Geography: Fantastic Fieldwork!
Today, Year 6 ventured to Moortown Park – an urban green space – to conduct their Geography fieldwork. The children were trying to measure carbon stores in the locality. Carbon stores are known as ‘places where carbon is stored in the environment’. To calculate this, they measured the girth (the distance around the outside of something thick) of different trees. They did this by sampling: a way of collecting fieldwork data without measuring everything.
This coming week, we will use this information to work out how much carbon is stored in the trees.
Have a look at us being geographers:
Help at home: To link with our writing skills, spot the parenthesis used in this post!
Reading Records
At Moortown, reading records help us to celebrate our love for reading. As a reminder, here is the key information you and your child need to know:
- Each time one of the children signs out a new book to read from the library, they can make note of these in their reading record and rate them out of 5 stars.
- Every Friday, I chose an activity for the whole class to complete in their reading record. More information on these activities is found inside the record.
- The children bring in these reading records every Friday for our Book Club lesson where we’ll discuss their books and develop their love of reading.
- Please accompany your child’s weekly activity with a short comment sharing with us the reading your child has been doing at home.
Take a look at some fabulous activities Year 6 have completed so far:
Reading: The Spider and the Fly
This week – in Reading – we have been looking at the poem ‘The Spider and the Fly’ by Mary Howitt. We have looked at a range of different skills but in today’s lesson the children used their retrieval skills to draw and label the characters and setting.
Help at home: Find out about the poet Mary Howitt. Are there any more poems you like of hers?
Leeds Rhinos play offs
PLAY OFF ACTION RETURNS TO AMT HEADINGLEY
Following the conclusion of the regular season Leeds Rhinos will take on St Helens in a mouth-watering elimination play off at AMT Headingley Stadium on Saturday 27 September 2025, kicking off at 8pm.
Tickets are on sale now at Leeds Rhinos – Online ticket sales
We hope that you will join us for what promises to be a fantastic occasion as we aim to get within 80 minutes of the Grand Final at Old Trafford.
Further info can be found here Play Off Eliminator tickets on sale now
Reading: Inference
This week in Reading we have been practising the skill of inferring. To infer is to be a “reading detective” and use clues from a text along with what you already know, to figure out something that isn’t said directly. It’s like filling in the blanks by making a smart guess based on the evidence.
In today’s lesson, the children read a diary entry from a survivor of an avalanche. The put themselves in the shoes of the character and created a TV interview.
Help at home: Why not create another TV interview for a character in a book from home?
Science: We are biologists.
In our first science unit, we are biologists. Biology is the study of living things. Year 6 will be learning about living things and their habitats. The children learnt that both animals and plants are organisms but they have a different criteria to fulfil to be classified as either.
Animals have 6 criteria for life.
- breathe
- move
- eat
- grow
- excrete (poo)
- reproduce
Plants have 4 criteria for life.
- move (towards sunlight)
- make its own food
- grow
- reproduce
Year 6 looked at the enquiry question ‘How can we identify, group and classify plants, animals and microorganisms?’. To help us with this learning, we played ‘Guess Who?’. The children could classify these people according to their common observable characteristics. We can also identify them due to their common observable characteristics.
They then used this knowledge to identify the common observable characteristics of each species of animal.
Help at home: Discuss the key vocabulary for this science unit. Can you use these words in sentences?
Autumn term after-school clubs – places available
As we start week two of our new after-school club schedule, there are some clubs with spaces available and it is not too late for your child to join a club.
Monday
- Y3/4 Table tennis 1 space
- Y3-6 Chess spaces
- Y4-6 Dodgeball 1 space
Tuesday
- Y1-3 Foot-tech football 1 space
- Y1-3 City of Leeds Basketball spaces
- Y5-6 now open to Year 4 Table tennis spaces
Wednesday
- Y1-3 Fun and games spaces
- Y4-6 City of Leeds Basketball spaces
Thursday
- Y5/6 Coding 2 spaces
- Y5-6 now open to Year 4 Netball spaces
PE: OAA
This half term’s PE units are OAA (outdoor adventurous activities) and Football. This week, in OAA, the children have used their amazing teamwork skills to communicate with peers.
For part of this lesson, each group needed to create their own game using only hoops. They used well-known games as the basis of their own, for example, Hot Potato, What’s the time Mr wolf? and Hoopla.
Help at home: When else can we use our teamwork skills?
Living and Learning: Eight Rs for Learning
This week our L&L statement was ‘I use the eight Rs to help me learn.’ We started off by recapping the 8Rs and then looked at each one in detail and discussed different statements that match the 8Rs.
- reflecting – I look for feedback from my teachers and peers and think about how I can use this to improve.
- remembering – I find links between what I am learning and what I already know.
- resilient – I stick at things even when they are difficult and do not give up; I stay positive.
- resourceful – I know where to find information and use it in my work (word walls, support sheet etc.).
- responsible – I am respectful with everything (presentation, resources etc.).
- risk-taking – I can ask questions and give my opinion in a group/class situation.
- responsive – I can respond appropriately to peers and adults.
- ready – I always want to learn new things.
“I think I am good at being resourceful as I can look around at the classroom displays to help me with my work.”
“I need to improve on (safe) risk-taking as I only put my hand up for an answer I am 100% sure on.”
“I need to work on remembering as I forget a lot of things – I could do this by saying it in my head multiple times.”
“I think I’m good at being responsible as I play with younger children in the playground at break and lunch times.”
“I think I’m good at reflecting because when I’m done with my work I look back at the tasks to see what I’ve completed and how I felt when doing them.”
“I think I’m responsible because I listen to instructions.”
Help at Home: Discuss with your child which 8R for learning they feel confident in and which they feel like they need to improve.
Spelling
This week in our spelling sessions, we have looked at homophones. Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling, for example new and knew.
The children practised these words by using the activity ‘doodle words’.
Help at home: You can find other activities to help practise spellings at home in our Super Spelling Strategies Guide on the school website.