Me and My Community Week
This week, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed a wide variety of visitors from our local community!
Lyndsey came to talk to us about being a positive role model and taught us a new word – upstander!
Help at home by asking your child to explain what this means!
We looked at jobs and how, sadly, stereotyping has meant that either boys or girls feel like they can’t follow that career. But that’s not true!
We’ve had a great time working together and experiencing lessons that aren’t on our typical timetable.
Lots of what we’ve covered about our community has been rooted in British Values and making sure everyone feels welcome and included. We are really confident about Protected Characteristics!
We even got to Zoom some other Y6 children from Sphere Federation to find out what their lives are like at their schools. We found out about their religions, class rewards and favourite authors. There were a lot of similarities amongst some differences.
Living and Learning: Me and My Community themed week DAHIT
Today, Linda Gledhill visited Year 2 to talk about the DAHIT team. The deaf and hearing impairment team work across Leeds to support inclusion of deaf or hearing impaired children. Linda gave us lots of advice of how to communicate with someone who is deaf. We also learnt a little bit of BSL (British Sign Language).
Help at home: Practice the BSL signs the children brought home. Ask you child the top tips for communicating with someone who is deaf.
Living and Learning: Me and My Community themed week St Gemmas visit
Year 2 visited St Gemma’s Hospice where they met Sarah who helps fundraise for St Gemma’s and Catherine, a senior nurse. The children represented Moortown Primary extremely well. As part of community week, it was wonderful to represent our community so well and learn more about local charities so close to our school.
Help at home: Ask your child what they learnt about St Gemma’s Hospice. Talk about the importance of charity fundraising and maybe visit one of the local charity shops to show your support.
Term 1.2 – Group reading!
Hello!
This week, we are beginning group reading!
The class have been divided into groups and each group has been given a book to read at home. This will last for this half term.
During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities related to their book. This will be a fantastic opportunity for the children to explore characters and storylines more than they might do normally!
Every Friday during Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the next Friday.
What to remember:
- Your child has a book that they need to read every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it notes).
- The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
- A comment from a grown up needs to be written in their reading record.
- Group reading books and reading records need to be brought in every Friday.
Help at home by listening to your child read their new book and ask questions about the book to help prepare them for class discussions.
I look forward to hearing the children’s discussions next week!
Thank you!
Living and Learning: Me and My Community themed week Moortown Park
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.
Living and Learning: Me and My Community week Grandad Wheels
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.
Living and Learning: Me and My Community themed week Diversity Role Models
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.
Reminder: stay and learn
Stay and learn will take place next week.
Number 1 – 13.11.24 9-9:30am
It would be great to see you all there. It is a fantastic opportunity for you to learn how we deliver our lessons and the content that is covered.
Anti-bullying day and Odd socks day
Me and My Community
On Monday, Year 5 were visited by Brian Abram, the author of the Grandad’s Wheels books.
As a wheel chair user, Brain first gave us an introduction to himself and then a fun discussion about wheelchairs and disability. Brain answered these questions:
o Why might someone need to use a wheelchair?
o What different kinds of wheelchairs are there?
o What might be difficult to do in a wheelchair and how do we get round these problems?
o Are people in wheelchairs (and disabled people generally) different from other people?
Brain then read one of his brilliant books! Year 5 were then allowed to ask Brian questions. To finish off the session, Year 5 got to design a futuristic wheelchair. Have a look at their creative inventions:
We also had a session about gender equality. The children were asked to draw 4 different professions: teacher, nurse, taxi driver and fire fighter. We then learnt about the gender split in these jobs.
The class were then asked to read different statements and move to either side of the classroom for if they agree or disagree with it.
The statements were:
- It is okay to say ‘Don’t be such a girl’ to someone.
- Boys can be friends with girls.
- Boys are stronger than girls.
- Boys are better at football.
We also learnt about stereotypes and how to challenge these.
In the afternoon, Year 5 looked at the Moortown Primary School Community. We discussed what our logo looks like and why there are three different coloured children interlinked together. Our idea was that the logo represents children coming together, no matter their race or religion, working together and being friends to make the school a happy and healthy place.
Help at home: Look at the designs of the futuristic wheelchairs. Which is your favourite? Why? Or discuss some stereotypes you have heard before and how you can challenge this behaviour.
On Tuesday, Year 5 started off the day with a workshop all about diversity. We discussed that diversity is essentially differences between people. Diversity should be celebrated! Year 5 then went on to talk about what the words bystander and upstander meant. A clever way to help you with their definitions is if you take the first two letters of each word and replace them with the last two letters. So, bystander becomes standby and upstander becomes stand up. What do you think these two words mean?
Well, Year 5 now know that a bystander is someone who watches bullying happen but does nothing to help. An upstander is someone who does something to stick up for the person being bullied but in a kind way. The main messages from this session were to ‘ be an upstander’ and ‘be yourself’.
In the afternoon, we went to Allerton Grange for a drama workshop. In this, the children had to act out what the Moortown Primary School Community meant to them and why it is such a positive place to be part of. Year 5 worked in small groups to create still images and a short video for an alien called Z, to welcome him to Moortown.
Help at home: Discuss what makes the Moortown Primary School community special to you.
On Wednesday, we started off the day with a zoom about protected characteristics. We identified 9 and were able to name them all: Disability, Race, Sex, Gender reassignment, Religion or beliefs, Age, Marriage or civil partnership, Pregnancy and/or maternity leave and Sexual orientation.
In the afternoon, we had a workshop about self esteem. The children discussed how it makes us feel when we compare ourselves to others; they said it would make someone feel unworthy, sad, upset and maybe even frustrated. We watched this video which showed this. Year 5 talked about how if we all looked the same it would be a boring world so we should celebrate out differences.
Year 5 then went on to describe what makes them unique and created a poster of all the things they were good at. This helped boost their self esteem!
On Thursday, we had a zoom with Scholes (Elmet) Primary School – another school in the Sphere Federation. We talked about different religions and what it meant to be part of these communities. The children showed great oracy skills when talking; they used great volume, pace and fluency.
