and great to have in class. He always participates in lessons and he brings lots of positive energy to lessons and assemblies!