Training day – Arty ideas !
We thought you’d enjoy hearing a little about what went on during our recent teacher training day! Part of the day was dedicated to developing our art knowledge and skills with our resident art teacher, Mrs Boulton.
Teachers got hands-on with paints, pastels and even soap! There was plenty of colour, laughter, and even a bit of friendly competition as we experimented with new techniques and ideas for upcoming art lessons.
The rest of the day focussed on other important areas too, including maths and inclusion. It was a full, productive day – and we left feeling ready and excited for the next half-term!

Half term basketball camps
As a partner school of City of Leeds Basketball Club and one of our after-school club providers, we’re pleased to share details of their half term camps held locally at Allerton High School.

Living and Learning: Me and my money themed week


Geography walk
Last week, during Geography, we planned a walk in our locality so that we could investigate what the land is used for. This week, we walked the walked!
Here are the types of land-use we saw:
- residential – flats and houses
- commercial – shops and restaurants
- recreational – Moortown Park
- transport – roads
We really enjoyed getting our steps in while being geographers! We stayed safe by wearing high-visibility jackets, walking in pairs and taking care when crossing the roads.
Geography – I can investigate land-use in my locality.
This week, during Geography, we’ve planned a walk in our locality so that we can investigate what the land is used for.
There are five main types of land-use:
- agriculture – land used for farming
- residential – land used for housing
- commercial – land used for businesses e.g. shops and restaurants
- recreational – land used for recreational activities e.g. swimming pools and golf courses
- transport – land used for roads, railways and airports
We used a map of Moortown to decide what route we’ll take. We thought about trying to create a loop and to try and pass as many different areas as possible. Have a look at what we decided on:

We’ll hopefully pass areas of residential, recreational and commercial land-use while walking along land used for transport! We’ll take pictures of each and label these in our books.
We look forward to showing you the pictures!
Junior Leadership Team
Tomorrow, Year 3 will spend time discussing and planning their JLT speeches. Then on Thursday, if they would like the opportunity to become a leader, they will deliver their speeches to the class.
What makes a great leader?
What can you do to help your class?
What strengths do you have?
Make your ideas realisitic!
Help at home by practising how your child can deliver their speech.
Top tips:
- face the audience
- project your voice
- talk with prosody
Science: Jane Goodall
Yesterday, Year 3 watched this Newsround clip about Jane Goodall.
Jane Goodall is our featured scientist for our current biology topic: skeletons, movement and nutrition.
Sadly, Jane Goodall recently passed away. Year 3 had a discussion about her life and her achievements as a female scientist. She made amazing discoveries while she studies chimpanzees in the wild.
She links to our learning because we are studying animals including humans. We’ve classified and compared skeletons and we’ll be doing the same with animals diets too.
Help at home by researching more about Jane Goodall with your child. Here’s a useful link to get you started: https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/animals/general-animals/jane-goodall-interview/
Living and Learning: protected characteristics
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been learning all about respect.
We’ve revisited what the protected characteristics are. These are characteristics that are protected by law to stop discrimination.
disability, race, gender reassignment, religion or belief, age, marital status, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation
We’ve been usingthis useful mnemonic to help us remember: DRGRAMPSS.
As well as reminding ourselves what the protected characteristics are, we’ll be exploring themes around them such as…
- Why are they protected?
- What would society be like if they weren’t protected?
- How do they link to the British Values?
We’ve had discussions about different scenarios where the characteristics aren’t being protected and see if we can identify the problem and the characteristic.
Help at home: Have a chat with your child about why we have protected characteristics and the importance of them. What could they do if they saw someone being discriminated against?
Visualising Podkin One-Ear
During our Book Club session, we used one of Authorfy’s 10 minute challenges to visualise a part of our class novel.
Our class novel is called Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood. It is the first of a series of eight books: https://www.goodreads.com/series/205224-the-five-realms
The class have been asking to read it whenever we have a spare moment!
We re-read the last pages of a chapter we finished and tried to visualise what we were hearing. Some of us did it from different perspectives and others even wanted to change how the chapter ended.
Visualising is a great activity to help understanding of a text. Help at home by visualising what you and your child have read at home.

National Poetry Day!
It is National Poetry Day tomorrow and to celebrate, we have been reading and learning a poem to perform in an assembly tomorrow. National Poetry Day’s a chance for all of us to share in the pleasure of poetry.
This website tells you about the day and why it is celebrated: https://forwardartsfoundation.org/national-poetry-day/
Our poem is Let No One Steal Your Dreams by Paul Cookson. This is same as the poem on their homework. Help at home by practising reading the poem.
The children have practised reading with prosody, projection and they’ve added actions too.










