Moortown 2 – 3 Our Lady’s
This evening, our Year 6 football team made the short trip to Our Lady’s Catholic Primary School.
Despite the wintery conditions, Moortown were ready for battle and made a very strong start. After several minutes of early dominance, Bailey poked the ball in to give Moortown the lead.
However, the game did not ‘pan out’ as Moortown had hoped. Remembering previous games, in which one goal hasn’t been enough to secure victory, Moortown took the risk and continued to attack. After a quick counter-attack, Our Lady’s drew the game level: 1-1.
Despite being very resourceful in finding different ways to unlock the sturdy Our Lady’s defence, Moortown could not convert their pressure into goals. In fact, for the 10 minutes either side of half time, the game became very scrappy. It was Our Lady’s who benefitted, scoring further unanswered goals to make it 3-1.
Moortown knew they had to respond and respond they did! The last 10 minutes saw both teams miss numerous chances as the game opened up. Each player took responsibility for their performance and, with two minutes to go, Moortown pulled a goal back: 3-2. Could they?
Unfortunately, with the light fading, the final whistle blew and Moortown suffered another narrow defeat. Captain for the day, Lennox, reflected on the game: “It was a hard game but it was very fun. I thought everyone was very resilient!”. Well summarised, Lennox (and thanks for mentioning our 8th ‘R’ for learning).
Next week, Moortown face Immaculate Heart of Mary in what is sure to be another close encounter!
Takeover Day
Next Friday, 20 November, is Takeover Day.
What is Takeover Day?
It’s a national initiative organised each year by the Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield OBE. Takeover gives children and young people the chance to work with adults for the day and to be involved in decision-making processes. Children and young people benefit from the opportunity to experience the world of work and make their voices heard, while adults and organisations gain a fresh perspective on what they do.
Recently our School Council discussed how children could be involved in ‘taking over’ at school. Takeover activities will include school dinners (representatives from Year 4), the office (representatives from Year 5), assembly (representatives from Year 6) and KS2 tuck shop on 24 November (representatives from Year 2).
In addition there will be opportunities within class where children will takeover. For example, spelling/times table tests, parts of lessons, PE warm ups and guided reading.
Check our class news pages to see this in action.
Make a noise about bullying
Next week it is national anti-bullying week.
Our school definition has recently been reviewed by the School Council and remains unchanged.
‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’
This year the theme of the week is Make a noise about bullying and our children are familiar with another STOP message to address this, start telling other people.
Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team will once again deliver Show Racism the Red Card workshops across school and in class 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 bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)
Bullying resources can be found at…
- http://www.childline.org.uk/explore/bullying/pages/bullying.aspx
- http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
- http://www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents/worried_about_your_child/bullying
Children tell us what they would do if they were bullied: ‘I would tell an adult, teacher or someone I trust.’
All classes have access to their class SEAL box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.
Track and field stars
Well done to our athletics team who came second in the first round of the North East Leeds Sports hall athletics at Allerton Grange – a great achievement. It was a new event for the school and, despite a few nerves, everyone performed to the best of their ability in every event. Well done to all the children involved and to parents for their support. Look out for details of the next round.
If you’d like to continue athletics, there is also a local athletics club that runs at Scott Hall Leisure Centre.
Basketball Come and Try, Thursday 19 November
We have a few spare places to come to the basketball come and try event at Roundhay School on Thursday 19 November.
- What? Basketball session led by Leeds Force basketball club
- Where? Roundhay School
- When? Thursday 19 November, 3.30pm-5.30pm
- Who? Open to all KS2 classes
Please contact the office if you are able to come to this event. Children will be supervised at the session but need to be dropped off and collected from Roundhay School.
Top vegetable choices
If your child chooses school dinners, they are served two portions of vegetables or vegetables and a portion of salad with each meal. As we are all aware of the importance of eating vegetables, all children have been consulted on their favourite vegetables based on the vegetables that currently feature on the school dinner menu. The most popular choices will now feature more regularly on the menu.
We would also like your views on school dinners. Look out for the school dinner survey due to be sent out next week.
An active half term
We’ve started the year with plenty of physical activities. Here are some of the highlights.
Rugby World Cup
In September, the Rugby World Cup came to Leeds and we were lucky enough to win tickets to watch Italy play Canada at Elland Road. There was a great response to our prize draw for tickets and our three lucky winners enjoyed the World Cup experience.
Active Schools
This year as part of our investment of the Primary PE and sport premium government funding for schools we have joined the Leeds Active Schools programme. Their mission is to promote and develop, through collaboration and partnership, a sustainable system for physical activity, PE and sport that enriches the lives of all children and young people. Already this year, as part of this programme, we’ve had the opportunity to take part in some great events.
Big sing Big dance
A group of our Year 3 pupils were part of over one thousand children from across Leeds who took part in the Rugby World Cup Big dance Big sing event in Millenium Square.
Singing and dancing to the Rugby World Cup theme tune ‘World in Union’, the event was to celebrate the rugby matches in Leeds.
- ‘I loved it and I tried my best.’
- ‘It was exciting when we did the dance.’
- ‘I enjoyed using the rugby balls for the dance and singing the song, too.’
Rugby World Cup fanzone
As part of the celebrations for the Rugby World Cup, a number of children had the opportunity to be involved in the fanzone in Millenium Square. There was a carousel of activities including rugby activities and inflatables, a practical Tagtiv8 session and a visit to Leeds Library to meet author Tom Palmer. Tom writes sports novels for children, including the Rugby Academy series.
- ‘I really enjoyed the event. It was fun, especially the bit with Tom Palmer.’
- ‘I loved it! I especially enjoyed when I won the rugby ball. It was so good I want to do it again.’
- ‘I enjoyed playing pass with my friends and learning how rugby started.’
Brownlee Triathlon
Harewood House recently hosted the Brownlee Triathlon. Following this, a number of our children took part in the children’s Brownlee Triathlon held at the John Charles Centre.
The event involved a 30m swim, 1km cycle and a 400m run and was attended by Jonny Brownlee.
- ‘It was the best sporting event that I’ve ever done.’
- ‘It was great and was very challenging but in a good way.’
- ‘I have never done a triathlon. It was amazing, especially the fact that I met the Brownlee brothers.’
Football
This year we continue to be part of the Leeds School Football Association leagues for Year 4, 5 and 6, led by Mr Lawton and Mr Catherall. Here is a summary of their season so far.
The ‘Moortown Dragons’ (Year 4 football team) are learning quickly what it means to be part of a team: sticking together, working for each other, and keeping smiles on everyone’s faces. In our most recent game, they showed off some sharp passing as a team, gritty goalkeeping displays, and capped it off with a couple of stylish goals. ‘Make friends, make friends, never, never break friends!’
In the short time we’ve had, the Year 5 footballers have impressed with their passion for the game. They’ve started to show their desire to work for each other, and we’re looking forward to a good run of matches after half term. If they can show half the skills that they demonstrate daily in the playground, and keep looking out for each other, they’ll go far indeed.
The Year 6 football team have grown in confidence throughout each of their fixtures so far this year. With an emphasis on teamwork, enjoyment and working hard (on and off the ball), each team member has improved significantly. Their continued development as a team was, perhaps, most evident in the recent game against local rivals Gledhow. Well done to all! Keep it up and you’ll soon be rewarded for your efforts.
Events to look forward to next half term include more football matches, Leeds North East sports hall athletics competition, a Come and Try basketball session at Roundhay, cross country and a health-themed week, too.
Thank you to all parents who support with transport and accompanying children to these events.
Well done to all our competitors and participants who have represented the school.
The Year 6 assembly
Well done, everyone in Year 6, for a great class assembly this week, and thanks to all the parents, friends and family who visited.
For those unable to attend, the assembly was a very entertaining summary of some of the learning which has taken place this half-term.
Comments from our guests include:
- “Nice to see what the children have been learning. Very good.”
- “Very interesting to have a view of what the children have been working on – fantastic!”
- “Very interesting. I have learnt a lot of things myself.”
- “Great show, as ever. Brill song and very interactive.”
- “Brilliant adaptation of the song. They’re experts at assemblies now!”
…I was struck by that last point, too: the children were confident, clear and comfortable in front of the large audience.
Year 6 football heroes!
Our Year 6 football team have made a strong start to the new season.
Much improved on last year, the squad has displayed their talent against other local schools. With each player representing Moortown with pride, passion and (relentless) positivity – keep it up!
Their most recent outing, a very close 1-0 loss to neighbours Gledhow, was very impressive to watch. I’m certain our faithful supporters would agree!
Well done to all children who have represented our school so far this year and a huge thank you to the parents for your on-going support in transporting children to fixtures.
What’s on the menu in Brazil?
As part of the whole school Holidays topic, Year 5 and 6 have been ‘visiting’ Brazil. Following some research about popular foods in this South American country, we’ve recreated our own Brazilian dish. This was taken from a recipe book donated by the Brazilian restaurant chain Cabana. There is even a branch in Leeds if you’d like to try some more traditional Brazilian dishes. Our dish was a vegetarian version of moqueca (fish stew).
Take a look at our food preparation and tasting. Ask your child what skills, equipment and ingredients we used. Maybe you’ll get chance to try this at home as it was a very popular dish.
Some of the words to describe the dish were: outstanding, delicious, mouth watering, healthy, impeccable and fantastic!
