Living and Learning: Staying safe in our environment
Y6 visited the local park this week as part of Safety Week. On the way there, we discussed what risks we might come across: traffic on the road, trip hazards, dogs in the park and slippery equipment.
We enjoyed playing on the equipment – safely of course – before heading back to school and filling in a risk assessment for visiting the park.
This sort of activity is increasingly important for our Year 6s as they’ll be taking more and more responsiblity for themselves as they get older and move into high school. At home, start discussing doing things on their own and what they can do to do those things safely.
Free bike check Wednesday 06 February
Mission: Internet Safety
Today was esafety day. We learnt that esafety stands for electronic safety. We learnt lots of ways to stay safe online and when using electronics. There are lots of fun ways of using these electronics but we explored the need to be safe while we are online.
We started by becoming characters in the new online spy game John Bond. We started by inventing, and introducing, our spy characters with our signature spy moves.
We talked about what usernames are and who would see our usernames online (strangers). Because of this we learnt that we need to be very careful about what personal information we use as part of our usernames. In particular we shouldn’t use our names, ages or addresses. We then discussed how to make passwords super safe so people cannot crack them. Suggestions included: swapping letters for numbers like e for 3 or o for 0.
Passwords are personal and we should never say them out loud. We discussed that we can share these with our parents or carers but not to other people to keep ourselves safe. We talked about our right to say no and that no means no. We talked about not needing to feel bad or uncomfortable in saying no as it is our right. We agreed that if we are worried about upsetting someone by saying no then we will always talk to another parent or adult at school about it.
We then met 008 and her spy case…
We were given a block button to press if something happened that we didn’t like while we were playing the game. We learnt that at home we can press it if we saw something we shouldn’t see of if we got a message from someone we didn’t know.
We were given a screen shot to press if we wanted to capture a photo of our screen. We learnt that we can use this if someone sent us a message to help us report them.
We were also given a giant phone with which we were able to call the makers of the game, and report if anything went wrong.
We received our first message… The evil Cyber Bully was back! A cyber bully is someone that sends bullys us online – Several Times On Purpose.
We discussed how we could use the items in our inventory to defeat him. We decided we would: screenshot, block and report. We had successfully completed level one and moved on to level two…
We then learnt about viruses and how computers catch them if we click accept and put our details in. We agreed never to fall for a fishy deal that are too good to be true and always think if someone on the other end of the computer is trying to trick us.
Like the true spys Year 3 are, they snuck up on the evil Dr Fishy and tried not to set off the alarm.
Along the way we received messages and had to to choose whether to open or block messages.
One player was tricked into downloading a rare super spy badge and therefore got a virus and was frozen! Fortunately, she had downloaded some antivirus software so her computer was safe.
We completed the game by answering some questions and cracking the code to complete the game.
Ask your child, what would they do in these different scenarios online:
- A message pops up – “You could win £400! All you need to do is type your name in, below.”
- Your cousin asks you for your Lexia password but promises not to tell anyone else…
- You’re playing a game with some friends online and someone you don’t know sends you unkind messages that hurt you. You talk to your friend about it and they’ve got the same messages but it hasn’t upset them.
Great undercover work, super spys!
A visit from the police
Safety week has brought us many exciting visitors… including the police! Year Three were excited to hear from the police and ask all of their burning questions…
We learnt that police can help us in our communities; they keep us safe. We learnt that we can talk to PCSOs just like we can talk to parents or adults in school about any problems or safety concerns we have.
PCSOs keep our communities safe. The visitors shared that they have even rescued sheep and horses from the road!
The PCSOs talked about their radios; their way of communicating with one another. We learn that their radios have an emergency button just in case they face any aggressive behavior towards them. They also have a high visibility jacket so they are safe when crossing the roads. We were then quizzed on our Green Cross Code. I was so impressed with Year 3 as every one of them could remember how to stay safe when out and about!
The police also keep safe by wearing a heavy jacket that protects their vital organs in difficult situations. We said that the heart and lungs are our vital organs as we need them to survive.
We talked about contacting the police. In an emergency we would call 999.
We were very impressed with the respect you have shown all of our visitors, Year 3. You asked lots of the sensible and thoughtful questions that we have all learnt something new from. Well done!
Word Wheel Whizz
First News isn’t just about reading amazing stories about the world we live in – it’s also great for getting your brain whirring with their puzzles!
Check out this “useless” 8-letter anagram (and superb celebration pose)!
Living and Learning: Staying Safe week day 1
Today, we’ve launched straight into our Staying Safe themed week with a busy day of visitors and in class learning.
Our scooter training was enjoyed by all and it was great to see so many of the class travelling to school on their scooters. We hope they have learnt plenty of safety tips for their next journey to school.
‘I learnt how to go in and out of the cones and how to stop in the box.’
‘I learnt how to use the brake so you can stop.’
‘When you hold your scooter, you need to put your foot next to the scooter.’
Our second visitor of the day was Richard from One Day Creative. Our workshop was based all around Captain Digi. We set sail with Captain Digi on his ship Safety, and sailed through the story seas of the Internet, dodged the tentacles of cyber bullies, the phishing mermaids and kept our pirate identities secret.
Here are some of the messages from our drama. Ask your child to tell you more. It’s Safer Internet Day tomorrow so we look forward to learning even more about this important aspect of staying safe.
Living and Learning: Staying Safe information
A variety of safety related information will be sent home during this themed week. Have a look through the information with your child to support and reinforce this learning at home.
Living and Learning: Staying Safe week begins
Our Staying Safe themed week started today with a launch assembly by Leeds City Council’s road safety team. This included some key active travel and safety messages.
The trainers worked with a number of classes throughout the day.
- Year 3 pedestrian training
- Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 scooter training
- Year 6 Speed Indication Device – checking vehicle speeds in the 20mph zone on Shadwell Lane
Another visitor, Richard from One Day Creative, has worked with three classes today to deliver e-safety themed drama workshops. Other classes will take part in this learning tomorrow.
Ask your child what they have learnt so far based on our four main objectives for the week:
- Staying safe online
- Staying safe at home
- Staying safe at school
- Staying safe in the environment
Thank you to those parents and carers who attended the e-safety session at the end of the day. We hope you found it useful to learn more about your child’s e-safety learning. To help with practical support with devices at home, O2 in partnership with NSPCC offer a free service over the phone, 0808 800 5002, or in one of their stores.
Tomorrow is Safer Internet Day so there will be lots of in class learning on this subject. Have a look at our e-safety end of year expectations for your child’s year group.
An awesome author in Year 6
We’ve got some great writers at Moortown Primary. It’s brilliant to read about one of them, Thomas in Y6, being recognised for this. The writing below was done at home. Thomas was inspired by listening to an audio book of a Sherlock Holmes story read by Stephen Fry – and what great results just from listening to the story and soaking up the language!
The writing was shared on Twitter and a top literacy advisor, Pie Corbett, was impressed.
In some tweets to Thomas’s mum, Pie Corbett comments that it’s a good example of how children imitate their reading: ‘It’s a marvellous example of a child capturing the right tone through listening carefully to the book being read.’ It just shows that audio books – not just written books – can inspire impressive vocabulary and description! Pie Corbett goes on: ‘It’s interesting that he ‘heard’ it which also makes the point about the value of being read to…’
Well done, Thomas – we’re all very proud of you!
Follow Pie Corbett on Twitter.
Living and Learning – I stay safe at school.
This afternoon, Year 5 have been thinking of lots of different ways that we stay safe (physically and emotionally) in school.
We used this information to make some self portrait artwork that shows how each of us makes safe choices in school.
Consent was a key term that we discussed. Giving consent means that you give the ok or approval for something to happen. Year 5 were asked if it was ok for their photo to be taken and printed out for them to trace (the picture on the left) with the key words, phrases and sentences (the picture on the right). Year 5 said either yes or no and either gave their consent to have their picture taken or they did not. Simples! If they got right up to their photo being taken and then changed their mind, that was fine too. Your consent can be withdrawn at any time! It’s all part of staying safe.
Here are some ideas for how we stay safe in school:
“We follow instructions for anything. Like if there’s a fire we follow instructions like go through the fire exit and go outside and listen to the register.” – Nayaab
“If there’s a problem, if you ask the teacher, they will help you.” – Zidaan
“I enjoyed this because we’ve never done this art before and I’d like to do some more in the future.” – Gurnoor
“The most challenging part was doing the outline because you couldn’t see it through the paper well so some of it was by memory but we put them up against the window which helped a lot.” – Evie