Living and Learning: I know what a drug is.
Over the next couple of weeks in our Living and Learning sessions, we will be focusing on “Being Safe”. This week in Living and Learning, we discussed what a drug is and what might influence a person to take/not take them.
We learnt that a drug is: ‘a substance people take to change the way they feel, think or behave.’
We also talked about the term ‘drugs’ and how it refers to all drugs:
• all illegal drugs,
• all legal drugs, including alcohol, tobacco and volatile substances (those giving off a gas which can be inhaled),
• all over-the-counter and prescription medicines.
In small groups, the children created diamond nines of what they thought would be the biggest influence for taking/not taking drugs. Here is an example:
The children also gave reasons for their choices: “feelings/emotions might be the biggest influence as people might think it helps to relieve stress” and “family would not influence you to take them because they love you and wouldn’t want to harm you”.
Living and Learning: mental health
Over the past three weeks, we have been discussing mental health: why it is important and how to look after it. We spoke about mental health being “about our feelings, our thinking, our emotions and our moods – things you can’t see, but affect our lives in lots of ways”.
We talked about how sometimes big emotions (strong emotions that stay for a long time and can stop us from doing what we want to do in our lives) can become very overwhelming but there are strategies to help us. The children talked about taking deep breaths; thinking of happy memories; taking part in something they love or completing a self-care activity.
Help at home: discuss which self-care activities your child might use to help deal with their emotions.
World Cup Geography
We’ve had a topical challenge this week relating to the World Cup. Our challenge was to identify the time zones of the different football teams in comparison to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).
If you’ve ever been abroad, have friends or family who live abroad; why not identify which time zones they are in.
Skipping ropes
We continue to work with Skipping School as part of the Year 2 and Year 4 skipping festivals.
While you might be thinking about Christmas presents, we have skipping ropes available to purchase from school for a subsidised price of £3. These are available in two sizes and a range of colours.
Art: creating William Morris wallpaper
This week in Art, we created our own wallpaper using our favourite parts of William Morris designs.
First, the children searched the internet to find their favourite design and then cropped the picture to select the part they loved the most. This was then our starting point to create our own wallpapers. The children experimented with repeated patterns by using rotation.
The class loved using the iPads to create their own designs:
Why not, at home, find other artists that use nature as a stimulus (starting point).
Junior leaders attend Youth Summit
Today, our Year 5 and 6 junior leaders, along with other children and young people from local primary and secondary schools, attended the Inner North East Community Committee Youth Summit at the Civic Hall.
We had the chance to meet and question councillors from the Moortown, Chapel Allerton and Roundhay wards and get involved with sharing views about youth activities for our local area.
We were then taken to the council chambers to meet the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Councillor Bob Gettings, where he took questions from the children. We learnt lots about his role.
The event was a great opportunity for the children to see how the council is run and give their views on issues in their local community. What great representatives of the school they were!
It was brilliant! We got to meet the Lord Mayor of Leeds.
It was amazing! We got to ask lots of questions and the Lord Mayor and councillors gave really good replies.
I liked hearing about the councillors’ experiences and what they do in their area.
I enjoyed it as you got to have a say.
Anti-bullying day!
Today for our anti-bullying day, we joined the nation by focussing on the message of “reaching out”. We discussed how this had several meanings: reaching out to a trusted adult for support/advice, reaching out to the victim to see if they are okay or reaching out to make a change.
We looked at the definition of bullying which our JLT members created:
“Bullying is when you hurt someone physically or emotionally (including online), Several Times On Purpose”
Whilst we hope this would never be the case in our school, we also discussed what you can do if you were to experience bullying at Moortown Primary School:
“Start Telling Other People. You could use the Living and Learning box, the worry box, email stayingsafe@spherefederation.org or even call Childline (0800 1111).”
We celebrated the message that everyone is different and equal by wearing odd socks to school:
A few reminders!
Firstly, we are now into our second week of group reading, so here are the chapters you need to read up to:
- Kensuke’s Kingdom – up to chapter 5
- The boy and the tiger – up to chapter 5
- Flood and Fang – up to chapter 6
- Alone on a wide, wide sea – up to chapter 7
- Street child – up to chapter 8
- Divine Freaks – up to chapter 6
Secondly, with our class assembly quickly approaching (Wednesday 16th November) please remember to practise your speaking parts and refresh your memory by watching the YouTube video of the song we will be singing.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/CMs_IGKxMu0
Finally, Anti-bullying day is on Monday 14th November so please remember to wear odd socks!
Living and Learning: Me and my community
Everyday this day week, we have been focusing on our community and that of others. We have had lots of visitors from a wide range of communities: the visually impaired, LGBTQ+ and a representative of the police force (just to name a few).
The highlight of the week was Friday, when we all dressed in our ‘identity’ clothes. It was wonderful to see that our Moortown community is made up of so many unique individuals.
The PTA needs you..
Do you want to make a difference to our school community?
Are you able to give some, time, skills or ideas?
Existing members of the Moortown Primary School Parent Teacher Association (PTA) are urgently looking for new parents to join. The PTA is a registered charity and they are looking for parents to take on the roles of three trustees; as well as these roles, they need enough people to help out so that organising and running the fundraising events is shared between more people.
They would like to invite you to join the PTA before the AGM on Tuesday 15 November. If you are interested in joining the PTA, please contact the school office and they will put you in touch with the right people.
