Moortown Primary is a ‘single-form entry’ school. This means we take only one class each year and so have one class in each year group. Classes are limited to a maximum of 30 children in Reception, Year 1 and 2 (like all schools), and classes in Years 3 to 6 are usually around this size, too.
Key information about the day-to-day running of Moortown Primary School can be found here – everything from the price of a school dinner to important dates in the school year. If there remains something that you still need to know, we’re always happy to answer any questions you may have – call in or contact us.
This section is all about how you can join in and be part of our community.
Moortown Primary is very much an active community. Pupils, parents / carers and staff at school are all important 'stakeholders' and we want everyone to have their say, to express their ideas and to keep on making our learning community a great place to be.
Every pupil at Moortown Primary School is an enthusiastic, positive and expressive learner – but it's not just our children! We are all learners: we can keep on learning new methods, new facts, new points of view.
This section is all about learning and how parents / carers can support or join in the learning process.
Create ways for you to remember how to spell these words and generally practise using the strategies in the back of your homework book. Don’t forget to try adding prefixes and suffixes to the words. Spelling practice is best done little and often so make sure you come back to the spellings at least three times in the week. Date your practice and ask an adult to sign it to show that you’re practising regularly. There will be no test on Friday 02 February. Instead, there’ll be a crossword to complete.
familiar
foreign
forty
frequently
government
guarantee
harass
hindrance
identity
immediately
individual
interfere
interrupt
Here’s a fantastic example of great spelling practice from Umaimah.
This week the homework is practice makes perfect. We’ve been spending time learning number bonds to 20. A number bond is a number fact we know instantly, without needing to work it out, like 17+3 and 15+5.
The children’s task is to find the missing numbers to make number bonds to 20.
On Wednesday we kicked off our Life Forces topic by being polar explorers for the day!
We learnt how polar animals have a thick layer of fat, known as blubber, underneath their skin that keeps them warm. Year 1 wanted to find out if this was true.
First, we put our bare hands in the water to feel how cold it was. Then, we made our blubber gloves using rubber gloves and margarine and put our hands back in the water.
Year 1 discovered it was true! The blubber glove helped to protect our hand from the freezing water.
Create ways for you to remember how to spell these words and generally practise using the strategies in the back of your homework book. Don’t forget to try adding prefixes and suffixes to the words. Spelling practice is best done little and often so make sure you come back to the spellings at least three times in the week. Date your practice and ask an adult to sign it to show that you’re practising regularly. There will be a test on Friday 26 January.
This week’s homework is Creative and is due on Thursday 25 January.
Create your own creature which is adapted to a certain environment.
We’ve explored how different animals have adapted to survive in different environments, thinking about whether they are a predator, prey or both.
Octopus have chromatophores all over their body which means they can camouflage against their surroundings.
Polar bears have large feet so that their weight is spread out over the ice, reducing the risk of it cracking.
Small fish swim in big shoals to make themselves appear larger to predators.
Decide where your creature lives, draw it and label your drawing to show us how it is adapted to its environment and other creatures that might live there.
The whole school took on the role of polar explorers today to kick off our new eight-week Big Topic: Life Forces. We began the day with Terry Kirk, our school’s polar ambassador, learning all about the RHS Sir David Attenborough (a new research vessel for the British Antarctic Survey).
Year 6 then discussed how animals are adapted to survive in the cold conditions of the Arctic and Antarctic. Most of us already knew about blubber – a thick layer of fat underneath the skin – but we got to feel just how effective it can be by creating our very own blubber gloves.
We tried just putting our bare hands into the icy water first to see how long we could keep it there.Then, we made our blubber gloves, using ‘rubber’ gloves and margarine.If you put both hands in – one with a blubber glove on and one with a normal glove on – you can’t feel the cold very much at all through the blubber!
We then imagined that we were explorers of the Arctic and wrote a diary entry of our adventures – there were some really great pieces of writing in the room.
In the afternoon, we learnt all about how animals are adapted to survive in winter and summer and across different habitats. We took notes of what we were learning all over the tables.
Then, we used all of the knowledge we gained throughout the afternoon to create our own creature. We were told whether they were a predator or prey and where they lived. It was important to consider this when thinking about how our animal would be adapted.
We created ‘the kraken’ a lizard-like creature which used camouflage to protect it from predators.
Moortown Primary frequently welcomes visitors from other schools. Recently, two senior leaders visited from another successful school in Leeds. This is what they had to say:
We really liked the joined up thinking in terms of a whole school approach to the curriculum and in particular how there is a joint focus for all of the classes – this is something that we are going to give a lot of consideration to in the next academic year.
It was also clear how the teaching staff challenge their pupils to refine / explain their answers in greater detail – we were struck with how confident and articulate the children were.
Attitudes to Learning – in every class, the pupils were engaged and visibly enjoyed their learning.
Have you checked out out Learn More pages? They contain lots of tips and ideas to support your child at home.
In particular, look at the Help Your Child page. On here, we’ve just published a new guide to support your child with their spellings – it’s full of ideas to learn spellings in an active way. Encourage your child to try out the ideas. They won’t all suit, but some may end up being their favourite – and most effective – strategy!
