Newsletters
This term’s newsletters have been emailed and paper copies will be sent home later this week.
This year, we’ll publish the newsletters on the website, too. Here are the first half-term’s…
- Year 1 and Year 2 newsletter
- Year 3 and Year 4 newsletter
- Year 5 and Year 6 newsletter
- The whole school newsletter
Reception provide their own newsletters and lots of photos, top tips and news on their class news page.
Rugby world cup activities
As the Rugby World Cup approaches, Roundhegians are organising activities for both children and adults at their local facilities.
News from Year 1
We’ve had an exciting day today; children have shown some brilliant maths skills and others have been acting out our story ‘The Leopard’s Drum’. Can your child retell the story to you?
Just a reminder that PE is tomorrow (Tuesday) and Thursday.
Having fun!
Welcome to Year 3
We have had a fantastic week getting settled into our new classroom. All the children have shown an impressive attitude to learning which is great as it means we can get on with all the learning I have planned.
It has been great meeting some of you in the playground. Please feel free to pop in anytime after school if you have any questions.
Fun in maths
Having reminded ourselves of place value this week, we used all of our refreshed knowledge to play some maths games and challenge ourselves along the way.
Beanbag drop
Somebody threw the beanbags into the basket and everybody had to write down the number it made.
Then, that person took charge and asked us questions about our number. How many thousands? What is 100 more/less? What is this number rounded to the nearest 10,000?
Target challenge
We rolled a die to decide how many digits we were working with. Then, we picked a target (the greatest number, a multiple of 5, the number closest to 6000). Each person then picked a playing card for us to write into our place value grid aiming for that target. Sometimes we all won and sometimes one person had thought more carefully.
Questions dice
For this, we roll the die to make a number and then we had to roll again to choose a question. Sometimes we had to add 100, sometimes we had to take 10. It really helped us to understand what each digit was worth in that number.
Leeds Children’s mayor
Could you be the next Leeds children’s mayor? Year 6 are invited to take part in this annual programme. Pupils write a short manifesto (400 words maximum) saying how they would improve Leeds if they were the Children’s Mayor. The manifesto must be based on one of the 12 Wishes for a more child friendly Leeds.
What would you do to make Leeds a better city for other children and young people?
If you’d like to take part then please complete your manifesto by 23.09.15 and the class will vote for the entry that will be submitted. Only one entrant can be submitted per school.
Welcome back
Hello all and welcome back.
It will be great to see everybody back in school having had a long summer to refresh ourselves. I’m excited to be in a new classroom and year group as, I hope, our new Year 5s are, too. We’ll be diving straight into a great mini-topic based on a picture book by Shaun Tan (more below) which has some amazing artwork. Each week, I’ll post on here an overview of what we’ll be focussing on in English, Maths and Topic. This means that people at home will be able to get an idea of what the children will be learning and what they might need support with.
English starts with us recapping our grammar, recognising nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, prepositions and conjunctions while we enjoy our class picture book. This will run alongside developing our skills in descriptive writing by using all of those different word classes effectively. To help at home, test each other on what type of word is on a road sign or in a recipe. Here’s a list of definitions and examples if you need a refresher too and there are some posters in the playground…
noun – can be an object (the table, a book, an orange), a place or person (Miss Rushbrooke, Leeds, Moortown Primary School).
adjective – gives information about a noun (large table, clever Miss Rushbrooke, wonderful Moortown Primary School).
verb – an action word (to play, to sneeze, to hink). These might have ed or ing added to the end, too.
adverb – gives information about the verb. You might say how (play nicely, sneeze extravagantly, think carefully), where (play on the grass, sneeze in assembly) or when (play after dinner, sneeze all through the night).
conjunction – joins two sentences together (We went to bed because we were tired. It’s raining so I’ll get an umbrella.).
preposition – indicates where or when (in, around, under, through, after, whilst).
Maths will be kicked off by ensuring we are able to read numbers up to 1,000,000 and we understand what each digit in that number is worth. This will involve ordering, comparing and rounding numbers before then applying this knowledge to real life contexts. To help at home, notice numbers around you and say them out loud. Decide which is bigger or smaller and test each other by asking what is 100 more or 10 less.
Topic will be focussed around Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing‘. We’ll look at art by Salvador Dali and take on the role of news reporters as we write a class report on the discovery of the ‘lost thing’.
SEAL New beginnings
As we start the new school year, our SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme focuses on New Beginnings.
We have three new members of staff making a new beginning at Moortown, Mrs Wells, Mr McKeon and Mr Lawton, alongside new children joining our school and our new Reception class.
‘I make someone feel welcome‘ is the first SEAL statement to launch the theme.
New beginnings allows children the opportunity to discuss and reflect on how they or others may feel in a new situation or setting. This SEAL theme offers children the opportunity to see themselves as valued individuals within a community, and to contribute to shaping a welcoming, safe and fair learning community for all.
During the theme, the key areas of learning are empathy, self-awareness, social skills and motivation.
Through discrete SEAL lessons, circle times and across the curriculum, children will explore feelings of happiness and excitement, sadness, anxiety and fearfulness, while learning (and putting into practice) shared models for calming down and problem-solving.
New Beginnings supports the development of a learning community in each classroom where all members feel that they belong. Class contracts, produced at the start of the year, allow children to contribute to how they feel they can achieve a safe and fair learning community.
Reading
Just as the summer started, the papers were full of articles about ideal holiday reading for adults and children alike. (I think ideal holiday reading is any reading you want to, whether it’s in the holidays or not!)
How many books has your child read this holiday? More importantly, what sort of discussions have you had with your child about what books you’ve been reading, and of course what they’ve been reading. (I’ve already had chats with Mrs Weekes and Miss Valentine about my summer reading. including a great children’s book, ‘Grace‘ by one of my favourite authors, Morris Gleitzman.)
As we approach the end of the holidays, it’s an ideal time to reflect on what we’ve read – and start the new school year off taking a positive, encouraging approach to your child’s reading.
Encourage your child to read anything and everything: a story, leaflet, brochure, comic, flyer, advert… It could be for pure entertainment, or with a different purpose: to use a recipe, make a shopping list, read street signs, or any kind of text! The more varied reading your child does, the less likely they are to be put off reading a text. Don’t be too pushy either – texts which are too difficult can put children off (harder books might be best left to bedtime reading); all children should be able to read their reading book 90-95% accurately and fluently in order to enjoy and gradually progress in their reading.
- Build reading accuracy – as your child reads aloud, point out words they miss and help them sound out and read them correctly.
- Build reading comprehension – talk with your child about what they’re reading, asking about new words and what new information they’ve learned.
- Read together every day – don’t forget reading aloud to your child at bedtime reading can count, too!
- Don’t overlook non-fiction texts – spend time talking about pictures and diagrams.
- Visit the library regularly – did your child take part in the local libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge (see News article on 13 July 2015)?
- Use the Internet – find out more about the books your child has read or would like to read next, and just enjoy surfing the internet for facts and figures about whatever interests your child.
Enjoyable, regular and short practice is the best way for your child to progress and learn through reading. Make sure your child spends 10-15 minutes reading each day and use the guidance below to ensure (s)he is getting the most from every book they read. The questions will need to be varied according to the book and your child. The book may lend will to developing knowledge, phonic, punctuation, writing or comprehension skills.
Don’t attempt to try to cover all the bullet points! It might be a good idea to focus on just one of these areas every few days or so, or just choose a question from two or three sections.
Comprehension
- Did you enjoy the story – why?
- What happened at the start / in the middle / at the end?
- Was there a problem? How was it resolved?
- How would you have resolved the problem? Can you think of another way?
- What would you do if …
- What was the main idea of the story?
- Can you summarise the story in a couple of sentenced?
- Try to predict what will happen before the story ends.
- Write about a memory or experience of your own that is similar to something you’ve read in your book.
- Write a letter to someone telling them about the book and your opinion of the book.
- Construct a time line to fit the story. Include all the main events
Characters
- Who are the characters?
- What do they look like?
- What kind of clothes do they wear?
- How did the character feel when …?
- What kind of mood was the character in?
- What kind of personality do they have? Kind, caring, nasty, bully, liar, friendly, quiet, noisy …?
- What does it say in the text that makes you think this?
- What do other characters think or say about this character? Why do they feel this way?
- How does your character treat other people in the book? How does the character change throughout the story? Explain and give support for your answers.
- Can you re-write the story and include your own character?
- Write a description of the main character – their looks, the way they dress, the way they talk and their personality.
- Draw and label a character or a setting from a description in the book.
Story setting
- Where is the story set?
- Imagine you are in the story …
- What can you see? What can you hear? What can you small? What can you feel?
- Can you write a description of the story setting using adjectives? eg I found myself standing in the middle of …
- What is the weather like?
Non-Fiction
- Research the subject further using the internet or local library.
- Write down in your own sentences some facts you have learnt from the book.
- Can you think of anywhere we might be able to find additional information about this?
- What do the pictures or diagrams in this piece of information add to the text?
- How are these different to the pictures you might find in a story?
- Can you point out: a heading, sub-heading, caption, diagram, introduction, contents page etc?
- Why has the author organised the information in this way? (You could refer to sections and sub-sections, bullet points etc)
- How do you feel about …? Can you explain why?