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?
Guided Reading Week 1
Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 14th November.
The Girl of Ink and Stars – up to page 44.
Kensuke’s Kingdom – up to page 45.
Extra time – up to page 30.
Flood and Fang – up to page 55.
Rooftoppers – up to page 73.
Me and My Money Week
This week we have had a very busy and very informative Me and My Money week!
We have learnt about tax, bank accounts, converting currencies, debit and credit cards and budgeting! We have also discussed our values and ideas about money both now and in the future. The children were very enthusiastic and full of questions about everything from interest to VAT!
We have had visitors from the Yorkshire Building Society and Virgin Money as well as an online assembly from Barclays. Yorkshire Building Society spoke to us about budgeting and gave us the task of organising a party for £400. We had to think about food, guests, entertainment and decorations all while keeping in budget. The children loved doing this activity. I was impressed with their thoughtful ideas.
Virgin Money spoke to us about the Make £5 Grow project. This will involve each child being given a £5 loan which they can use to make, create or design something that they will then sell at an event later in the year. Any profits they make the school will keep and Year 5 will decide what to do with them. The children were very excited to get going with this and I will post more information about it soon.
To finish the week off we used the one and two pennies we had collected all week to write out MOORTOWN on the school playground. It looked great! We also took part in the sponsored Hotshots challenge. I was really impressed by every single child with some reaching over 40 mph! All the children were also really supportive of each other which was great to see.
Help at home by discussing what we have been learning this week as well as discussing how you might use money.
Me and my money week
This week has been all about money and we’ve learnt a lot about money, spending, prices and saving. Here’s what we’ve got up to:
It’s party time!
We did an activity where we learned how to plan a party. From thinking about what makes a good party to how much we were spending on balloons. We started by ranking elements of a party by how important they are.
Finally, we had to think about what we would spend on what. Each group had a budget of £100 for 30 guests and the children quickly realised how they needed to save money on a venue for the party so that they could have more decorations or food!
The children had to decide between their wants and needs.
The Lost Purse
We had an online activity with some workers from the bank. During this session we learnt:
- People can pay for things using cash or electronically.
- The price of everyday items like a meal deal from the supermarket.
- People can sometimes borrow money but they have to pay it back otherwise there is consequences.We also were able to give advice to someone on how they should spend their money. ‘Mr I Spendalot’ wanted to book a £500 holiday. He could have either spent his money on his debit card or use his credit card and have to pay it back. We decided that maybe using his debit card was a good idea if he knew that he could afford it!
Help at home by thinking of different items that you have or would like and and decide: Is it a need or a want?
Hotshots!
The children had 3 chances to score a goal and see how fast the ball was travelling. Any sponsorship donations can be given online via Gateways.
Moortown Penny Trail
Check out the school’s news page to see our penny trail making ‘MOORTOWN’.
Me and My Money Week!
This week has been one of our themed weeks all about money! We’ve had a variety of sessions where we’ve learnt a lot about money, spending, charities, prices and saving. We’ve had some visitors to help us with our learning too. Here’s what we’ve got up to:
We began our week with a workshop from HSBC. During this, we learnt about the different ways we can pay for things (using gift cards, cash, debit cards or credit cards). People can sometimes borrow money from the bank but they have to pay it back otherwise there is consequences. We used what we had learnt to give some advice to someone on how they should spend their money.
We had a fun session on budgeting. Year 4 became party planners and were given a £100 budget to organise a birthday party for 30 children. They had to make spending choices, considering their priorities, needs and wants and most importantly, could not go over budget!
Across the week, we’ve been collecting 1ps and 2ps for our school charity Yorkshire Air Ambulance. We collected them all together to do a penny trail spelling out MOORTOWN in the playground.
Help at home: when you next go food shopping, give your child an imaginary budget and see if they can stay in it as they’re walking around selecting items.
Guided Reading Week 1
Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 14th November.
Divine Freaks: up to page 67
Spirit Walker: up to page 66
How to Train your Dragon: up to page 75
The Considine Curse: up to page 63
The Switch: up to page 61
Me and My Money
This week, we’ve been learning all about money. We started off by looking at how online games and websites make money by trying to persuade you to stay online for longer. We created posters to show how they do this and how to stay safe online. The children discussed how the companies are making a bad moral choice as they know people should limit their screen time.
On Monday afternoon, we had a zoom with HSBC where they showed us how we can spot a fraudulent message about your banking accounts.
The children created a list of things to look out for to spot fraud:
- spelling mistakes
- a link to another website
- grammar mistakes
- tense mistakes
- a general ‘customer’ message rather than your name
- asking you to call a number immediately
Help at home: What might be fraudulent about these messages?
On Tuesday, we learnt how to convert currencies. Currency is the official money a country uses to buy things, like the British pound or the US dollar. The children looked at the exchange rate for the day and converted Euros and US Dollars into Great British Pounds; they estimated this using a formula on a calculator and then checked online for the accurate answer.
In the afternoon, we had a visit from Virgin Money. They have a fun, engaging project for primary school pupils designed to help kids draw out their enterprising skills, along with equipping them with important financial knowledge. They will create a business idea in small groups to try and create a profit. We will have a school fair where they will share what they have been doing – more to be revealed at a later date.
On Wednesday, we joined an online assembly about number confidence.
Help at home: Answer these questions and discuss how to calculate the answers.
In the afternoon, we learnt all about the differences of bank accounts and looked at the pros and cons of credit and debit cards.
Debit Cards
Credit Cards
We also looked at how to find the unit price for items. We do this to find the cheapest option.
On Thursday, we had some visitors from the Yorkshire Building Society to help teach us about budgeting. To help with this knowledge the children were given the task to plan a party with a hypothetical budget of £400. We discussed the difference between needs and wants and the difference between fixed and variable costs.
On Friday, we talked about taxes: what they are, why we have it and if we think if it’s important or not.
Help at Home: Discuss 3 things they learnt this week. What did they find the most interesting? What did they already know? When might they need to know this knowledge later in life?
Poetry Picnic
Our Halloween themed poem for the week is called Pointy Hat. We hope you enjoy listening to us performing it!