What is our new school charity?

Part of our Who do you think you are? themed week was to learn about charities and how we can support them.

Our previous school charities, Leeds Mind and Yorkshire Air Ambulance Money, will benefit from £309.97 and £508.88 respectively as a result of fundraising and donations.  Thank you.

It is now time to change our school charity.  Each class discussed a range of charities, researched by the children for their homework, and voted on one charity they wanted to put forward for the school councillors to decide on.

Here were the class choices:

• Year 1 Plastic Oceans Foundation
• Year 2 Barnado’s
• Year 3 RSPCA
• Year 4 St Gemma’s Hospice
• Year 5 Make a wish
• Year 6 Diabetes UK

The final decision was a vote by the school council and the winning charity for 2017-2018 was Make A Wish.  We will support this charity for one year.

We look forward to welcoming representatives from the charity in January for an assembly where we will hear more about their valuable work.

Who do you think you are?

It’s been a very busy week in Year 4.

With a big focus on our identity, we began the week discussing and thinking about  all the different things that make us who we are.

As well as identity, we thought about the community we live in and how that is a big part of our lives.

On Wednesday, Year 4 spent the morning visiting St Gemma’s Hospice in Moortown.

Who We Are 

“We are a Leeds-based charity providing expert care and support for local people with terminal illnesses. We offer specialist medical and nursing care to thousands of local people each year and offer invaluable support to their families and friends. Opened in 1978, we are the largest hospice in Yorkshire and one of the largest in England.

We provide expert care, support, advice and information for patients and their families, carers and loved ones. We are also a world leader in palliative care research and our Academic Unit provides training and education for professionals. We provide information and support for children and young people when someone in their family is seriously ill or has died.”

This hospice is a big part of our community and lots of us have personal links to it. During our visit, the children learnt how the charity supports some very poorly people and their families.

The St Gemma’s Young People’s Service arranges all kinds of fun activities for children of all ages, to help them cope with their feelings and worries.

These are some of the methods used by the team to help families.

• We meet with children, young people and their families.
• We sometimes do activities such as artwork or an activity book. We also talk about the person who is ill or has died.
• We are used to talking about difficult things and don’t mind if you get upset.
• Sometimes groups of children and young people meet together to talk about how things are.
• If we are working with a child or a young person and they ask a question, we will answer it openly and honestly.

Did you know that St Gemma’s was originally a school? It was run by a group of nuns.

During our visit, the children were able to look around the beautiful, well tendered gardens. These are a great comfort to many and a lovely area to spend time with loved ones.

It is always a very humbling experience visiting St Gemma’s. This was made even more so by the respect, care, patience and behaviour of all of the Year 4 children. It was an absolute pleasure to take them.

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.

Taking over in spots!

Year 4 came into school looking slightly poorly yesterday. There were spots everywhere!

Luckily, no illnesses, just lots of support for Children in Need. It was great to see the effort made by the children (and possibly parents) in putting together an outfit that had spots. 

In addition to supporting a charity, Year 4 were able to take over some of the responsibilities in the classroom. This created a fair bit of excitement!

We discussed which jobs would be suitable and safe for children to take over and these are some of the ideas Year 4 came up with:

• taking the register
• delivering the tests
• handing out golden tickets
• delivering show and tell
• reading with Reception
• giving out stickers
• handing out cool class tokens
• writing certificates
• speaking in assembly
• reading the class novel
• and much more.. It was great to see some of the 8 Rs for Learning being put to use:
• responsibilities
• risk taking
• being ready
• remembering
• being resourceful

The children did such a good job at taking over these roles with maturity, and a sense of humour, which is always a bonus!

Celebrating learning

It’s the end of our Explorers topic this week and we’ve spent time reflecting on what we have learned.

This morning, we met with our Year 1 friends to discuss the topic. We looked at each other’s topic books and talked about the different learning. Next, we looked at some specific skills which we might have used during the topic (e.g. comparing and contrasting, teamwork, problem solving) and found pieces of learning which evidenced these skills.

The children were questioning each other about their learning.

• “Tell me about this work. What did you find out?”
• “Explain this learning to me.”
• “Would you like to do any of the activities again and why?”

Have a look through our photos showing how we celebrated our 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.

Living and Learning

Our Living and Learning theme this half-term is Identity. The children will learn about their rights and responsibilities, what makes themselves and others special, valuing the similarities and differences between themselves and others and what is meant by community.

Our lesson last week focused on how we are all the same and how we are all different.

We began with a discussion using the sentence stems

• “I am different to… because…”
• “We share some similarities in that…”

This then lead us to our activity. Using a Venn diagram, the children worked with a partner to compare similarities and differences. This sparked off some very interesting discussions.

“My partner and I are the same because we both have a religion. However, we are different because those religions aren’t the same.” 

We always start our Living and Learning lessons by reading the rules that the children set out for every session.

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/