Velociraptor Blog - Summer Term 2

Date: 18th Jul 2025 @ 11:58am

We have made it!  We have reached the end of a brilliant year!  Thank you everybody for all your hard work – and that means not just the children, who have worked their socks off all year and made fantastic progress, but also all the families supporting them at home and the amazing support staff at school who are truly dedicated to their roles.

All that work on phonics and reading throughout the year has led to our best ever outstanding results in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check!  We have just proved that team work really does make the dream work!  Please keep this up over the summer simply by enjoying your reading together.  Don’t forget the Leeds Libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge.  The children had a member of the Library Service speak to them about this and encourage them to join in.

We eased off a little with the phonics after the screening check and have been enjoying writing.  After building up their confidence with spelling all year, they were very ready to spread their wings and take to independent writing about things of interest.  They have particularly enjoyed the non-fiction writing about animals, firstly related to our Kenya topic, and after that our inspiration came from the 2041 School Champions of Antarctica work in which we focused on penguins.  Over the last few weeks many of the children have been making and writing their own books about penguins and other nature related themes.  It has been absolutely lovely to see their enthusiasm and creativity blossom with their skills.

They have also continued to blossom in their maths skills, and over the last half term we have been exploring larger numbers through counting in 25s and also consolidating calculations’ skills in multiplication and division.  Many children are continually challenging themselves in our “CLIC” sessions, for example extending the pattern of doubling numbers way beyond 100.  Please keep being adventurous in your maths guys!

In geography this half term we started off in Kenya with the well-known story book “Handa’s Surprise”.  Did you know that this book is based on the houses and region of the Luo tribe near Lake Victoria and that ex-US President Barak Obama’s family origins are with this tribe?  The children also learned that there are many different sorts of people, houses, families, towns and cities in Kenya with lots of different cultures.  They learned about the Mombasa carnival and made colourful necklaces and musical instruments for the celebration.

As part of this work on hot and cold places in the world, we then turned south to contrast life on the Equator with that in Antarctica.  I think all of us are now very tempted to experience what the children and adults on the filmed 2041 School expedition to Antarctica did.  Just how amazing would it be to walk with the Gentoo penguins?  Or the much taller Emperor penguins?  Start saving up everyone!

It has been a wonderful, successful year and we all wish you and your families the very best for the summer holiday and hope the children enjoy their next step of their learning adventures. 

Thank you all from Mrs Nolan and the Velociraptor Team!