Author: Mrs Taylor

This week, our Living and Learning focus has been about online safety and in particular spotting adverts online.

First of all, we thought about what an advert is and what a pop up is.

Then, we read a story about Smartie who had a dilemma with a pop up while he was online.

Pop ups, including online adverts, if clicked on, may take us away from the page we’re looking at so we learnt this key message to help keep us safe online.

Help at home: reinforce this key message of telling an adult if an advert pops up on screen.

 

Well done to all the children who performed so well in our class assembly. The children have worked hard to rehearse and they have enjoyed being able to share their learning with you.

Assemblies give the children a chance to practice their oracy skills in particular to project their voice and we hope you’d agree they did that well.

Thank you for your support to help the children to learn their lines and for coming to watch on day. We hope you enjoyed it.

This Tuesday 19 November at 2:40pm is our rearranged class assembly. We hope you can join us.

On Wednesday 20 November, as the whole class are taking part in the infant agility event, the children will need to come to school in PE kit. This will replace our Tuesday PE lesson for next week.

This means, the children should come to school in normal uniform on Tuesday 19 November.

We kicked off anti-bullying day with our odd socks to celebrate that we are all unique and different.

Odd socks day is a celebration to show that we are all different and that makes us unique.

We are wearing odd socks today because we are all different and we should be treated fairly.

Odd socks day shows that we are all different. We should respect everyone no matter what they look like.

We explored our school definition of bullying, created by our junior leaders, by looking at what some of the words meant.

What are the different types of bullying?

Our school definition helped us understand the different types of bullying – physical (hurting someone’s body), emotional (hurting someone’s feelings) or cyber bullying (online).

We also considered the role of bystanders and their responsibility to start telling other people.

The story #Goldilocks looks at how we should treat everyone with respect whether it is in person or online.

How can you STOP bullying?

We used our weekly circle time to think about the role we all have to STOP bullying. Year 2 had some excellent suggestions.

Our main message is Start Telling Other People and to continue to do that until you are heard.

You can stop bullying by…

respecting others

telling the bully to stop if you are a bystander.

telling a trusted adult.

asking a lunchtime helper to help.

standing up for others.

letting everyone join in and not leaving people out.

being kind to people and not hurting them.

helping the person being bullied and take them to an adult.

being resilient and saying STOP.

ignoring the bully, walk away and don’t say anything back to them.

Using positive words and actions can also help to prevent bullying by creating a happy and healthy school.

How can you get help?

Seeking help can be done in a number of different ways.

Who could you tell? (taken from our child friendly anti-bullying policy)

• Safeguarding team – Mrs Weekes, Mr Wilks, Mrs Russell and Mrs Limbert
• Any other members of staff
• A trusted adult
• Someone in your family
• Friends
• Childline (0800 1111)
• Write a worry slip and put it in your Living and Learning box or the whole school worry box (outside the school office)
• Email stayingsafe@spherefederation.org

The children thought about who they would tell if they needed to Start Telling Other People.

Help at home: discuss our school definition of bullying with your child. Do they know the difference between falling out and bullying, and between a one-off situation and something that’s happened more than once?

Today, some of the year 2 children took part in a cheer dance event led by DAZL (Dance Action Zone Leeds). The children followed a warm up and learnt some cheer dance techniques to put together in a routine using pom poms. The children were very brave to perform the routine to the other schools there. Finally, all the children made a circle and encouraged each other to perform their own dance move in the middle. It was great to see the children’s confidence to do this.

We loved our Moortown PE tops too!

DAZL run our Thursday after-school dance club and there are a few spaces available if your child would like to join.

I liked the pom poms because I’ve been wishing to do cheerleading.

I liked cheerleading because it is a type of dance and I like to dance.

I liked it because I learnt a new dance.

I liked the circle time because we could show everyone our own dance move.

It was amazing!

Well done to all our KS2 pupils who took part in the second Leeds Schools Sports Association cross country race at Cardinal Heenan on Saturday morning.

All the children ran brilliantly and improved their race positions from last time.

Thank you to parents who supported at the event.

There are two more races this season and information will be sent about these nearer the time. Please note there is a new registration system this year with all children being registered prior to their first race to take part.

This week, we’ve been thinking about the communities we belong to.

Our school community is very important and we thought about what makes our school special.

Moortown Primary School is a happy and healthy place to learn.

What does our school logo represent?

People are linked. They look happy.

They are holding hands.

It shows friends playing together.

They are dancing and jumping so they are energetic and active.

The different colours represents different people’s skin colours.

It shows that all are invited and all are included.

Our visual ethos statement show lots of different things that are important to our school.

Our school is diverse and we looked at the different ethnicities and religions we are lucky to have in our school. Then, we found out some information and presented this data about the children in the class.

As well as understanding who we are and our own identity, we’ve been thinking about other communities we are part of.

We’re all part of our own family community.

This text helps us to recognise that other people’s families sometimes look different to our own families and that’s ok. We respect these differences.

We are all part of our own friendship community.

What is a friend?

A friend is someone…

you play with

who looks after you

that cares for you

you spend time with

you like

who hugs you if you are sad, if you want them to

who cheers you up

who is kind to you and asks you to play

Friends can be different to us and that’s ok. We should respect our friends and not leave them out.

The key message from this week is that we are all part of different communities and we respect those communities and other communities too.

Help at home: ask your child what communities they are part of and what other communities there are.

Year 2 got out in the community when they met Pat from Friends of Moortown Park.

Moortown Park is a lovely and peaceful small park in the middle of Moortown, giving everyone who lives there somewhere nice to go to relax, play, or walk their dogs.

Friends of Moortown Park organises local people as volunteers to help look after the park, including collecting litter, planting trees, and keeping paths clear. We made the little library for everyone to share books, and the herb garden so people can cut some herbs to cook with. We raised money to buy the lovely metal benches for everyone to sit on. We organised the trees for our community orchard, and we have put up lots of bird boxes and some bug hotels for our little friends.

All of these things make the park a much nicer place for everyone in the local community to come to, and they also help all the birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife that live here. If we all respect the park by behaving nicely, not dropping rubbish, and looking after dogs, then it will remain a lovely place for everyone.

After visiting the park, we thought about what people can do to make sure they respect and look after the park for others to enjoy.

Help at home: take a visit to the park. Ask your child to show you some of the things Friends of Moortown Park have done to improve the park for its users.

At the start of our Me and my community themed week, we had a visit from Grandad Wheels (Brian). Brian is a wheelchair user and an author too. We heard all about what it is like to use a wheelchair and he also retold one of his wheelchair adventure books.

It is difficult to do lots of things if you are in a wheelchair but you are still the same as others.
Brian’s arms get tired from pushing his wheels on his wheelchair.
There are lots of different types of wheelchairs.
I learnt that Brian damaged his spinal cord so he can’t feel his legs.
It doesn’t matter if people have a disability.

This visit helped the children to understand that there are different groups within our community including those with a disability.

We created our own crazy wheelchair designs and Brian came to look at them. He thought they had some great features.

There’s an extra chance to order any of the Grandad Wheels books including his new book to be published this week. All proceeds go to charity. Please contact the office to order.

Help at home: talk with your child about what help someone might need if they are a wheelchair user.

 

We enjoyed our learning with Lindsey from Diversity Role Models  which was all about embracing differences. First of all, we thought about what diversity means. It means being different.

Using the text Odd dog Out, the children learnt how being different is a good thing. It is a good thing to be who you are. Be proud of you!

 

 

There was a key message of treating everyone with kindness and respect and include others.

Finally, we thought about what makes us wonderful and unique by creating our own odd dogs out.

Help at home: read the story again to think about odd dog out feels throughout the story.