Information for Parents beginning of term Sept 2023
See below for a snippet of our wonderful Year 6 children who will be leaving us this year. They have had such an incredible journey at Nightingale and we wish them the best of luck in their future endeavours. You will be missed Year 6!
On Monday, Co-op Academy Nightingale, along with Co-op Academy Brownhill and Co-op Academy Woodlands played in the inaugural Rhys Myers Memorial Football Tournament in memory of a much-loved and inspirational teacher here at Nightingale. The day was enjoyed by all in the best spirit while also providing an opportunity for staff and children alike to reflect and think about was in which they could use values which Mr. Myers held dear in their own lives.
We were lucky to welcome some of Mr. Myers family to school to take part in the day. His wife Shaheen, his Mum and Dad as well as brother attended, they spoke to the children before the kick-off about the importance of participation, enjoyment and succeeding together in the right spirit. All classes were invited out to support, they came with banners, posters and songs to provide encouragement to all children involved.
After school the staff joined in and a group of Year 6 faced of with them in a students vs teacher match that was great fun!
The tournament will be held annually going forwards to remember Mr Myers and join in a celebration of things that he loved.
Nightingale pupils warmly welcomed a visitor from The Peace Museum based in Bradford.
All year groups engaged in a range of thought provoking workshops throughout the day including considering the feelings of children who experienced WWII Kinder Transport to working cooperatively to understand how voting works.
Other aspects of peace were explored creatively through learning about and designing symbols, creating peace poles , poetry and practicing techniques to help us remain calm inside when we feel challenged. A very positively peaceful day was had by all !
Last half term some of the children in Year 2 enjoyed attending Forest School sessions. They did activities such as pond dipping, bug hunting, tree climbing, den building and campfire making. Over the weeks they have developed their teamworking skills through games, map reading and treasure hunts as well as their resilience to complete tasks and take personal challenges. It is safe to say that the campfires and marshmallows were a firm favourite amongst the group!
National Online Safety is a multi-award winning company. They make it their mission to make the internet a safer place for children. Partnering with them will help us develop e-safety across our whole school.
Click here to create your account
Today is our ‘Wake up Wednesday’. Every Wednesday we’ll share new information related to staying safe online.
This week’s topic focuses on ‘What parents and carers need to know about Discord’. Discord is a free app which allows users to communicate in real time via text, video or voice chat.
“…it’s also a place where young people can be exposed to risks if the right precautions aren’t taken”
– National Online Safety
If you’ve got any questions about National Online Safety, get in touch and ask to see Mr Pearce.
From the House of Commons to our Community Room!.
Nightingale’s now famous Eco-Club hosted a prestigious event this past Friday. Mrs. Tariket & Mrs. Bellis have worked tirelessly to provide wonderful enrichment opportunities for our children and show them the real difference they can make in our community and in their local area in general.
On Friday Eco-Club welcomed some politicians into school to answer some rather ferocious lines of questioning from our Year 6’s around environmental issues and how we can encourage those on power to do more to promote them.
Richard Burgon, who is a member of the Labour Party and the Member of parliament for Leeds East was in attendance as was Shahab Idris, a representative of the Green Party and Councillor Katie Dye, Chair of the Leeds City Council Climate Committee. Our very own headteacher, Mr Pearce was also on the panel to give an Educator’s perspective of environmental issues.
Many of our Year 6’s chose to stay after school to be part of the audience for the Question Time event that I have no doubt was just as demanding as Prime Minister’s questions each week.
The Panel Question Time was rounded off with Eco-club leading a tour of school to share the amazing work they have done with our Eco Garden, showing off the various projects from across this year.
At Nightingale today, all of our children engaged in a day to learn about racism, what that means and the impact of racism on everyone around us, as well as what we can do to carry the message of ‘make life kind’ Loti Nambombe joined us for the day, he hosted children and parents in an assembly before touring various classes to conduct workshops around the theme of anti-racism. He was supported by two of our Year 6 pupils Kaehaan and Amina who provided guidance, a school Tour and hope all of our children to engage in these workshops.
We hope today carried a lasting message for all of our children in joining Loti’s message of ‘Make Life Kind’ with our Co-op Value of ‘Show You Care’ and our children act upon their learning today to make everyone that little bit happier.
In year 3 we have been doing lots of art work this term. We began researching about an artist called Edgar Degas who uses charcoal to create drawings. We have been exploring different ways to use charcoal including using different pressure, smudging and using the edge of a charcoal pencil. This week we used the knowledge that we have gained to dance in charcoal. This was very exciting for the children in year 3. We wanted it to feel like a performance so children put their chairs in a circle around the paper and we changed the background music to see if this made a difference to the children’s mood when creating their piece of artwork. It was a super messy but very fun afternoon enjoyed by all!
On Tuesday we had an incredible time as Nightingale held their inaugural careers fair, we invited upwards of 20 volunteers from all sort of professions from journalists to nurses, financial advisors to scientists. The children were fantastic at asking questions inspired by the employment skills they are learning through our Skills Builder Careers Sessions. The volunteers were so excited many have already asked to come back next year and even pop into some classrooms to talk some more to our children about the careers and aspirations.
Year 3 and 4 children were lucky enough to meet Andy Craven-Griffiths, a poet who has performed on live stages and has had his work broadcasted and printed, for a performance workshop with children from other local schools. They spent the day creating their own poem with similes, alliteration and rhyming words.
The children began the day choosing an animal in groups that they were familiar with. The children then wrote down as many things they knew about their animal, some of our children discussed that fish cannot blink as they do not have eyelids. They then were instructed to pretend they were their animal and think of a reason why they would like to be the animal, for example: fish cannot blink so they would be able to win in a staring competition.
Next the children had to create some rhyming words for their poem, it wasn’t important that the poem would rhyme as long as it had clear stanzas. Many of our children came up with some incredible rhyming and half rhyme words.
Then the children created a chorus for their poem which was repeated at the beginning and end of their poem. Children were instructed that this didn’t need to rhyme and didn’t have to have similes but it must describe their animal.
Finally, the children had a chance to perform their poems to the group. They spent lots of time practicing their delivery of the poem and decided who would say parts and when they children would all perform together.
