Ripon Cathedral School Update

Week ending Friday 4th November 2022

Community Special!

Community Day in Early Years and Year 1

What a great day we had in Early Years and Year 1, beginning with a very exciting visit from Ripon Fire Service. The children very much enjoyed a talk from Mr Webster about his job keeping the community safe as a firefighter, and the children asked some interesting questions. We were then treated to a tour of the fire engine and were allowed to sit inside. How exciting!

Reception learn about being part of a community

After our fire fighter visit, we discussed what it means to be a part of a community and learnt that we all belong to many different communities, including our very special school family. Having taken on the role of interviewers, the children worked in groups to find out about the jobs of people in our school community and why they enjoy their role. They asked our super admin staff Mrs Rich and Mrs Bingham about what they do and how they help our school community.

We all agreed that we are very fortunate to be a part of this community!

Great questions, Nursery!

The children asked the Fire Fighters some really important questions such as, "How many hoses are there on the fire engine?" and, "How far would the longest one reach?" The Fire Fighters told us that the longest hose was 50 meters long, so, as a challenge, we used a meter ruler to see what 50m looks like. What a great visit, how lucky we were!

Community Cohesion in Year 1

We read a story about a chameleon who longed to have his own colour. He was very unhappy always changing colours until he met other chameleons who were the same. They decided to stick together as a community. The children then created community chameleons and wrote times when they felt our school community was strongest such as lunch times and worship! We also looked at ways we could care for the environment, animals and other living things in different ways.

Year 2 Learn about serving the community with Helen Mackenzie

Year 2 had a visit from Helen Mackenzie. She talked about the ways she has served our local community. Because of how much she does for our community, she was nominated to carry the Olympic Torch back in 2012. Year 2 all had a chance to hold the torch and get a picture! We found out that the 8000 holes in the torch represented the 8000 torch bearers for that year.

Helen runs a charity called ‘Back to Basics’ which helps some families in need in Ripon to cook healthy meals using donations of all sorts of food from anonymous donors and local shops. Helen prepares a recipe so that the families can cook a meal based on the week's food donations. Year 2 spent the morning inventing five different recipes for families to make over the next 5 weeks as well as creating their very own healthy eating plates.

In the afternoon we made an informative leaflet all about communities, what we can do for our community, fairness, the differences between equality and equity, and how we are similar and different to other people.

Year 3 Learn about the work of a scientist and Bollywood Dance

In Year 3, the children welcomed Shamila Griffiths who is a scientist and works in a laboratory testing medicines. She told us about how she got her job and what she does on a daily basis. She told us how in her company there were many women in the top jobs and how the organisation challenged the stereotype of women working in STEM. We followed this by learning about Katherine Johnson, the famous trailblazing NASA scientist.

We also looked at human rights and how we have a right to education and a responsibility to learn, finally the children shared their aspirations for the future and what they would like to do as a career and what they need to do to achieve this.

Year 3 also thoroughly enjoyed learning Indian dance from Sarita McDermott. Sarita works with groups in the community to enjoy the traditional dancing.

Year 4 enjoy a visit from Doctor Jones

Year 4 learn about belonging

This week, Year 4 learnt about 'Belonging' and how we can all make people feel happy and accepted in different groups. We asked the children which groups they were part of and how their groups were different or linked to other groups. They also looked at the shared responsibilities within groups they belonged to and how rules and responsibilities are different for different people and in different places. We focussed on our school rules and discussed how and why everyone should follow our 'Be safe', 'Be respectful' and 'Be responsible' rules. Children discussed what consequences are and whether it is really worth breaking rules. However, I think the highlight of our community day was meeting Dr Jones who spoke about her role within the community. Children had prepared some fabulous questions and thoroughly enjoyed hearing all the answers. Afterwards, the class were given the chance to listen to hearts, lungs and tummies as well as looking at how a doctor checks inside eyes and ears. They had a great time! Thank you, Dr Jones.

Year 5 learn how actions can impact on the global community

As part of our Community Day, we looked at how our actions have an impact on the global community and the planet. We watched Sir David Attenborough talk about his life’s work. We saw a video of him, in the 1950’s, when he first encountered an orangutan. We were heartbroken to see the destruction of the rainforest in Borneo: a orangutan clinging to a solitary tree. We have written to him to commend him on his work and pledged to not buy products with palm oil in to play our part.

Year 6 explore stereotypes

Year 6 explored different stereotypes for a variety of groups including men, women, children and teenagers. We discussed why stereotypes can be damaging and cause harm and considered moments when we have been stereotyped. We looked at how stereotypes can play a part in prejudice and discrimination using role play to help us identify different types of discrimination. Rightly so, we felt that it was important to intervene when we saw discrimination and discussed how we can challenge it safely. In the afternoon we looked at how we can keep our money safe from scams or fraud. We researched the different agencies we can seek help from if we were a victim of fraud and how we can identify a scam to prevent ourselves becoming victims.

Stay and Play in Reception

It was lovely during our community week to be able to invite parents of the Reception children into the classroom for our first Stay and Play session. Our focus for this week's session was writing development in the Early Years and how parents can help with this at home. The children were delighted to be able to share their classroom and learning, especially their writing, with the mums, dads and grandparents that were able to join us. We hope the session was useful and enjoyed as much by our visitors as it was by the children. We are already looking forward to our next Stay and Play session!

Exploring threads for creation

It was lovely for Year 6 pupils to go out to the Cathedral to see a special art exhibition in our community. 'Threads through Creation” is a spectacular display of twelve huge panels of textile art. It is here at Ripon as part of a three year tour of twenty cathedrals. The sequence of panels follows the description at the start of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. It tells the story of God creating the world and the universe.

In addition to the panels members of the Ripon community, including work from Cathedral School has been displayed about protecting God's world.

if you get chance do go along to have a look in the Cathedral. The free display is on until 20th November 2022.

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A wonderful worship by Year 2

Year 2 presented a wonderful worship this week all about hope and protecting our planet. They talked about recycling, how we can save electricity and to think carefully about how we use our cars. A super effort. Well done Year 2.

Invitation to Worship

Parents and carers are more than welcome to join the school for our class led worships this term which take place at 9am on Wednesday mornings. After dropping off children parents and carers should come around to the main entrance to access the school hall.

Dates for Class Worship Autumn 2022

Wednesday 9th November - Year 6

Wednesday 16th November - Year 1

Wednesday 30th November - Year 5

Stars of the Week

Every Friday we share who is star of the week in each class in our Celebration Worship

Nursery

Robin for always being so helpful, kind and a lovely friend to others.

Reception

Ruby for her fantastic enthusiasm for all aspects of her learning but especially her writing. What a star!

Year 1

Florence for trying so hard with her phonics and during independent learning time.

Year 2

Rosie for an outstanding effort in our Year 2 worship and for contributing during Community Day. Well done!

Year 3

Josh for making a huge effort with his writing, staying focused and producing an interesting description.

Year 4

Ramsay for having a fantastic attitude to his learning, especially in maths. Well done Ramsay!

Year 5

Freddie for improved concentration in class; focus in discussions and being considerate for everyone.

Year 6

Ella for always having a fantastic attitude towards her learning, participating well and trying her best to produce work of an excellent standard.

School Update

Welcome back to the second half of the autumn term.

This week it has been lovely to think about our community and what it means to be a part of a community. Many thanks to people who have come into school to share information about roles within the community.

Covid Update

I am sure you are aware that cases of COVID have been on the increase. Please can we remind you of the current NHS guidance.

What to do if you have coronavirus (COVID-19) or symptoms of COVID-19 (eg temptation/cold symptoms)

Try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people if you:

have any symptoms of COVID-19, and have a high temperature or you do not feel well enough to do your normal activities.
have tested positive for COVID-19 – this means it's very likely you have the virus.

What to do if you've tested positive for COVID-19

If you have COVID-19, you can pass on the virus to other people for up to 10 days from when your infection starts. Many people will no longer be infectious to others after 5 days.

You should:

try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days.
If a child or young person aged 18 or under tests positive for COVID-19, they should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 3 days.

This starts from the day after they did the test.

Children and young people tend to be infectious to others for less time than adults. If they’re well and do not have a temperature after 3 days, there’s a much lower risk that they’ll pass on COVID-19 to others.

Please note that many children and adults do not test positive straight away on an LFD test when symptoms start. It can take 2-3 days before a test will pick up the virus.

Many thanks for your ongoing support.

Mr Holmes