Today we undertook our sponsored ‘Walk Against Hunger’ walk and had our picnic outside the Solaris centre with a small reflection to think about those we were walking for. Thank you so much for all of your generous donations, together we managed to raise so much money for CAFOD and Brian House. The children behaved really well and made us all incredibly proud, well done Year 5!
Our ducklings …
On Monday morning our 6 duckling eggs arrived in school and we were all very excited. Our first two ducklings hatched on Monday night, two more arrived on Tuesday and then two more hatched on Wednesday. We will enjoy looking after the ducklings till next week when they go to their new home and over the course of the week, we will observe them as part of our Science work. Meet Beatrice, Benedick, Claudio, Don Pedro, Hero and Leonato…
Resilience conference
Well done to the children who took part in the Resilience conference this week. They shared their Shakespeare work with others and held mini workshops. Well done!
World Book Day…
Last week in school they celebrated World Book Day. I was sad I wasn’t there to celebrate with them but so pleased to see just how good they looked. Thank you for all your support in providing the children with great costumes…
Much Ado About Nothing
During our performance at the Theatre, professional photos were taken of their performance. Take a look, the children look great and the photographs capture their fantastic performance beautifully…
Resilient moves…
Thank you to those who have shared their resilient moves this week…
What resilient moves will you make this week? Please email me photos of your resilient moves you make this week to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk I look forward to receiving them.
This week’s resilient moves challenges are:
Be brave (Coping)
Spend time with good people and in good places (Belonging)
Social media warning
Dear Parents,
I feel that I need to bring to your attention some of the issues that we are currently having in Year 5.
In recent weeks, I have been informed of a few issues where children are using inappropriate language/messages on social media towards each other. Although this bullying activity is not happening on the school site, it then affects behaviour, anxiety and subsequently lesson time and the learning of pupils in school.
We cannot regulate the online access that pupils have outside school, but if an issue of cyberbullying is reported to us, then we have a duty of care to inform the parents of the children involved.
There is clear guidance on the appropriate age ranges for certain online apps and I would like to draw your attention to these below.
WhatsApp recently announced a change to their terms and conditions for users based in Europe. Users need to be 16 to use WhatsApp.
Nearly all other social media services require users to be at least 13 years of age to access and use their services. This includes Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Musical.ly and Skype.
Whilst there is no age restriction for watching videos on YouTube, users need to be 13 or older to have their own YouTube account (enabling them to subscribe to other channels, like videos, post comments, share their own content and flag inappropriate content).
The online world is a minefield for children and the situation has changed significantly in the last 10-15 years, as a whole range of unlimited content, both good and bad is a few clicks away. Once something has been posted on social media, it is very hard to get rid of.
I would ask parents therefore, to be vigilant and monitor what children are posting online.
Please also see our new online safety newsletter for further guidance.
Thanks for your support.
Covid
Despite the legal rules on Covid changing, we still ask parents NOT to send their child to school if they suspect they have Covid or have any Covid symptoms. The virus remains highly contagious and we have had a number of Covid cases in Year 5 and throughout school, so PLEASE do a test if you are not sure and keep your child at home. Many thanks.
As I’ve not been in school for most of this week, we’ll leave awards and update on our Bedrock competition next week. Next week concludes our Book club Lenten challenge - if your child has yet to finish their Lenten challenge book please encourage them to finish it this weekend so they are able to join in with our celebrations. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Frost
