Reading: performing Varjak Paw
This week, Year 4 have been reading the start of Varjak Paw by S.F Said. This is a narrative all about a special cat who is locked in a house and dreams of escaping and exploring the outside world.
Today, we became actors and performed the first chapter of the novel. Our R2s (remember tos) for this performance were…
- show clearly who the character is
- showing the events of the extract
- project voice
- voice intonation
Year 4 did a brilliant job! I was so impressed by their acting skills and voice projection.
Help at home: read with your child at home and ask them to summarise the chapter they’ve read. You could even act a little bit out together!
PE: Gymnastics
This half term, we become gymnasts!
Travelling as been our focus for this week, where we’ve practised moving around the space in different ways: high, low, wide, narrow, with many points of contact and few. We also has a lesson today using the equipment; we explored the apparatus with controlled and balanced movements.
Next week, we will perform sequences of travelling using benches!
Book club – 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.
Any questions – please ask. Thank you!
Living and Learning: Me and My Money week
Last week, we enjoyed the first of our two Living and Learning based themed weeks all about money. This learning forms part of our Living and Learning curriculum.
What money do we use?
We identified and compared the different coins and notes we use in this country. We also compared the cost of every day items from a banana to a house!
Why is money an important part of people’s lives?
Money is important because…
People use money to buy the things they need to survive like shelter, food and water.
You can donate to charities.
You can save for something that you want.
If people don’t have money, they might be homeless or not have food to eat.
How do people use money?
People make different choices with their money.
Some people choose to donate money. On Monday, we had a visitor from Yorkshire Air Ambulance, our current school charity, who shared how donations help the charity.
We finished the week with some fundraising events for Yorkshire Air Ambulance – Hotshots and our penny trail. Thank you for all your donations so far. Hotshots sponsor money can be added to School Gateway by Friday 14th November.
Who will be our new school charity?
Then, it was time to think about our next school charity. We thought about what charities are, who or what they help and how we can help charities.
We discussed our shortlist of charities and after that, all the children made a democratic decision by voting for their chosen charity. Our junior leaders took that choice to the JLT meeting and a final vote took place.
We are pleased that our class choice, Martin House Children’s Hospice, is now our new school charity for the forthcoming year.
Help at home: discuss this important learning with your child at home to consider how they use money and why money is important.
Living and Learning: Hotshots sponsorship event
To finish off our Me and My Money themed week, all the school took part in a Hotshots event, led by PE Partner, to raise money for our school charity, Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Can I just say how fantastic all the children were in every year group! It was amazing to see them all encouraging each other, no matter their ability. When the children were up for their turn, who maybe football isn’t their forte, the rest of the children were so supportive with their cheering and encouragement. It was fantastic! You should be very proud of them all!
Living and Learning: Penny trail
It was great to see the generosity and enthusiasm of the children during our Me and My Money themed week to try and fill their class collecting tubes. They were filling up by the end of the week.
On Friday, all the classes ventured into the playground to use their pennies to create a huge ‘Moortown’ penny trail. We had so many 1ps and 2ps that we ended up doubling and tripling up our coins.
The total amount raised for Yorkshire Air Ambulance was a fantastic £123.53 so thank you for your donations.
Anti-Bullying Day!
Today, we celebrated Anti-Bullying and Odd Socks Day as part of Anti-Bullying Week.
We all wore odd socks to school to show that it’s okay to be different and to stand up against discrimination and bullying. At Moortown, we always celebrate diversity and wearing odd socks was a fun way to show this today!
In Year 4, we had some important conversations around what bullying is and what to do if we experience it. We like to use the acronym STOP to help us remember.
We discussed where your children could get support regarding bullying:
- 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
We attended a live online lesson held by CBBC all about this years theme ‘power for good’. This is all about using out power for the right reason to stand against bullying. Year 4 came up with our own pledge to stop bullying.
Help at home: have an open discussion about bullying at home. What is bullying? What should you do if you experience bullying? How can bullying make somebody feel? How can we resolve conflict respectfully?
Living and Learning: anti-bullying day and odd socks day
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.
We thought about some positive words and actions we could use to stop bullying.
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 Szczepanska
- 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?
Anti-Bullying Day
Today was anti-bullying day. This year’s theme is ‘power for good’. Year 6 thinks that we can use our power for good by:
- not being a bystander
- standing up for ourselves
- being valiant and standing up for others
- telling a trusted adult
- blocking and reporting online
We watched a BBC live lesson which had a range of challenges to help us think about how to stop bullying.
We looked at the definition of bullying which our JLT members created:
“Bullying is when you hurt someone physically or emotionally (including online), Several Times On Purpose”
Whilst we hope this would never be the case in our school, we also discussed what you can do if you were to experience bullying at Moortown Primary School:
“Start Telling Other People. You could use the Living and Learning box, the worry box, tell a trusted adult, email stayingsafe@spherefederation.org or even call Childline (0800 1111).”
The school came in odd socks today to show that we are all unique but should still all respect each other.
In class we discussed how to be respectful and safe online. The children suggested making sure to send kind messages to each other and only playing with people they know. We also discussed what to do if someone is mean online; Year 6 said you could step away and ignore, you could report or block and you can tell an adult or even the police if it is a serious incident.
Help at home: Who are the trusted adults your child could go to? What would they do if someone was mean online? What could happen if they were mean online?
Anti-bullying day 2025
Today is national anti-bullying day and the beginning of anti-bullying week. Lots of children wore odd socks to create an awareness of this important day and to celebrate how we are all unique and different. We also centred our learning around this too.
We read our school’s anti-bullying policy which outlines what bullying is and what we can do if we or someone we know is being bullied.
“Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally (including online), several times on purpose.”
We define it by using two STOP acronyms:
- Several Times On Purpose
- Start Telling Other People
One’s a definition of bullying and the other’s a solution.
Our school definition helped us understand the different types of bullying – physical (hurting our body), emotional (hurting our feelings) or cyber bullying (online).
We took part in the BBC live lesson too and the children were secret agents trying to find as many ways to stop bullying as they could!
We used our weekly circle time to think about the role we all have to STOP bullying and discussed how we can share our feelings.
We know that we can go to these people or places for help:
- Safeguarding team – Mrs Weekes, Mr Wilks and Mrs Russell
- 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
Help at home: discuss our school definition of bullying with your child. Do they know the difference between friendship ups and downs and bullying, and between a one-off situation and something that’s happened more than once?