Class News

Our class photo will be in the Evening Post on Tuesday!

Photos of the class will be in a special supplement in the Yorkshire Evening Post on Tuesday 08 November.

Doggie Heaven

Year 4 were treated to a special four-legged visitor today.

Meet Bailey, a 5 year-old dog who just loves to be cuddled!

The class were brilliant with him and Bailey definitely enjoyed his stay. Year 4 learnt all about how to be safe around dogs. They also learnt about what to do in difficult situations around dogs.

Thank you to Dog’s Trust for making it such a fun session.

Remember, Remember…

… Thursday 10th November!

It’s our class assembly. We look forward to seeing you there at 2.40.

This week’s phonemes

This week, your child will be learning the letters s, a, t, p, i, n and the sounds they make.

The children will be taught some of the terminology we use. So that you don’t feel left out, here are a few definitions:

• A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.
• A grapheme is the letter, or letters, representing a phoneme, such as t, ai, igh, ch.
• A digraph is two letters, making one sound; a consonant digraph contains two consonants (sh, ck, th), whilst a vowel digraph contains at least one vowel (ai, ee, ar, oy).
• A trigraph is three letters making one sound, like igh, dge.
• Blending is recognising the letter sounds in a written word (for example c-u-p), and merging or synthesising them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’ (this is essential during the reading process).
• Segmenting is the opposite of blending; it involves identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (eg ‘him’ = h – i – m) and writing down letters for each sound to form the word (segmenting supports the writing process).
• A c-v-c word is a consonant, vowel, consonant word such as c-a-t and also sh-o-p.

Encourage your child to read and write cvc words, especially using letters and sounds that you know we’ve covered in school – this week, lots of words can be blended and segmented using s, a, t, p, i, n.

Hobby Half Day

Check out our fantastic photos of our first Hobby Half Day!

Children from Year 1 to Year 6 had the opportunity to participate in an afternoon of learning something new. The activities ranged from everyday baking and cooking to the unusual: creating their own carbon footprint.

An Amazing Assembly

Last Thursday, Year 1 shared their learning in “a really fab assembly”. The children have been learning about the people in our community and showed this through drama and singing.

“What a wonderful show. Excellent theme for them to appreciate all the people that help us.”

As you can see from the quotes, our parents thought the children did really well.  Thank you to all the parents for your support.

“What a fantastic performance – such confidence from all of the children.”

Green Fingers in Y5

On Monday 17 October, a group of Y5 children did some fantastic work in our local community.  We have created a partnership with Moortown in Bloom and over the past few months we have been helping them develop a patch of land at the end of Stonegate Road and Scothall Road.  Here are some of the children in action!

Vote Bronwen for Leeds Mayor!

We’re very proud that Bronwen, a Year 6 pupil here at Moortown Primary, has been selected as one of ten finalists for the Leeds Children’s Mayor competition. All the Year 6 children completed a manifesto of what they would like to change if they could become Mayor for the day and Bronwen was chosen as our entrant for the competition.  Her manifesto is brilliant, meeting all the criteria set (see below).

Vote for Bronwen! Voting has now opened for the finalists and anyone with a Leeds Learning account can vote. If you know of anyone who has one, please encourage them to vote. 

Voting will remain open until midday on Friday 04 November.

Representatives of Leeds Children’s Services and Leeds Council undertook the difficult task of short listing the twenty Children’s Mayor entries they received down to a final ten. In order to make the short listing a fair and transparent process, they used score cards and scored the manifestos individually against four criteria: 

• How clear and focused the manifesto idea was
• How practical, achievable and affordable the manifesto idea was
• The number of children and young people who would benefit from the manifesto idea
• The extent to which children would work alongside adults to make the idea a reality

As well as Moortown Primary, the schools whose entrants made the final this year are Allerton Bywater Primary School, Bramley St Peters Primary School, Calverley C of E Primary School, Hill Top Primary School, Kippax North Junior & Infant School, Queensway Primary School, Shire Oak Primary School, Strawberry Fields Primary School and Whinmoor St Paul’s Primary School

This whole programme is about encouraging children to show an interest in democracy and to get them into the habit of voting on issues that affect them. 

We know children at Moortown Primary already make a positive contribution to the school and their community through the School Council, litter-picking, raising money for charity etc. It’s great individuals like Bronwen want to go the extra mile to have their views heard!

Parents Evening Times

Phonics – How to say the different phonemes

It is very important when children are beginning to read and spell that the phonemes (sounds) are said correctly.

This is a list of the phonemes in the order that they are taught.

(Don’t forget to avoid saying an ‘uh’ sound after some letter sounds – this might be how you remember the sounds, but it’s not helpful to spell a word like ‘dog’ with each letter pronounced ‘duh-o-guh’ – instead, try to just say the very initial, pure sound: ‘d-o-g’.)

1. s Weave your hand in an s shape, like a snake, and say ssssss
2. a Wiggle fingers above elbow as if ants are crawling on you and say a, a, a
3. t Turn your head from side to side as if watching tennis and say t, t, t
4. i Pretend to be a mouse by wriggling your fingers at the end of your nose and squeak i, i, i
5. p Pretend to puff out candles on a cake and say p, p, p
6. n Make a noise as if you are a plane.  Hold your arms out and say nnnnnn
7. e Pretend to tap an egg on the side of a pan and crack it into the pan, saying eh, eh, eh
8. h Hold your hand in front of your mouth and pant as if you are out of breath and say h, h, h
9. r Pretend to be a puppy holding a piece of rag. Shake your head from side to side and say rrrrrr
10. m Rub your tummy as if seeing tasty food and say mmmmmm
11. d Beat your hands up and down as if playing a drum and say d, d, d
12. g Spiral your hand down as if water is going down the drain and say g, g, g
13. o Pretend to turn a light switch on and off and say o, o, o
14. c k Raise your hands and snap your fingers as if playing castanets and say ck, ck, ck
15. u Pretend you are putting up an umbrella and say u, u, u
16. l Pretend to lick a lollipop and say lllllll
17. f Let hands gently come together as if toy fish deflating, and say fffff
18. b Pretend to hit a ball with a bat and say b, b, b
19. j Pretend to wobble on a plate and say j, j, j
20. w Blow on to your open hand as if you are the wind and say wh, wh, wh
21. v Pretend to be holding the steering wheel of a van and say vvvvvv
22. z Put your arms out at your sides and pretend to be a bee saying zzzzzz
23. y Pretend to be eating a yogurt and say y, y, y
24. x Pretend to take an x-ray of someone  and say ks, ks, ks
25. ch Move arms at sides as if you are a train and say ch, ch, ch
26. sh Place index finger over lips and say sh, sh, sh
27. th th Pretend to be naughty clowns and stick out tongue a little for the th and further for the th sound (this and thumb)
28. qu Make a duck’s beak with your hands and say qu, qu, qu
29. ng Imagine you are a weightlifter and pretend to lift a heavy weight above your head saying ng…
30. ai Cup hand over ear and say ai, ai, ai
31. ee or Put your hands on your head as if ears on a donkey and say eeyore, eeyore
32. oa Bring your hand over your mouth as if you have done something wrong and say oh!
33. ie Stand to attention and salute, saying  ie ie
34. oo oo Move head back and forth as if it is the cuckoo in a cuckoo clock saying u, oo,u, oo (little and long oo.)
35. ou Pretend your finger is a needle and prick thumb saying ou, ou, ou
36. oi Cup hands around mouth and shout to another boat saying oi, oi ship ahoy!
37. ue Point to people around you and say you, you, you
38. er Roll hands over each other like a mixer and say er,er,er
39. ar Open mouth wide and say ah. Flap hands as if a seal and say ar, ar, ar