Our boys’ football team played their 3rd KMC Sports league game of the season today against local friends/rivals Faith Primary School. The boys had won both their first 2 games and knew that a win would put them in a strong league position, but they also knew that teams from Faith are always loaded with talent.

The match began with a bang; the boys were passing the ball in midfield very well with captain Dan Smith linking brilliantly with Jack Traynor and Gradi Nkongolo. The breakthrough goal came after 10 minutes when Gradi broke free in the box and attempted a Wijnaldum-esque chip! The ball soared over the keeper, looked headed for the top corner… when striker Luke Buckley slammed it in to the top corner from extreme close range to make sure of the goal! VAR was consulted (in the form of Mr. Cotton) and the goal was given as Luke’s!

Faith equalised soon after with a one-on-one finish but OLI didn’t get down-hearted. What followed was a goal of the season contender. Jack, Gradi and league debutante Lucas Parkinson linked up with stunning passing before Jack slotted in a goal with his weaker foot to send the fans into raptures! OLI used this momentum to score a 3rd when Lucas rifled a shot into the roof of the net from the edge of the area. Lucas became the first year 4 child to score a goal in a league match this year! The half ended 3-1. In spite of keeper Ayman falling over the ball as he attempted to clear it, spirits were high!

Faith began the second half with renewed energy and scored very early into it. At 3-2, the match was on a knife-edge when Gradi produced a moment of magic. He turned a defender and curled his effort into the top corner from 25 yards out! A crucial goal against his old school!

At 4-2, the game became even more tense at Faith scored again! At 4-3, Dan, Lennon, Jonny and JP showed why their defensive skills make them keystones of the team. Tackling was excellent, with Oscar Kwasny sliding in repeatedly to save keeper Ayman from difficult situations. With one last attacking run from regular striker Tom Farrell, the final whistle blew and OLI ran out very tight winners. Big thanks to KMC sports for the organisation as well as to Faith for producing a great game.

MOTM: Oscar Kwasny – Excellent tackling and passing, showing a huge improvement over the last 12 months.

Safer Internet Day is celebrated globally in February each year to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology for children and young people and inspire a national conversation.

Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre the celebration sees hundreds of organisations get involved to help promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.

Globally, Safer Internet Day is celebrated in over a hundred countries, coordinated by the joint Insafe/INHOPE network, with the support of the European Commission, and national Safer Internet Centres across Europe.

The day offers the opportunity to highlight positive uses of technology and to explore the role we all play in helping to create a better and safer online community. It calls upon young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers, and wider, to join together in helping to create a better internet. Get involved to play your part!

We launched our own Poster competition based on respect and consent. Look out for future posts to visit the winning entries.

The Eco council have been busy looking after our school plants and keeping our school grounds tidy!

Today our girls football team played their third league match of the season against Our Lady’s Bishop Eton. The girls had won their first 2 games and were very excited to be playing. The match took place at Heron Eccles, the first match we’ve played on the new astroturf pitches there!

We could tell from the beginning that the game would be tough, OLBE were a very strong team with an exceptional number 7 who scored a long range effort very early on. The girls put up a brave defense but weren’t having many shots themselves. A penalty from Shelby was saved onto the post and the half ended 2-0!

OLBE’s number 7 continued to dictate the match, but that helped our keeper Paige to shine. She pulled off some stunning saves and even continued to play through injury. Another highlight of the game was the bravery in tackling shown especially by Mayar and Maria. Aaliyah hit the post in the second half and Sophie had an excellent long-range effort, but OLBE maintained their clean sheet. Their winger added a 3rd and 4th goal before assisting a 5th late on. The game ended 0-5.

The girls rallied together in defeat and didn’t sulk, looking forward instead to their cup game in 3 weeks time. Congratulations to OLBE for an excellent display and again thanks to KMC sports for arranging.

POTM: Paige Taylor. Bravery, commitment and playing in spite of fogetting her football boots!

Check out the Curriculum Page – Geography – Examples of our work for photos and more details.

BARCLAYCARD are working with, ‘It’s Your Child’s Life’ to provide these free workshops for parents who feel they may benefit. Free tea, coffee and biscuits on arrival at Barclaycard, Norwich Way, Kirkby L32 8UG. Refreshments served from 9am. Sign up today! Text or Phone Sharon Dennis  on 07900736618 today to get your place.

Thurs 5th July  9.30 – 11.30am         Floor 4 meeting room        10 Places
Self-confidence	Overcoming challenges 30 mins •       To help understand that we grow by overcoming challenges, that fear is normal and something everyone experiences and to realise that by treating challenges as opportunities, we can find reasons to overcome our fears Thinking confidently 30–45 mins •       Explore how you think about past events and how this shapes how you feel about themselves and how you respond to events in the future. To identify helpful ways to explain past events that will help you be more confident in yourselves and more optimistic about the future
Fri 6th July  9.30 – 11.30am           Floor 2 meeting room          10 Places
CV Skills	Applications that work – 45 mins •       By the end of this session you will be able to review a CV, including their own, and identify areas for improvement. You will also be able to identify key words in a job advertisement, and consider how to tailor a CV in response to a specific job advertisement CV surgery – 45-60 mins •       If you have a CV already we can give you advice on how to improve it •       We can also look at how you go about writing a strong covering letter to support an application

 

Monday 16th July  9.30 – 11.30am    Floor 2 meeting room     10 Places
Finding Employment	How can you find opportunities? 60 mins •       To prompt discussion and exploration of the different ways to find employment and identify that many opportunities may not be advertised •       To explore the skill of networking as a way to find out about ‘hidden’ jobs through the people you know CV surgery 45 mins •       If you have a CV already we can give you advice on how to improve it •       We can also take the opportunity to work with you on your personal statement
Thursday 19th July 9.30 – 11.30am     Floor 4 meeting room     10 Places
Turning your passion into a business	Turning your passion into a business 60 mins •       To help you understand the difference between enterprise and entrepreneurship •       To help you understand that they can use enterprise skills to turn something they love doing into a business •       To introduce the idea of different business structures and types

Recently we have noticed an increasing number of young people talking about the game ‘Fortnite’. In this message we are trying to give guidance to parents about Fortnite, looking at what the game is and some of the things to be aware of.

What is Fortnite?

Fortnight is an online game, which includes Battle Royale, where players do not have to pay to play. In Battle Royale, 100 players compete against each other to be the last person standing in player vs player (PVP) combat.

Users play against people of different ages from across the world, and can talk and interact with each other as they play through the in-game chat feature.

What age rating is Fortnite?

Fortnite has a PEGI rating of 12, PEGI have said this is due to the: ‘frequent scenes of mild violence. It is not suitable for persons under 12 years of age’.

This PEGI rating only takes into account the content in the game and not the contact element, where players may be exposed to swearing and offensive language from strangers, either through audio or on-screen text chat.

What do I need to know?

You need to create an account

In order to play Fortnite you have to create an account. To create this account you need to provide an email address (which you will have to verify) and display/user name. However you are not asked your age in order to create an account.

You are playing against other players

As Fortnite is an online game you willplay against players of different ages from across the world. You cannot turn the in game chats off or choose who you play against.

You can make in game purchases

Although Battle Royale is free to play, other aspects of the game are not. There are packs which give you different access to the full game and extensions, bonuses and weapons. These start at £34.99 and go up to £119.99. The game does ask players to make additional in-game purchases whilst playing, though these are not required to play the game.

There is animated violence

Fortnite does feature violence when players are in combat with each other, the animation of the game is very cartoonish, and the violence isn’t bloody or gory. However, it is worth noting that the aim of Fortnite is to defeat other players by fighting against them.

Where you can play

Fortnite is currently available on PC, Mac, PlayStation and XBox , and will soon be available on IOS (apple products). It is downloadable from the Fortnite website, this download gives access to both the free and paid for versions of the game.

 

Online safety: YouTube restricted mode

The UK Safer Internet Centre has blogged a parent’s guide to YouTube restricted mode. It covers what restricted mode is, how it works, and how it can be implemented. Advice includes: giving children strategies to deal with unwanted content; exploring further settings, such as disabling the autoplay feature to ensure no unwanted videos automatically start playing; and enabling filtering systems.

Source: UK Safer Internet Centre  Date: 10 May 2018

The NSPCC’s annual conference takes place on 20-21 June 2018 in London. The conference will feature talks from sector leaders, and explore the latest research and insight on keeping children safe in the digital age. The conference will also see the launch of the NSPCC’s How safe are our children? 2018 report, a comprehensive overview of the latest child protection data from the UK.

Source: NSPCC conference: How safe are our children? Growing up online

Today I had the pleasure of visiting Anfield Community Bakery. Homebaked is a community land trust and co-operative bakery situated on the boundary between the neighbourhoods of Everton and Anfield, just opposite the Liverpool Football Club. The project is co-owned and co-produced by people who live and work in our area. Starting from having saved our iconic neighbourhood bakery from demolition and developed it into a thriving community-run business with a beautiful apartment above we are proposing to regenerate our high street ‘brick by brick and loaf by loaf’, using money that is spent in the neighbourhood to benefit our communities. We talker about how we could become partners in learning and have many exciting ideas of how we can support each other in the community! So keep reading and look out for some engaging projects coming up soon! 

Today we were joined by teaching students from Hope University. They came to show our KS1 children some engaging phonics lessons and all the children were actively involved in their learning. We had Phonics Jenga, Phonics Fishing, Phonics Washing Line game, and Phonics fly swat game! All the children enjoyed the students visit and were keen to show the students how great they are at phonics.

The NSPCC will be visiting our school to talk to parents about online safety. If you have any concerns or would like to know more about how we can protect our children in relation to online safety please come along to the short session organised by the NSPCC & O2.

The session will take place in the media suite on the Tuesday 6.3.18 at 9:00am. 

Everyone is welcome!

 

Friday saw our second session of Building A Bridge to Books. We looked at making our first book and the children became authors and decorated their books themselves. Their parents helped teach the children lots of early reading behaviours and it was so lovely to watch the children engaging their parents in a love of reading. Next week we are making a cookery book with our favourite recipes in!   

During our Friday Celebration Assembly the Internet Safety Poster winners were announced. The judging was really difficult as the quality was so high and we even awarded highly commended prizes to the runners up. The winners were judged on their effectiveness as information posters and judged on how much they stood out and advertised the theme of Internet Safety. Look out for the photos of the winners coming soon.

Our children have enjoyed arranging and taking part in our pretend wedding. For more details and lots of pictures of the happy couple and wedding guests see EYFS Key Stage page.

All the children are really engaging in the variety of learning activities to help us all stay safe on line. KS1 have been watching “Meet the Malwares” and creating their safety posters whilst Year 6 are watching “The best and worst of life online”. https://www.bbc.com/ownit/its-personal/mean-comments-film

The following leaflet will be available in Reception from Thursday onwards. Please feel free to take one.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/share-aware/share-aware-schools-resources-form/

Tuesday 6th Feb is Internet Safety Day. The children will be completing a poster to be displayed around the school. The prizes are great so children: don’t forget to enter!

 

We will be launching our annual poster competition supporting Internet Safety Day on Tuesday February 6th 2018. The prizes will be just as good as always and the winning poster will be made into a school poster and displayed around the school. Good Luck!

Mrs Bowcock

The BBC has launched Own It, a website for 9 to 12 year olds to help them maximise opportunities in the digital world as well as helping them to develop the confidence and resilience to tackle the everyday challenges they face online. The site includes quick links to charities and organisations including Childline to provide urgent support should children need it.

Source: BBC press release  Date: 06 December 2017

Further information: BBC website: Own It