This week’s Weekly Message is a busy one…

World Book Day

Look at these interesting characters who arrived at school yesterday…

Competing in cross country

We’ve had two cross country events this week.

First of all, it was the final Saturday morning race at Middleton Park. Well done to all of the children who have taken part in the four races held across the year.

Second, all three schools in Sphere Federation had children competing in the West Yorkshire cross country final at Temple Newsam on Tuesday.

Five of our Key Stage 2 children represented Leeds. We’re very proud of all five who raced in tough, competitive conditions with the best runners from across West Yorkshire. They all put in 100% effort and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing at this level.

A special mention to our Year 5 runner who finished 10th place out of 151 runners and has now qualified for the national cross country final later this month. One of our Year 4 runners narrowly missed out on this qualification by two places.

Thank you to parents who helped in both events.

Reception parents survey

Before that, if you’re a parent of a child in Reception, please complete this short survey. At Moortown Primary, we’re always trying to keep getting better and better. Your views help us to do that. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete and you’ve got until Wednesday 18 March to complete. (If you’d like us to follow-up any of your responses with you, we can only do this if you leave your name.)

The rest of this week’s message is an overview about our current half-term topic. It seems long, but just read the sections that apply to your child… 

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term, it’s Computing. We’re developing our knowledge of computers and computer programming.

Computer programming is super. Creating games, animations and solving real world problems is fun, encourages creativity and is challenging! Importantly, the skills the children develop and use are transferable to other subjects and areas of life. For example, the concept of decomposition in programming is concerned with breaking down a large task into smaller chunks. This concept could be used when writing a story, solving a maths problem or tidying a particularly messy bedroom! Debugging is the skill of identifying and fixing an error in a program. It requires systematic, objective thinking and plenty of resilience.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary that they’ll learn, use and apply across the topic. See pages 12 and 13 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Years 1 and 2

Children will learn about how technology is used all around us. They’ll begin to consider what a computer is and isn’t.

In programming lessons, they’ll be introduced to algorithms and will learn about how they need to be written in the correct sequence.

They’ll create their own algorithms in ‘unplugged computing’ lessons and will debug errors in their own and others’ algorithms. Next, they’ll plan and create their own unplugged game where they have to create an algorithm to move a character from one place to another using positional language.

Children will then use the same concepts using Beebots – simple robots which can be programmed to move and turn. Finally, it’ll be time to create their own game using Beebots.

Years 3 and 4

Pupils will begin with some ‘unplugged computing’. They’ll create and debug unplugged programs which use sequence and repetition before they then create their own unplugged game which will require some decomposition. Next, pupils will explore how branching databases help us organise and use information. They’ll start by asking and creating yes/no questions to sort objects into groups, learn how to build and structure a branching database, and think about attributes that help with classification. Across the six lessons, they’ll make their own branching databases, plan how to structure them, and compare different ways of presenting information. By the end of the unit they will test their database by using it as an identification tool and think about how similar systems are used in the real world.

Years 5 and 6

Children will begin the topic by reasoning about what makes a computer a computer. They’ll then learn about how search engines work and how to best use them. In programming lessons, they’ll use Scratch to gain a deeper understanding of concepts like sequence and repetition before learning about selection and variables. Some of this vocabulary may sound alien to you. However, before the end of the topic, your child will be able to tell you what they mean and give examples of how they’ve used them in their projects. Some of the projects your children will create are:

• A Spirograph style drawing animation with some potentially psychedelic visual effects!
• A chatbot program which will ask you questions and decide if your responses are correct or not.
• A times table quiz program that will test you on randomly selected times table questions within a set time limit.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. Our Class News is a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

The school library and local libraries have lots of books about coding and computer games which your child will be able to borrow and develop both their reading skills and computing knowledge.

Finally, try programming with your child. There are loads of programming apps and software available to download, often for free. Here’s a list:

Key Stage 1:

• Beebot
• Code for Life: Rapid Router
• Lightbot
• Scratch Jr

Key Stage 2:

• Code for Life: Rapid Router
• Lightbot
• Scratch Jr
• Scratch