28 April 2023

KS1 – Year 1 and Year 2

Vocabulary is the focus of this week’s Talk Time.

We’ve just begun a new Science topic and with it comes new Science vocabulary.

This half-term, we’re all biologists, learning specifically about plants. Here’s a list of key words that are being learnt and applied as part of our learning. Over the half-term, practise using these words with your child.

  • seed: the part of a plant which can grow into a new plant
  • bulbs: the round underground part of a plant that contains food for the plant (eg onion bulb, daffodil bulb, tulip bulb)
  • basic needs: the things that a plant needs to live
  • temperature: a measurement of how hot or cold something is
  • growth: an increase in size
  • healthy: feeling well and happy
  • germinate: when a seed begins to grow into a plant
  • seedling: a young plant grown from a seed.

Some of these words have been introduced already this week but there may be others that are going to be covered in the coming weeks.

KS2 – Year 3 and Year 4

Vocabulary is the focus of this week’s Talk Time.

We’ve just begun a new Science topic and with it comes new Science vocabulary.

This half-term, we’re all physicians, learning specifically about forces and magnets. Here’s a list of key words that are being learnt and applied as part of our learning. Over the half-term, practise using these words with your child.

  • force: a push, pull, twist or turn caused when two objects interact with each other
  • contact: touching
  • non-contact: not touching
  • magnet: an object or device that attracts iron or another magnetic material
  • magnetic: attracted to a magnet
  • to attract: to pull towards
  • to repel: to push away
  • pole: area of a magnet where the magnetic force is strongest
  • compass: a device that aids navigation by pointing to Earth’s North and South poles

Some of these words have been introduced already this week but there may be others that are going to be covered in the coming weeks.

KS2 – Year 5 and Year 6

Vocabulary is the focus of this week’s Talk Time.

We’ve just begun a new Science topic and with it comes new Science vocabulary.

This half-term, we’re all biologists, learning specifically about animals, including humans. Here’s a list of key words that are being learnt and applied as part of our learning. Over the half-term, practise using these words with your child.

  • reproduction: the process by which organisms create new versions of themselves (offspring); all living things reproduce
  • fertilization: when an egg and pollen (or sperm) join together
  • gestation: when a baby animal develops inside its mother’s womb
  • pollination: transferring pollen from the male parts of a flower to the female part of a flower so new plants can be made
  • germination: the process by which seeds grow into plants
  • metamorphosis: a dramatic change in the life cycle of an animal in which it ends up looking totally different
  • sperm: male reproductive cells

Some of these words have been introduced already this week but there may be others that are going to be covered in the coming weeks.

Rounders!

This week in PE, Year 3 welcomed in the summer term with their first PE lesson playing rounders!

We practised our batting and fielding skills whilst getting to grips with the rules of the game.

Year 3 loved the PE lesson and we look forward to developing our rounders skills as the summer term progresses!

History: Carnival

Welcome back Year 3!

This half term, we are historians. In this topic, we will be learning about some different carnivals around the world, including Leeds West Indian carnival. We’ll find out about its links to The West Indies and slavery in the past.

Here is our vocabulary for our topic this half term:

Help at home by asking your child what vocabulary they have learnt in class during the week. See if they can remember what word vocabulary means!

This week’s message (Friday 21 April 2023)

We hope you had a happy and healthy Spring break.

Industrial action

First, in case you missed an earlier message this week, is some advance warning about the forthcoming industrial action by members of the National Education Union (NEU).

The next two days of strikes are Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 02 May. Moortown Primary will be closed to pupils in all classes except Year 6 and Year 2 on these days.

We apologise for the inconvenience that this may cause. We know you understand that this is a difficult situation.

Walk or wheel to school?

After the two week Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge, we now have the final results.

In our category of small primary schools, we finished in 24th place out of 514 schools with an average of 91.14% of our journeys to school being active. We achieved the highest national (24th) and Northern England (5th) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.

This is a great achievement – a big thank you for supporting the challenge.

We hope these active journeys continue. By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you’re helping us make a positive change to the school run. With fewer cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.

Class trips

Thank you very much for your responses to the recent survey about class trips. The feedback has been really helpful. The key message we’ve received is that you’re very keen for school trips to happen more regularly and that you see a lot of value in them:

  • ‘I think they are an important part of the curriculum to enhance learning and make connections with the real world. They also form a memorable part of school. In summary, an invaluable experience.’
  • ‘Great that these are coming back following the pandemic.  Thank you for putting time and energy into making these a possibility again. In terms of the regularity of class trips, the vast majority of people would like there to be more than one trip per year. We’ll aim to offer two class visits per year, but this does depend on receiving enough voluntary contributions from all parents/carers.

You also gave us a variety of other feedback and suggestions which we’ll consider. Examples of useful points raised include scheduling trips on a Monday or Friday if classes need parent helpers; a memorable visit doesn’t have to be something new or expensive or a long distance away; and weekly direct debits to build up contributions – we’ll ponder over your suggestions as well as start putting in place a schedule of trips across all year groups.

Attendance matters

For the year so far, up to the Easter holiday, the whole-school attendance rate is 95.8% – thank you for making sure your child attends school as much as they can.

Here’s how each class has helped contribute to the 95.5% figure:

  • Reception: 94.3%
  • Year 1: 95.7%
  • Year 2: 96.3%
  • Year 3: 95.7%
  • Year 4: 96.8%
  • Year 5: 96.0%
  • Year 6: 95.8%

Enjoy the weekend.

If you’re celebrating, happy Eid!

Coronation celebration – Themed Menu 05 May 2023

Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu for the Coronation Celebration on Friday 05 May 2023. See the menu here.

Please contact the office, in the next few days, if your child would like a school dinner on this day (no action needed if your child normally has a school meal on this day).

Living and Learning: Mental wellbeing

Last half term, Year 3 learnt about different emotions and how we can deal with those emotions in a healthy way. Some of the sessions focussed on topics such as strong emotions, being the same and being different, and solving problems.

For one week, we focused on change and loss. Change and loss occurs all the time during our lives in small and big ways and it’s important to know how to deal with the emotions that come with these situations.

We identified things that change can change such as; changing topics, clothes and seasons but also changing friendships, year groups and someone not being here anymore. When these things change, we might feel a loss and miss how things were before and that’s ok!

Teddies play a big role in many children’s lives. We listened to the story ‘Dogger’ by Shirley Hughes which is about a child who loses his favourite toy, Dogger. We discussed how we might feel if we were to lose our favourite toy and what we could do to make ourselves feel better.

This week’s message (Friday 31 March 2023)

We’ve reached the end of the Spring term – the longer evenings are so welcome!

Fun and fundraising

Here at Moortown Primary, it’s been a very busy week to end the term.

There was a very tricky job for Mr Shine: he judged the egg decorating competition! It took him a long time but finally he decided on winners from each class… Awais (YR); Joshan (Y1); Jemima (Y2); Daniyal (Y3); Harjas (Y4); Evie (Y5); and Isla (Y6). Well done to everybody who entered!

The children in Years 3 and 4 performed Go for Gold – they were amazing! From the talented technical assistant to the perfect performances, everybody did a brilliant job. Here are some of your comments:

  • ‘Out of the many primary performances I’ve seen, that had to be the best.’
  • ‘The singing was fabulous, the costumes were amazing and the kids were slick, funny and so confident. You must be extremely proud.’

Well done to all of the children and a massive thank you to all of the staff who were involved. The performances raised £140.00 for our current school charity, St Gemma’s Hospice.

Talking of fund-raising, last week’s non-uniform day for Comic Relief raised £238.30.

And our recent sponsored event to test our number facts and times tables recall raised a whopping £1686.10. This money will be split across St Gemma’s Hospice and school (we’ll put the money into our pot to invest in The Green, our new grassed area at the back of school).
A big thank you for all the money raised recently.

Positive Relationships

A few months ago, we asked you for feedback about our current Positive Relationships Policy. A big thanks to those of you who sent in your comments. Since then, we’ve also consulted with our Junior Leadership Team, governors and staff. All the views have been carefully considered.

Our updated policy has various changes, the main one being new school rules – shorter and more positive. We’ll launch the new rules in the Summer 2 term – a gradual change to allow staff and pupils to get used to them ready for the new school year in September.

Check out the updated policy. We’re happy to hear your views and will continue to review and respond.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Leeds SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice Support Service) host virtual information sessions which aim to provide parents and carers with information, advice and support on SEND topics. There are three virtual information sessions coming up – check them out and book a place.

I hope you’ve got some happy and healthy plans for the Easter break – whatever you do, enjoy it! We’ll see you on Monday 17 April.

This week’s message (Friday 24 March 2023)

This week’s message is from Mrs Weekes…

Isn’t it great to walk to school in daylight and see the evenings getting much lighter!

It’s been a whirlwind of a term but there have been many things crammed in so we feel that we’ve taken every learning opportunity available! There have been many highlights for me, one of them being the Year 1 children going to give out parking tickets to drivers on Moortown corner – they wanted to make the drivers aware of dangerous parking and they did a great job.

It’s going to be a busy week before we finish this term…

  • Children in Y3 and Y4 will perform ‘Go for Gold’ for their parents and families on Tuesday and Wednesday.
  • There’s also an egg-citing competition organised by PTA -thank you to them – so get decorating those eggs and bring them in on Thursday for a chance to win.
  • Learning Updates will be coming home to update you on your child’s progress.

The Computing topic has been a great success. It’s been impressive to hear children from Year 1 upwards talking about algorithms, coding and programming.

Our Book Fair has been very busy but don’t worry – you still have chance to buy some great reads today and on Monday.

Finally, I would just like to wish one of our Y6 pupils, Ewan, the best of luck for Saturday – he’s qualified to compete in the cross-country national finals in Leicestershire. Go for it, Ewan!

Finally, thanks to everyone who responded to the survey about class trips which closed at 12 noon today – we had over 260 responses from the three Sphere Federation schools. We’ll be reviewing the responses which will help inform how we develop a long-term plan for the trips.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

This week’s message (Friday 17 March 2023)

This week’s message is a short one, kicking off with a reminder…

Class trips

We want to put a long-term plan in place for class trips.

There are lots of benefits of class trips (a chance to make learning more real or practical, a memorable, exciting change from the typical day…), but we know they’re expensive.

To help us, we’d be very grateful if you spend just five minutes completing this short survey.

Attendance matters

We’ve been sent by Leeds City Council an attendance summary for 2021-22.

We’re really pleased to see that Moortown Primary attendance was in the top 10% of Leeds primary schools (it ranked 21 out of 226 schools). It’s also great to see that we had around a third of the cases of persistent absenteeism (6.0% compared to the Leeds average of 17.6%)

About two thirds of the absences were due to illness. One in five absences were not authorised, mainly due to holidays.

Special visitors

Today at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we’ve been delighted to welcome people from the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM). Alongside lots of teachers, they visited Mrs Allaway (the Sphere Federation Maths Leader) and a class of Year 4 children to review good practice in Maths teaching. We’re fortunate that Mrs Allaway is a lead teacher for NCETM, regularly supporting teachers in other schools as well as supporting our very own teachers.

As well as Comic Relief, it’s another special day – happy St Patrick’s Day if you’re celebrating!

Have a great weekend.

Scooter Safety Training

Today, Year 3 braved the wind and rain and ventured out to Moortown Park to do some scooting!

We learnt lots about how to scoot safely. This included learning about how to cross the road with our scooters and how to scoot past driveways.

Help at home by asking your child how they cross the road safely with their scooters.