Author: Mrs Taylor

Times tables

All children have recently received their login details for Times Tables Rock Stars.

In Year 2, we learn the two, five and ten times tables and these are the tables that have been assigned to the children on Times Tables Rock Stars, starting with the ten times table.

Occasionally there will be some division questions and as this is something we are beginning to learn, please support your child with these questions until they feel more confident to have a go.

Children will be bringing home some optional Times Tables Rock Stars sheets that can be completed over half term to improve these skills. They can return these to school if they complete them.

Other resources to support time tables and other number facts is Hit the Button. This is a great, fast-paced game and children can choose which times tables or number facts to work on during each game. This game is free to play online.

If you have any further questions regarding the resources mentioned, do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for your continued support.

PE and Sport Premium

We are required to publish details of  how we invest our PE and Sport Premium funding.

What is the Primary PE and Sport Premium?
The government provides funding to improve provision of physical education and sport in primary schools. This funding is ring-fenced and therefore can only be spent on provision of PE and sport in school.

For 2019/20, our grant allocation is £17,800.

How will we invest this at Moortown Primary School?
At Moortown we have developed a provision plan to ensure this funding is invested (rather than ‘spent’) to maximise the long term impact of our PE provision for pupils and staff. The funding is invested in various ways and the impact of these initiatives is closely monitored through assessment of children’s skills, staff and pupil feedback, uptake of clubs etc. At Moortown Primary, we pride ourselves on being a happy and healthy place to learn.

Our 2018/19 PE provision plan is fully evaluated with impact from last year’s investment.

Our 2019/20 PE provision plan detailing proposed investment is also published.

Skipping ropes

Following the skipping workshop with Jodi from Skipping School last week and in preparation for an upcoming skipping competition, we do have some skipping ropes available to buy at a subsidised price of £2.

If your child would like to buy a rope to keep learning their new skills at home, please come to the classroom at the end of the day or send £2 in a sealed labelled envelope with your child.

New school dinner menu

Our new spring/summer school meal menu, starting after February half term, is now available on our Meals page. It continues to follow a three week cycle.

The menu has been created in liaison with Catering Leeds to ensure it meets the School Food Standards.  We have also incorporated feedback from our school cook, pupils and parents/carers. We will continue to offer a meat free day every week. This will be every Tuesday.

Pupils will continue to make their daily food choices at the start of the day to ensure they receive their first choice of main meal.

If you would like a paper copy of the menu, please ask at the office.

Remember, children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 continue to receive free school meals and we encourage pupils to take up this offer.  For families in other year groups, please check if you are eligible to receive free school meals for your child/children.

We welcome feedback on the school dinner menu from pupils and parents/carers.

Storm Ciara

To finish our science seasons topic this week, we researched about the events of Storm Ciara over the weekend. We’ve been learning about how the weather can change across the seasons and that storms can even happen in summer.

This gave us the opportunity to look at safe internet searching and to consider the websites, images and videos that our search revealed.

Living and Learning: Staying safe online

Our current Living and Learning theme is keeping safe and with Safer Internet Day coming up next week, we learnt a very important message when d:side visited yesterday.

Here’s some of the learning we covered.

  • How to keep ourselves safe when we are on the internet (online) and using websites.
  • To know what we can use the internet for.
  • To know what information is safe and not safe to share on the internet.
  • To know what to do if we are not sure.

This session reinforced a lot of the e-safety work we have been covering this half term in our computing topic and Dave from d:side was impressed with our responses and our overall knowledge of this important safety issue. Well done, Year 2!

Rufus impressed us with his knowledge of the PEGI games rating system.

Finally, we had to decide what to do in different situations and explain our decision.

 

Living and Learning: Children’s Mental Health Week

Set up by children’s mental health charity Place2Be, Children’s Mental Health Week shines a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health. 

Young Minds is also a great source of information and support about young people’s mental health.

Mental health forms part of our Living and Learning long term plan and we encourage pupils to look after their mental health as well as their physical health. This maybe through the use of mindfulness and calming down techniques, recognising their own and others’ emotions and knowing how to seek help if needed. This guide shares some of the techniques we use.

In addition to Children’s Mental Health Week, Every Mind Matters is a national mental health campaign from Public Health England.

31 January 2020

This week’s homework is Talk Time: I know how to look after my mental health.

Next week is Children’s Mental Health Week. In class, after lunch, we have relaxation time where the children choose a mindfulness technique. We’d like the children to learn a new technique from the sheet provided (see below) or teach one to someone at home.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is about focussing on the present moment.  This is done through a variety of techniques to calm the mind and help manage our reactions to our thoughts and emotions.

 

31 January 2020

We are looking at the suffixes -er and -est again this week.  They require you to drop the e from the root word before adding the suffix. The children could be tested on any of the words with a suffix.

    • nice  nicer  nicest
    • large  larger  largest
    • wise  wiser  wisest
    • strange  stranger  strangest
    • close  closer  closest
    • brave  braver  bravest
    • cute  cuter  cutest

We will continue with the 10 times table and the children will be tested on this next Friday. This week, the children have been taught the technique of skip counting on their fingers to help with their times tables.

It is important to note, when rehearsing tables, to vary the mathematical language used. In class, we will be familiarising the children with the words multiply, lots of, groups of and times.