Police Officers for the Day
Today, we had a special visit from Police Community Support! We talked about how to be safe when crossing the road and walking home, and how we can help our parents decide the safest place to park!
First, we put on our hi-vis jackets (so people could see us and we were safe) and listened to our briefing.
Next, we went outside to the road in front of school and one by one had a go using the speed gun to measure how fast (or slowly and safely) the cars were going.
“They taught us lots of bits about road safety that we might not have known.”
– Felix
“Hold hands with your adult and ask them not to park on the yellow lines.”
– Liam
“I liked it because I got to wear a police hat.”
– Phoebe
“I liked using the speed gun because you got to do something that not many other people could do.”
– Emma
“I liked the speed gun because it was fun seeing how fast the cars go.”
– Isabella
Who do you think you are?
Our themed week is in full swing with many highlights so far.
- Mindfulness workshops for Year 1, 2, 3 and Reception.
- Dove self esteem sessions for Year 5 and 6 (Visitor feedback – ‘We really enjoyed running the sessions and the classes we had were great and very engaged!’)
- Visits from RNIB, BID sensory services and the Leeds deaf and hearing impairment team for all classes
- West Yorkshire Police Hate Crime session for Year 5 and 6
- Some Year 5 and 6 children attended the Moor Allerton Elderly Care ‘Old & New Games’ afternoon (Visitor feedback – ‘They were brilliant and a pleasure to have.’)
- Whole school assembly about charities by Val from the Salvation Army charity shop in Meanwood
- Year 4 visit to St Gemma’s Hospice
- Year 5 visit to Marjorie and Arnold Ziff centre
- Year 2 visit to Donisthorpe Hall
Thank you to parents who have attended our mindfulness workshop on Monday and our community coffee morning and wake up shake up today.
There is still more to come.
- PCSO visit to talk about community safety, road safety and monitor speed outside school in 20mph zone for Reception, Year 1 and 3
- Mindfulness workshops for Year 3, 4 and 5
- Learn languages in our community for Year 3 and 4
- Two more chances to walk, bike or scoot to school (Road Safety Week) to be in with a chance to win prizes on Friday
- New school charity will be chosen
- Have a go at the Who do you think we are? competition
Take a look at the class news pages to find out more about your child’s learning this themed week.
Can you fingerspell?
Yesterday, we were lucky enough to have some visitors from BID Services – a charity committed to promoting choice and independence.
They talked to us about how to signal and help people with hearing impairments and taught us how to Fingerspell the alphabet which we thoroughly enjoyed!
“My favourite part was learning the numbers.”
– Rayn
“I really liked it when we tried to make our names with the alphabet.”
– Safiya-Mishal
“My favourite number was the number nine and you held your hand up sideways.”
– Hifza
“I liked the doorbell so if you were blind and deaf you had the remote in your pocket and it would vibrate so you would know to open the door.”
– Kashif
For more information about Sensory Support, check out the Leeds Sensory Support Service or for resources and games to learn British Sign Language go to their homepage.
What does community mean to us?
As part of our Who Do You Think You Are? themed week, we have discussed what community means to us in our Living and Learning session. First, we made a mind map as a class…
… and then split into smaller groups to make our own.
- “Community is sharing happy memories.”
- “Community is our heritage.”
- “Community is where you belong.”
We look forward to welcoming our visitors through the week and learning and discovering more about our Identity topic.
From STOP to Takeover Day – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up
This week’s Living and Learning theme was: “I know how to stop bullying”. This underpinned a lot of what we covered in class.
In our Living and Learning session, we discussed the impact that our words have on others.
Using our ‘friend’, we took it in turns to say mean things about them. With every hurtful comment, we ripped our friend to pieces.
Once there was nothing left of our friend, we took it in turns to say nice things about them, putting them back together as we did so.
We were able to put our friend back together, but what do you notice? Our words had changed our friend. We discussed how important it is to build each other up and understand the power of words.
In reading and writing sessions this week, we have analysed instructions by following some to make our own treasure maps (Learning Objective: Retrieving Information)…
…and collecting a word bank of appealing recipe language (Learning Objective: Which words interest the reader?).
In maths, (Learning Objective: Multiplying and Dividing By 4) we’ve used story problems and bar models to support our learning. We’ve used reasoning skills to explain if diagrams were true or false:
Thank you to the masses of parents that came to our assembly on Wednesday! The hard work you’ve been putting in at home really shone through.
On Thursday, we had some visitors from Y6 to share opinions with and discuss our learning.
Friday brought with it the long-awaited Takeover Day! Roles were shared amongst the class such as “Star Chart Monitor” and “Register Taker”. Children were extremely enthusiastic and relished the responsibility! They even asked if they could take on more chores at home!
Well done to certificate winner Emily, for always knowing the right thing to do, especially how to stop bullying, and all of Year 3 for their fantastic assembly using all the 8 Rs for learning.
Mindfull or mindful?
Would you like to find out more about mindfulness and how it can be used to support your child at home?
As part of our whole school themed week next week, all children will be taking part in mindfulness workshops. There’ll also be a parent/carer session on Monday 20 November at 2:30-3:15pm.
Please contact the office if you would like to attend.
Christmas school dinner themed menu
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 07 December. Please contact the office, before Monday 20 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
From SNAP to Smell Journeys – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up
Last week’s Living and Learning theme was I know we’re all the same and we’re all different. We used Our Rules that we created last week in our discussion of the pros and cons of being the same and different to everybody else. We decided it would be really boring if we were all the same all the time! In teams, we wrote a recipe for success for teamwork. Some ingredients we thought of were ‘problem solving attitude’ and ‘good listening skills’.
We took on the role of detectives in English this week, spotting features of an instruction text in cookery books. We had competitions to see whose text contained the most features – but we had to give evidence of each feature to win the point!
Maths has revolved around multiplying and dividing by 3! We’ve looked at finding groups of three and finding three equal groups which is tricky because they sound similar but are very different. There are lots of ways to represent one number sentence. For example: 5 x 3 = could be expressed as ‘3 x 5′, ’15’, ‘five threes’ or shown by fifteen counters. We played Snap to test our knowledge of this in a fun way.
Some of us had more luck than others. You had to be quick!
To round off our Explorers topic in a creative way, we went on a Smell Journey around school, after discussing artwork by Kate McLean: NYC’s Threshold of Smells.
This inspired us to write a descriptive recount of a walk to school where we were bombarded with stinky stenches and awesome aromas. We also wrote a class Pongy Poem, which we displayed in the style of a smell.
Next, we experimented with colour and shape using watercolours to represent what the smells might look like if we could see them. (There were some interesting discussions about certain smells!)
This week’s Creative Homework task was to show understanding of addition and subtraction and I was absolutely bowled over by the quality of the submissions! The children had clearly gone to so much effort to show what they had learnt over the past few weeks and they were so proud of what they had done, which sparked some great conversations between pupils. It was fantastic to see. There were lots of board games with their own rules using addition and subtraction at their core, there were online quizzes and mazes and puzzles, there was even a video presentation (see the bottom of the post)! We all thoroughly enjoyed discussing each and every one, so I would like to say a massive well done from me, once more. Check out some of their brilliant learning below:
Well done to certificate winners Hifza, for a fantastic contribution to this week’s Living and Learning theme and her understanding of how we are the same and different, and Henka, for an unbelievably good piece of descriptive writing and your handwriting has come on leaps and bounds, too! Keep it up!
Who do you think you are? themed week 20 November
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place from Monday 20 November, which also coincides with national Road Safety Week. A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education.
Events during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging, self-esteem and mindfulness, diversity of people around us including race, age, religion, disability and gender. Classes will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations such as St Gemma’s, local care homes, Moortown Community Group and taking pride in the local community by litter picking.
Road Safety Week will run alongside our themed week where children are encouraged to take a walk/scoot/bike in the community on their way to and from school, maybe even picking up a piece of litter on the way. If your child walks, scoots or bikes, they should complete the slip at the bottom of the letter sent home (spare tokens are available in class), each day, for a chance to win a £10 shopping voucher for each class. We hope you will support this initiative in helping children make a healthy start to their day and also helping towards reducing congestion at our gates. Even by parking further away from school your child could then to do the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter. Bike and scooter storage facilities are available beside the Year 3 and 4 classrooms.
During the themed week, children will be researching local, national and international charities and a new school charity will be chosen at the end of the week to replace our current charities, Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Mind Leeds.
Friday 24 November will be a non-uniform identity day. Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend, a team they are part of or support or traditional dress to represent their heritage. We invite a donation for the PTA Christmas fair.
Who do you think we are?
Do you think you’d recognise some of our staff in their early years? This photo competition is back and will run throughout the week with details to follow separately. Proceeds will be given to our new school charity.
Community coffee morning Wednesday 22 November 9-10am
As part of the week, we welcome parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA, our governing body, Moortown Community Group and Friends of Moortown Park. I will also be available to speak to parents about our new Living and Learning scheme of work. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 10am in the main playground.
Mindfulness information session for parents
Please see the separate letter to sign up for this parent workshop on Monday 20 November, 2:30pm-3:15pm.
Can you help?
Pupil feedback from our previous Who do you think you are? themed week was to ‘learn more languages that other people speak.’ Do you speak another language and you would be happy to speak to children about this? If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have any local community links that may support our week?
Our website and Twitter continue to keep you up to date with key community events as well as our community noticeboard with lots of information about the themed week too. It’s going to be a busy week!
Anti-bullying week All Different, All Equal
Next week is national Anti-Bullying Week and our Living and Learning statement is I know how to STOP bullying.
The theme this year is ‘All Different, All Equal‘ with the following key aim:
The idea is to help children and young people celebrate what makes them, and others, unique and help them understand why it’s important that every child feels included in school, able to be themselves, without fear of bullying.
Our school definition has recently been reviewed by the new School Council and remains unchanged.
‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’
As part of their learning this week, children will discuss these aspects of bullying:
- Our definition of bullying (above)
- 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).
All classes have access to their class I want to say box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.
KS2 classes will also be using dance to show this learning through dance workshops arranged as part of the week.
For further support, bullying resources 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-2017-all-different-all-equal/
- 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/