Class News

Super Scientists

Year 2 have become scientists this week. As a class, we discussed the different types of a  scientific enquiry; observation over time; pattern seeking; identifying, classifying and grouping; comparative and fair testing (controlled investigations); and researching using secondary sources.

Over our next few lessons, we will be following the children’s curiosity and the class will be taught to use the following practical scientific
methods, processes and skills:

• asking simple questions and recognising that they can be answered in different ways
• observing closely, using simple equipment
• performing simple tests
• identifying and classifying
• using their observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions
• gathering and recording data to help in answering questions.

Encouraging questions

To get our curiosity juices flowing, the children chose from a selection of pictures that provided a stimulus. This focus prompted the children to begin to ask questions.  The class were encouraged  to develop more ‘scientific’ questions that could then be turned into an enquiry. We created our very own ‘I wonder’ wall.

Having generated a lot of questions, we then discussed whether we thought the questions could be answered  through scientific enquiry.

What could we do?

How could we find out?

I wonder what we will need?

Even though not all of the children’s questions lend themselves to being investigated, there are other ways of finding answers.  Any remaining questions, that can’t be answered, we can use the internet or books to research solutions. After all, this is a valid form of scientific enquiry in its own right and demonstrates that all questions are valued.

Living and Learning: STOP bullying

This week, all classes have been learning about different aspects of bullying during national Anti-Bullying Week.

Thank you to those families who supported our Odd Socks Day on Tuesday, celebrating that we are all unique.

Classes have been considering the following during this week.

• Our school definition of bullying.

‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’

• Types of bullying – cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, special educational need and disability
• What to do if children experience  or witness bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)

STOP can stand for two key messages: the definition (Several Times On Purpose) and the solution (Start Telling Other People).

Our new child friendly anti-bullying policy has been launched this week and this was shared, by the four Year 6 authors, in assembly.

All classes have access to their class Living and Learning box or the whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.

Please discuss this important learning at home (our whole school homework this week).

For further support, here are some resources and advice that can be found at…

• https://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/advice-parents
• https://www.kidscape.org.uk/resources/
• http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
• https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/news-blogs/get-involved-in-anti-bullying-week-2019-change-starts-with-us/
• https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neglect/bullying-and-cyberbullying/keeping-children-safe/
• https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/types-bullying/
• https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/feelings-and-symptoms/bullying/
• https://esafetyoffice.co.uk/resources/

Digital Mapping

Our geography topic for this half term is: Where in the world am I?

We kicked off our topic in Moortown Park with a treasure hunt.

The children learnt lots about map reading, compass reading, using a trundle wheel, teamwork and more.

This week we have been focusing on digital mapping through the use of Digimap.

The children have been able to locate places of interest and map their routes to and from school!

Living and learning – I know how to STOP bullying.

Today was our Secret Agent of Kindness reveal party!

We had to guess who was being especially nice to us this week. Being kind spreads positivity, building others up instead of tearing them down.

In Y6, we’re on the same team.

Well done to Manpreet for being voted Secret Agent of the week by the class.

Anti-bullying week

Our living and learning statement this week is I know how to STOP bullying. 

We learnt that bullying is when someone is hurting someone else several times on purpose. It can be physically or emotionally. 

We discussed ways to start telling other people:

– tell any adult in school or at home 

– tell a friend so they can tell an adult 

– use the L&L box

– send an email to: [email protected]

– call Childline 

We then shares ideas of how we can be the change, end bullying and make Moortown an even happier and healthier place to be. Have a look at Y3’s ideas, below. 

How does light travel?

In this week’s Science lesson, Y6 have been investigating how light travels and how shadows are formed by setting up an experiment.

We had to make sure we were being safe in the classroom.

“It was quite dark so we had to be aware of our surroundings,” said Zidaan.

Byron added, “Don’t shine the torch directly in anyone’s eye. It’s like you shouldn’t ever look at the sun directly.”

Challenge your child to finish these sentences:

Light travels in…

A shadow is formed when…

You could extend this challenge further by asking what would happen to the shadow if you changed the object that the light was shining on for one of a different size, shape or material.

“I am green for today’s learning objective, because I can explain to someone else how light travels,” said Rabiya.

Living and Learning: STOP bullying

This week is anti-bullying week and Year 2 have been considering this across different areas of our learning.

In our reading lesson, we read through our school definition of bullying and considered words we weren’t sure of. We spotted the important message of STOP – several times on purpose.

We also used our inference skills, and our school definition, when looking at this photo to consider what might be happening and whether this is bullying?

‘We can see the children are hurting the feelings of the boy on the ground.’

‘We know the boy who is sitting down is unhappy and upset because of his face and his head is down.’

‘We don’t know if this is bullying as this is one time and bullying is when it happens several times on purpose.’

Thank you to all the families who supported Odd Socks Day. There were all different sizes, patterns and colours of socks on show and it was great that the children could express themselves and celebrate their individuality while raising awareness of bullying.

Andy Day, CBeebies star and his band, Andy and the Odd Socks, has again written a song for Odd Socks Day. This time it is called “Change”, based on this year’s theme Change Starts With Us.

Finally, we considered what to do if any children were bullied, again based on the STOP message – start telling other people.

All the children considered who they would tell if this was happening to them.

As noted in our new child friendly anti-bullying policy, the message is clear.

STOP bullying – bullying is wrong!

We’re a happy and healthy school.

Living and Learning: Anti-bullying Week

This week is anti-bullying week so hopefully, given our homework, you’ve had the opportunity to discuss bullying at home. In class, we’re making sure that everybody understands what STOP means:

Several Times On Purpose

This helps us to understand what bullying is and therefore ensures we can all recognise what is and what isn’t bullying.

Start Telling Other People

This helps us to know what to do if we think we’re being bullied or if we think somebody else is being bullied.

We’ve also been discussing the different types of bullying so see if you’re child can give you an example of:

• emotional bullying
• physical bullying
• cyber bullying

Creating Characters

This half term, our focus in writing is description. This week and next, we’re learning about character descriptions. Today, we read some character descriptions and we even designed our own character to describe to someone else and see whether they could recreate it.

We realised that we had to:

• use comparisons
• use adjectives
• describe bit by bit
• go in a sensible order

Talk about your favourite characters at home and see whether you can take on the character description challenge too.

Science Vocabulary

We’ve started a new science topic – light. We made a quick bar chat to show how many of us felt red, amber or green.

Help at home by discussing these words and using them in a sentence!