Over this academic year, I’m sure your children have enjoyed participating and competing in various sports and small games, as well as learning within their two hours of PE per week. There is now a more of a focus than ever on PE and Sport in all schools, not just to encourage healthy active lifestyles, but also to develop the children’s social and emotional enjoyment, which has been shown to link to success within other areas of the curriculum.

This year, again, primary schools have received funding called Sport Premium, which is ring-fenced and can only be used to specifically develop Physical Education (PE), sport and physical activity in school. After an evaluation, schools have then been awarded a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum award or nothing at all within the Sainsbury’s School Games Quality Mark. The School Games Mark is a Government led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community, and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success.

As part of our application, we were asked to fulfill criteria in the areas of participation, competition, workforce and clubs, and we are pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded again this year.

Following our recent application, Primrose Lane is very proud to announce that we achieved the Gold for the Sainsburys School Games Quality Mark, maintaining our award, which is a fantastic achievement for a small school!

We would like to congratulate all staff and children for their efforts and cooperation within PE and Sport and hope it continues to progress further. Congratulations have also been received from our School Games Organiser Shaun Mulhern.

If you have any questions or suggestions of ways of further developing the PE and Sport here at Primrose Lane, please come and see Mr Jackson (PE and Sport Coordinator).

Below are the results of league games with their match reports and information:

• St Joseph's 7 - 0 Primrose Lane (Player of the match: Owen)
• Deighton Gates 1 - 3 Primrose Lane (Player of the match: Bailey; Goal scorers: Bailey and Mathew)
• St Mary's 8 - 10 Primrose Lane (Player of the match: Matthew)

Below are the results of league games, with their match reports and information:

• St Joseph's 6 - 0 Primrose Lane (Player of the match: Francesca)
• Primrose Lane 0 - 2 Shadwell (Players of the match: Elise and Elizabeth)

Year 1 all had a fantastic time with Cycle North who came to visit us. We all tried the balance bikes and zoomed around the playground learning skills and how to be safe. Some of us progressed onto pedal bikes. Congratulations to all those children who learnt to ride on two wheels.

On Wednesday, we travelled by coach to Leeds Trinity University to take place in our skipping competition against seven other schools! We managed to win two bronze, one silver and FOUR gold medals. We all showed fantastic team work, encouragement and perseverance throughout. Well done Year 4!!

Esme - I’m proud of our team for persevering and getting so many points.
Ollie – I enjoyed all of it but my fabourite was ‘keep the pot boiling’
Daniel – I liked it all and for some reason when I was up there I found the pretzel easier.
Lily – My favourite part was when I did my side swing.
Darcie – I found ‘keep the pot boiling’ hard but it got easier as we went on.
Jessica M – I am realty proud of everyone in our class as they tried their best. We tried to get as many points as possible.
Elliot – I am proud of getting my highest amount of crossovers.

Year 6 recently entered a team into the WVLP basketball tournament competing against 4 other teams to try to add to the football team's success earlier in the school year. The competition was extremely competitive with numerous teams proving difficult opposition but the games were all played with a great spirit.

Primrose Lane won 2 matches and drew 2 others in the group stage which meant we qualified in second place. Throughout the opening matches, Primrose Lane played brilliantly as a team and really worked hard for each other, communicating superbly. The children encouraged one another, supported each other and demonstrated a high level of ability that received numerous compliments from opposing teachers.

Primrose Lane won their semi-final and then went into the final in good spirits. It was a tense, nerve racking affair with not much to choose between the two sides. Primrose began to become more dominant but could not win in normal time so we went into golden time where the next basket scored would win the competition. After several incredibly near misses we eventually came out on top with an amazing basket scored by Matthew and the squad of 8 players were running out as deserved winners with captain, Sam collecting the trophy. It really was a triumph for teamwork, great attitude and plenty of practise in the lead up to the competition. The winning squad were: Sam, Matthew, Charlie, Elliot, Harry, Thomas, Bailey and Jake.

• Matthew- It was an amazing experience representing the school and the feeling of the final basket was unimaginable!

• Harry- I think that the tournament was extremely fun, but to win was a team effort and it took a lot of time, hard work and practise.

• San- The games were very intense and Primrose really wanted to win. It was a tough battle but we ended up winning the tournament.

• Charlie- It was a great experience, winning our 2nd WVLP games. We all played really well; deservedly winning the final. As it came down to the golden basket, it was very intense.

• Bailey- It was a very good experience doing basketball. I got a good picture of the court as I will be going to Boston Spa in September. The outcome of the tournament was that we won!

This half term, we have been able to get our Sports Leaders up and running helping with active play-times, supporting the younger children with structured play and generally making lunch time more fun for lots of children in school! Children in Year 5 have shown excellent attitudes in proactively wanting to become Sports Leaders, and wanted to go through the training to achieve this.
Since the start of this half term, most children in Year 5 have embraced their responsibility, been organised, prompt and relished the opportunity to wear their ‘Sports Leaders’ t-shirts! The younger children have shown great interest in the activities since they have been advertised and the daily rota of activities is now on-going until the end of the school year!
Here’s what some of the leaders have had to say so far:
Seb – ‘I’ve enjoyed being a sports leader because you get to play with different children, spend more time with them and help them.’
Emily – ‘Its really fun, because you see the smiles on the younger children’s faces and you know you’re doing your job!’
Evie – ‘Its fun to see the children adapting the games we are teaching them.’
Marley – ‘I have enjoyed leading my sessions as well as joining in with others.’
Herbie – ‘I have learnt that you have to be patient with the younger children; trying to help them listen using different strategies.’
Sam – ‘I enjoy putting a smile on others faces.’
Noah – ‘I enjoy when the children are having fun and have smiles on their faces!’

As many of you are aware, on Wednesday, we had a football session for girls throughout the school to support the #LetGirlsPlay campaign (https://www.englandfootball.com/play/youth-football/in-education/letgirlsplay ). It was a delight to see around 50 girls getting involved in the session, where we enjoyed getting stuck in with some football drills, exercises and generally enjoying being active! Like last year, this initiative has been promoted by Barclays, the FA and England Football to promote girls football and gain respect and acceptance that girls should have the same opportunities as boys with regards to football (but also for anything!). At Primrose Lane, as I have mentioned before, we already have a girls football team in Upper KS2, whereby our team train every week with Mr Keen and have games organised to compete against local and willing schools. We also have girls training with the first team regularly with me on a Friday. It is important to us that girls be treated the same and have the same opportunities as boys and not stereotype - just like what we teach day in, day out within our school curriculum.

It was a pleasure to lead the session with the girls, ranging from Reception to Year 6. We saw the older girls embracing the younger girls by leading drills and helping the younger children. We saw enjoyment on children’s faces! The girls performed brilliantly, they listened well and followed instructions excellently across all ages. It genuinely moved me to see such engagement and effort. This, on top of the day actually being ‘International Women’s Day’, has been a culmination of pride and achievement amongst our girls. I am very proud of the girls in our school and hope they develop into strong, assertive women, ready to take on the world without boundaries or excuses!

On Friday, each class from Reception-Year 6 participated in a skipping festival hosted by the company Skipping Schools, led by Jodi. The day was fabulous, with all children learning the benefits of skipping for physical activity and health, as well as socially playing in the playground and outside of school. Children also learnt about persevering and if they struggled, carried on giving it a go. Each class learnt how to safely skip, as well as various different techniques, ranging from ‘single bounce, double bounce, hopping, split legs, speed skip, side step, back-to-back, change places, side-swing, criss-cross, pretzel’; and many more! Children and staff alike found how tiring it can be, as our heart rates raced up quite quickly. We all loved the experience. Here are what some of the classes had to say about the day:rnrnReception - The children in Reception really enjoyed taking part in the skipping festival. They used the large rope and pretended to be a train going on a trip to the zoo. They had to listen carefully to the instructions of “ready, steady, go” before going under the rope and joining back with the class.rnRuby – “I liked pretending to be different animals at the zoo.”rnHenry – “I liked running fast under the rope.”rnOliver – “I enjoyed being train and making the noises!”rnFlorence – “I liked going under the rope with my partner.”rnrnYear 1:rnAmarri – ‘We did some amazing skipping!’rnAustin – ‘It was really good jumping over the rope.’rnJackson – ‘It was really fun!’rnHannah – ‘It was a bit tricky but I got it in the end.’rnRosie – ‘I liked it when I jumped over the rope.’rnrnYear 3:rnGia – ‘I really enjoyed skipping and I think I did really well.’rnOliver S – ‘I enjoyed doing double bounce backwards and jumping over the big rope.’ rnZoe – ‘I loved doing the hop and swap because I couldn't do it before and now I can.’rnEvan – ‘I thought it was a good experience for people.’rnBethany L – ‘I learnt how to do the hop and swap and I enjoyed doing the big skipping rope!’rnrnYear 4:rnEsme – ‘I really enjoyed doing face to face with Jemima because it was really fun to show everyone what we could do!’rnJemima – ‘I am really proud of being able to do the crossover and I am proud of Esme for doing the spin when we were doing face to face.’ rnDaniel – ‘I really liked it because I learnt how to do the double bounce.’ rnLily – ‘I enjoyed the assembly when other people went up to the front to show what they could do.’rnrnYear 5:rnMarley – ‘I liked how Jodi said that a lot of sports people use skipping as part of their training.’rnHenry – ‘I enjoyed it as lots of people got up to show the school their skipping skills.’rnIsla – ‘I liked it when we watched the assembly from the sides, because the demonstrations taught me how to do different skipping skills.’ rn

Over 60 children turned out for the KS2 Penalty Shoot-out competition off the back of the World Cup! It was great to see such a turnout and even better to see the resilience and gamesmanship shown by all children, irrespective of whether they scored, didn't score, didn't win etc. There were some excellent penalties and encouragement from the children -; and the overall winner for lower Key Stage 2 was Oliver, with the upper Key Stage 2 winner being Henry.

In January, all of KS2 enjoyed a thrilling day of orienteering with Simon from ‘Airenteers’. The children loved learning map skills, teamwork and younger Year 3 children could not believe how tiring map work could be – yet children in Years 4-6 were ready to go again! All children got very competitive with the electronics involved, clocking in at the start of their task and clocking out once finishing (with their ‘dibbers’, then gaining a time (which they were all wanting to beat each other’s time!).

The activities involved following trails and drawing them out on their maps with their white board pens. They then ‘followed the leader’ and gave each other challenges. Secondly, children were given ‘kites’, where they had to hide them, identify a starting point (with a triangle) on their maps, as well as the finishing point (with two circles) for their challengers to find. Finally, they finished with the time trials, where they chose various different trails and were timed on their completion (which brought the element of challenge, and resulted in some very tired competitors!).

Older children were also given electronic ‘dibbers’ and maps, where they had to navigate to the different ‘kites’ in the correct order (or even their own choice of order) and try and achieve the best time in the groups. The navigation skills were essential, as well as speed and stamina. It was impressive to see some of the competitiveness of the children, but also the fitness!
Here’s what some of the children had to say about their experience:

Year 3
Year 3 were fantastic at their first Orienteering session. They showed fantastic team work and listened really well to all of the instructions in order to be successful. They've already shown a lot of stamina and improved map reading skills just from our first session. They were very proud of their times for the various routes and worked very hard to complete the challenges put to them. Amazing effort Year 3!
Arthur – ‘I like Orienteering because you get to run in the playground and I like using a map.’
Lillie – ‘It was really fun but tiring because you had to keep going and solve the clues.’
Bethany T – ‘I really enjoyed Orienteering but found it tiring as it was an amazing experience for me and my brain when we had to remember the different things like numbers. ‘
Jasmine – ‘I am really proud of my orienteering especially as it was my first time. I got very into it and never looked back!’

Year 4
Rosie – ‘I like orienteering because I like telling my partner where to go and using the dibber.’
Darcie – ‘I liked it even though it was quite hard!’
Esme – ‘I really liked learning how to map read and running to different places.’
Jessica – ‘Somethings I found hard were how to use the map.’
Ollie F – ‘I really enjoyed it and it is really fun to find the correct location with the dibber.’
Lily – ‘I really liked going to the different places on the map but it was hard work running around.’

Year 5
Rupert – ‘I liked learning how to read maps and using coordinates to find different flags.’
Sam – ‘I liked the cooperation involved; with one person doing the map reading whilst the other person had the dibber.’
Daisie – ‘I liked working together. Its great in terms of sport for exercising.’

Year 6
We had a visit from Simon this week to continue the children's excellent learning regarding orienteering. The class has a fantastic understanding of how to use maps and navigate their way around the school grounds on various tasks and games. I am always incredibly impressed with the teamwork and the way the children take on the different challenges Simon sets for them.
It was brilliant (though a little bit chilly) being outside and it was a beautiful clear day and the children loved the opportunity to run around with purpose and compete with each other in a friendly, fun way.
Elliot – ‘Orienteering was very enjoyable and really tiring! I had a lot of fun as it was a fantastic experience.’
Mathew – ‘I really thought orienteering was a brilliant exercise as it involved running around but also developing our map reading skills.’
Annika –‘I found orienteering awesome as knowing that we partly had to work together in a team of 2 instead of doing it by yourself.’

With our excellent club links with Leeds Rhinos Foundation (LRF), we have recently been fortunate enough to have sessions delivered to Years 4 and 5 focusing on fundamentals of rugby. Throughout these sessions, children have focused on teamwork, coordination, timing, throwing and catching skills, tactics, speed and balance. Here is what some of the children have had to say about the sessions:
Maddie – ‘I enjoyed the sessions because the teamwork focus was great.’
Gracie – ‘I enjoyed the last session as the competitive games were fun and everybody enjoyed them.’
Herbie – ‘Harvey told us about lots of useful skills, like the tumble pass, grip of the ball, scoring a try and special awareness.’
Jemima - 'I enjoyed it because I felt I learnt new skills and got to know a person from the Leeds Rhinos.'
Darcie - 'I thought that it was both hard and fun at the same time.'
Daniel - 'I really liked being taught by Harvey and wish he could come back again.'
Lily - 'I enjoyed being shown how to score a try.'
Harvey and Ian from LRF led a whole school assembly that focused on growth mindset and informing us of the inclusive nature of LRF, showing that anybody can give rugby a go and they have an opportunity to succeed in a positive environment. It was excellent to learn about the local opportunities we have with Wetherby Bull Dogs and the events that are happening locally that can help us on our steps to playing rugby and supporting LRF – with ticket offers to watch games also.

Yesterday, at the Wharfe Valley Learning Partnership Football Competition, Primrose Lane first team did us proud winning the competition!

We began the competition in group stages, where Primrose Lane won all four games, with some excellent goal contributions by Charlie, Matthew, Bailey, Noah, Sam and Owen; as well as some excellent defending and goalkeeping by Elizabeth and Flynn (a real whole team effort and contribution!).

We progressed to the top league for the overall winners and won our first game convincingly (4-0), followed by solid draws that helped us win. Excellent attitudes throughout, great gamesmanship, and all children represented school with pride. Well done team, you deserved it!

This week, 40 children from Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 competed in a cross country competition held at Brigshaw High School. The children represented Primrose Lane excellently; showing impeccable behaviour, fabulous sportsmanship and great perseverance.

All the children put in their best efforts and cheered each other through every race! It was fabulous to watch the children striving to achieve a personal best, as well as see some of the Year 6 Sports Leaders supporting the younger children (especially with it being the first year for our Year 3s competing!

We have now received the results and are pleased to share with you that our Year 3 Boys, Year 3 Girls, Year 4 Girls, Year 5 Boys, Year 6 Girls and Year 6 Boys have all qualified to the City Finals in Spring 2023! Although, Year 4 Boys and Year 5 Girls didn’t make it through, they ran their hearts out and achieved some excellent results, just missing out on qualifying by a small margin. Additionally, we had a wildcard for Evie from Year 5 who came second in her race and will represent herself for the Year 5 Girls. Congratulations to all competitors!

There must be particular mentions for both Year 6 Boys and Year 6 Girls who won their groups by a large margin! Additionally, congratulations must go to some fantastic individual performances: Jacob coming first and Noah coming eigth in the Year 5 Boys race; Charlie coming forth and Bailey coming sixth in the Year 6 Boys race; Elizabeth coming first, Milan coming second, Elise coming seventh, Susie coming eighth and Francesca coming 12th in the Year 6 Girls race.
Thank you to all the Parents/Carers who turned up on the day to show their support and help Mr Jackson with the team, as well as Mrs Holmes, who came to support the team for their efforts. Thank you to Mrs Warnock for the warm up too! We look forward for next round to do it all again, but until then, well done all competitors!
Mr Jackson
(PE and Sport Coordinator)

Over the last two weeks, we have been fortunate enough to welcome ‘Martial Arts 4U’ to our school and work with each class to introduce everybody to the controlled activity of martial arts boxing. The leaders were very enthusiastic, which transferred to children across the school. They were taught about controlled martial arts and the importance of using it for exercise and healthy lifestyles. This is what some of the children had to say:

Year 1:
Jackson – it was fun
Leah – ‘I liked it when I did the twist one, roundhouse.’
Austin – ‘It was like my kickboxing.’
Rosie – ‘I liked the skills.’
Mollie – I liked the punching
Charlie – ‘I liked the push ups.’

Year 3:
Zoe - "Martial Arts was my favourite PE lesson of the year! It was fantastic!"
Evan - "I think that Martial Arts was a great experience for us to learn how to do it."
Gia - "I really enjoyed Martial Arts. It was so interactive!"
Bethany T - "Martial Arts was very athletic. My favourite move was the roundhouse kick."


Year 4:
Daniel - "I learnt that different types of Martial Arts groups have different names for certain moves. A roundhouse kick in kickboxing is a round kick in Karate. It is where you put one foot in front of the other and swing your back leg round. You hold your hand in a fist and keep it in front of your face."
Esme - "It was so fun! I wish that we could do it again. I learnt lots of new moves (jab, cross over, front kick and roundhouse kick)."
Ollie F - "I really enjoyed doing Martial Arts and I learnt lots of moves. My favourites were 'the hook' and 'the roundhouse'."
Jemima - "In Martial Arts I enjoyed doing the roundhouse kick, which is a high leg kick. We also did some crosses, which are punches. I enjoyed it so much. I hope we do it again, one day."
Alexander - "I think Martial Arts was a great experience for the class. The warm-up was hard for some, but I found it easy. We learnt some different moves like a roundhouse kick and foot stances. I have tried Karate once before, so I understand why anyone who hadn't done it before, found it tricky."


Year 5:
Evie W – ‘I really enjoyed doing the last part, which was the ‘rear roundhouse kick.’

Gracie – ‘I really enjoyed doing the second part, where we used the sword.’

Hughie – ‘ I really liked when we learnt to do the jab.’

Isaac – ‘I liked when we were punching the punching bag.’

Henry – ‘I really liked doing the shoulder tig game.’

Herbie – ‘I really liked playing the turtle game and tigging each other.’

Year 6:
Susie - "I loved doing Martial Arts because I learnt how to defend myself. I also learnt how to kick properly as well as lots of new words."
Dulcie - "It was great fun practicing Martial Arts for the first time. I learnt many ways of self-defence and I really enjoyed it."
Jake - "I found the lesson very beneficial, and it has increased my self-defence techniques. The coaches (John and Tim) took their time to deliver a well-done session."
Evan - "It was an incredible experience and I liked how the combinations of moves would fit together."
Bailey - "I really enjoyed doing Martial Arts. We learnt lots of techniques, including round house kicks, front kicks, jabs, cross and guarding. The coaches were called John and Tim."