Living and Learning: being safe
In Living and Learning and circle time we have been talking about hwo to stay safe. We have thought about when we might need to get help and how to get help.
The NSPCC Speak out Stay safe assembly gave a very clear message about being safe and in our weekly circle time, the children were all able to say how they would seek help (Start Telling Other People).

Help at home by reinforcing these important safety messages that were part of your homework last week.
The NSPCC has also developed an adapted version of their assembly for parents/carers to use at home with their children and some resources that can be used to enable further discussion whilst doing activities with your children.
You’ll also find online safety information for families of children with additional needs and disabilities.
Childline also have a website with age-appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.
Geography – Local walk
On Tuesday this week we set off to explore Moortown on a local walk. Our aim was to visit 5 different locations and complete a survey of what we liked and disliked at each location. We looked at five different aspects of each location – noise, litter, recycling bins, safety and greenery. Each time we stopped at a location we worked with our partner to put a smiley, straight or sad face for each category. You can see some of the results below.



Today, we looked at our results and analysed them. We wanted to know which place we liked the best. In order to do that we counted up how many of each face we had for each location. The place with the most smiley faces was the winner. Lots of us found that Moortown park was one of the best places to be in Moortown – even in the freezing weather!

Help at home by talking what you like and don’t like about the local area with your child.
We are readers!
On Thursday afternoon Year 1 decided to change around their book corner. Mr McGriffiths spread out lots of new and interesting books on our tables and we were able to explore all the books. Everyone was very excited to look through and read these different books, which ranged from superhero potatoes to snow dragons via mischievous cats! In the end, we had to choose just one book to go into the book corner. It was very difficult to choose but we can’t wait to share our choice with our friends!


I was very proud of how enthusiastic all the children were when exploring and reading the books and I am very excited to get reading these books to the whole class!
Help at home: make sure you are reading your library books with your children every week as well as enjoying reading books to and with them. Don’t forget to write in your child’s reading record ever week when you have read their e-book.
Living and Learning: drug education
In our latest Living and Learning lessons, we’ve been learning about safety around medicines and household products.
We considered:
What are medicines?
What do they look like?
How are they used?
Why do people use them?
The children had lots to share about their experiences of taking different medicines and what they are used for.
Using different scenarios, we thought about what would be the best things to help. Sometimes a hug, some water, rest, a tissue or sleep can be enough to help someone feel better and medicine might not be needed.

Then, we considered safety rules at home and how to keep themselves and others safe.
We discussed the following safety rules depending on whether they were true or false or if it depends on the situation.

In some more scenarios, we thought about why the situation was unsafe and what the character could do to prevent a danger.
We need to take the right medicine for us.
Medicine should only be given by adults.
The wrong medicine can make you very poorly.

These are adult pills and they should not touch them.
They need to be kept in a safe place.
Help at home: please reinforce this key safety message at home. Make sure your child is aware of possible dangers at home, such as medicines and household products, and how to seek help if they need it.
Spring term after-school clubs


We are geographers!
This half term, our topic will focus on Geography. Our topic is called ‘The streets around our school’. We will be focusing on the environment we live in, any local issues and finding solutions to issues in our locality.
We are becoming geographers – a type of scientist who studies the Earth. Geographers study the land (the physical features of the Earth) and the people who live within it (the human features).
We looked on Google earth to see where we lived in comparison to the whole Earth. We know that we live in the continent Europe. The country England and the city Leeds. We looked at Moortown Primary School and Moortown park on Google Earth. We even spotted where our classroom was!
Try going on Google Earth at home. Can you find your house and places you like to visit?
We also looked at the different countries that make up the UK and their capital cities. Help at home by looking at a map of the UK with your child and talking about the different countries and cities.
Happy and healthy Christmas!
Everyone in the Year One team would like to wish all families and children a very happy and healthy Christmas. Whatever you are getting up to over the break we hope you take time to relax and enjoy the holiday with family and friends.
The children have worked so hard over the past term, which is always a really important one for Year One children, and we are very proud of all their efforts.
We hoped you enjoyed the Wriggly Nativity as much as the adults and children did performing it! We were all superstars!
Thanks again for your support and we will see you all in the new year!
Wriggly Nativity and party dates
As we begin the final week of the autumn term, here are some reminders of events happening this week.
Reception, Y1 & Y2 will present their Christmas production, ‘A Wriggly Nativity’.
There will be two performances:
Tuesday 13 December – 2.15pm – 3.00pm
Wednesday 14 December – 2.15pm – 3.00pm
Please specify which day you would like to attend via school gateway under the payments section.
16 December
Non-uniform day
Reception, Y1 & Y2 Christmas party
Science – John Dunlop
As homework this week the children have been tasked to talk all about John Dunlop, our features scientist for the half term. John Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre when he saw his son riding his tricycle very uncomfortably around his garden! He used a garden hose filled with air to test his ideas.
In Science this week we have experimented with different balls to see which would make the best tyre. We rolled the balls down a ramp and measured how far they bounced back off the wall. We were careful to keep everything the same apart from the ball.



We found that the soft, rubber ball bounced the furthest. I wonder if you can think of a reason why that was?
Then we used three of the same balls but filled with different amounts of air. The ball with the most air bounced the furthest – can you think how John Dunlop’s invention matches our results?


Wriggly Nativity
The children are very excited about our upcoming production of ‘Wriggly Nativity’ in the last week of term.
We have found a playlist of all the songs we have been learning in school on Youtube. (link here) We would be really grateful if you could practise the songs at home.
Thank you for your support,
Year 1 and 2 team.