This week’s spelling activity continues our work on how etymology can help us to understand word meaning and aid spelling.
What words can you create which include these prefixes? Create mini-dictionaries of words with the same prefix and see whether you notice their similar meanings.
This week’s homework is Creative and is a little different. It’s due on 02 February, in plenty of time to enter…
As avid readers of First News, we’ve found a competition that we’re keen to get involved in and who am I to stand in the way of an opportunity brought about by reading?!
The children have each been given a competition entry sheet and here are the instructions from the advert itself:
So, this week’s homework is to design your own wizarding professor. Here’s what I think you’ll need to do to be in with a chance of winning:
As a class, we’ll choose one to send in and all have our fingers crossed.
The Director of Leeds Children’s Services has encouraged us to share this information, which comes from Leeds Safeguarding Children Board.
The Director of Leeds Children’s Services has encouraged us to share the following, which comes from Leeds Safeguarding Children Board:
There are reports in the media today about an e-safety incident involving primary age children from Leeds. Just to be clear, the incident did not take place in school or through an ‘app’ approved by school, but was reported to the school by concerned parents. The incident is now being investigated by West Yorkshire Police.
This incident has highlighted a number of safeguarding issues raised recently about smartphone ‘apps’ including Live.ly, ooVoo, and music.ly amongst others. These apps are supposed to only be able to access contacts on the user’s phone, but it appears that quite quickly unknown individuals are able to join group chats. Therefore, these apps are not safe for children to use as there is a significant risk of inappropriate contact by unknown individuals.
Our advice to parents is to ensure that their children do not have access to such apps on their phone and to check that all appropriate privacy settings are switched on, to make sure that children are protected when using any internet site. If a child experiences or expresses concerns about online activity, it must be reported to the police using 101 and CEOP. Wherever possible, a screen shot or a mobile phone picture of the concern should be taken for reporting purposes.
There is some useful information on the LSCB website about online safety with some useful tips for parents.
My usually up-to-date posts on Year 6’s consistently fantastic Creative homework has slipped since the Christmas break and I can only apologise. Better late than never, here’s a sneaky peek into our ‘Science is all around’ homework from a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t possibly not post it as I was even more amazed that usual.
Can’t wait for our next instalment! As always, we looked at everyone’s work and then took a closer work at one person’s in particular to comment on their work individually.
We kicked off our new Big Topic last week: Time Travel – Entertainment. We began by thinking about some key periods in history and wondering about what sort of entertainment was around at the time.
Then, working together, we used our knowledge of dates to put key time periods in chronological order, matching major forms of entertainment as we went.
Here’s our final piece of work to go on our topic wall for us to refer to as we for the next eight weeks.
Many of us don’t pay too much attention to the T&Cs of social networking sites. We tell children to be careful online, but as adults we ignore many of the rules, so why would children be any different?
Many of us, maybe even all of us, ignore what is written in the terms and conditions of the internet and software services that we use on a daily basis. We really should, but who has time to do that? And don’t we trust those companies to look after our data properly?
We tell children to be careful online, but as adults we ignore many of the rules, so why would children be any different?
The Children’s Commissioner published a report recently called ‘Growing Up Digital’. The report makes interesting reading, but one aspect particularly caught media attention…
Around half of 8 – 15 year olds use Instagram. The ‘Growing Up Digital’ report authors asked legal firm, Schillings, to look over the 17 pages of Instagram’s Terms and Conditions, written at a level that could only be understood by a graduate. Schillings’ own lawyers simplified the T&Cs to help children (and the rest of us, probably) understand what they mean.
Here are two of the reader-friendly clauses:
“Officially you own any original pictures and videos you post, but we are allowed to use them, and we can let others use them as well, anywhere around the world. Other people might pay us to use them and we will not pay you for that.” (Or, put more simply: we can sell the stuff you upload without asking you or paying you.)
“We might send you adverts connected to your interests which we are monitoring. You cannot stop us doing this and it will not always be obvious that it is an advert.” (Or, put more simply: we can send you stuff and you won’t know it’s an advert.)
In their simplest form, these clauses are really quite thought-provoking. We all have a right to know about this, and children need educating about it. It would be worth talking to your child about Instagram’s simplified Terms and Conditions, or another social networking site.
(Incidentally, it’s worth remembering that most sites have guidance around age restrictions – like most, Facebook specifies users should be 13 years old or older.)
This week’s spellings all end in ‘tial and ‘cial. They’re not difficult spellings but we need to know when to start this ‘chul’ sound with ‘t’ and when to start it with ‘c’.
Usually, where the part of the word preceding ‘chul’ ends with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), we use C-I-A-L. However, there are a couple of exceptions to this: commercial and financial.
If the part of the word preceding ‘chul’ ends with a consonant, we use T-I-A-L. I can think of one exception: initial.
These words will be tested on Friday 27 January.
This year, we’ve had great feedback from Canada, Thailand, and now… Somerset!
So… in this school year, we’ve had great feedback and thanks from Canada and, very recently, from Thailand. You don’t have to have a child attend Moortown to benefit from the learning resources in our Learn More section!
And now… Somerset! OK – maybe not international, but great feedback all the same:
I lead literacy at [a school in] Somerset. I have looked at the documents on your website and would love to have a chat with someone who coordinates writing assessments in your school.
The ARE expectations documents for parents you produced are brilliant. I would be interested to know how you came up with the exemplification for each year group and whether you use those same documents to assess writing.Please would you be able to put me in touch with your literacy lead teacher or the head teacher for a quick chat? This would be extremely helpful when setting up new systems for our school.
The ‘ARE expectations document’ refers to the age-related expectations we created for each year group in Reading, Writing, Maths and Science and the Foundation Subjects, all to be found on the Expectations page. We created these by taking National Curriculum, which sets out what teachers need to teach and what children are expected to learn, expectations and breaking them down into more manageable year groups. They expectations can be a really useful basis to know how you might support your child at home.
Leeds libraries are stamping out the shhh during February!
Leeds libraries are stamping out the shhh during February!
Library Fest returns for 2017! From 04 to 19 February, there’ll be another varied programme of exciting events, displays and activities across the city, drawing attention to the variety of services that are unique to libraries. Events will include crafts, performances, author events, talks and opportunities to see some treasures from our special collections.
Whatever you’re into, Leeds Libraries have something for you!
People use our website in Canada, Thailand… a small school with a world-wide reach!
You may know that our website is used in Canada (news article, Saturday, November 05, 2016).
Now, we’ve had an email to thank us all the way from Thailand!
Please forward my thanks to the author of your pdf document “Phonics and Graphemes”. I am using parts of it to teach ESL Phonetics here at Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University. It is concise, valuable and sincerely appreciated.
I of course give credit to your fine school in its dissemination.
Again, thank you.
The document in question is a guide to phonics and graphemes, or the sounds and letters that help us to read and write.