Packed lunches
At Moortown Primary, our packed lunch guidance includes:
- information about the different food groups
- how to put together a healthy, balanced packed lunch
- links to recipes and ideas for healthy packed lunches
This week, our packed lunch guidance will be emailed to parents and carers and sent home to children who have a packed lunch in school.
Packed lunches should be in a secure named container. No sweets are allowed – instead, we encourage lots of fruit or vegetables. Water is available on all tables for children who choose a packed lunch. However, your child can bring their own drink in a non-breakable container – please avoid fizzy drinks.
Change4life provides lots of ideas for healthy packed lunches including suggested swaps.
As an alternative to packed lunches, school meals, including a vegetarian option, are a great choice and are prepared daily in our kitchen. Children are offered a choice of main courses and desserts and they select their main meal choice at the start of the day. Catering Leeds provides food which meets national Food Standards criteria. School meals can be combined with packed lunches.
Free school meals are available to all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. They are also available to some older children according to family income. It’s important to register for entitlement to free school meals, even if your child has a packed lunch or is in a younger class – this is so we can receive additional funding (called the pupil premium) which we can use to help your child. Please check if this is something you might be entitled to.
Figurative language
Y6 have been reading poetry this week, all to do with winter.
We’ve been learning about figurative language and the precise choices of vocabulary that the poet used.
We’ve learnt about similes and analysed their effect on the reader. 
Living and Learning: Takeover Challenge Day
Takeover Challenge is a fun engagement project which sees schools and organisations across England opening their doors to children and young people to take over adult roles.
It puts children and young people in decision making positions and encourages schools and organisations to hear and act upon their views and ideas. Children and young people gain an insight into the adult world and schools and organisations benefit from a fresh perspective about their work.
School Savings Club
The next School Savings Club paying in date is 09 December 2019 at 3.15-3.45pm.
The account is open to all children and it is free to set up. As there is not minimum deposit requirement, it is a great way for your child/children to begin to manage their own money and understand the importance of saving. We offer paying in sessions every half term where you can bring along any savings to be paid into your child’s account.
As an extra incentive, Year 3 pupils who open an account, or who currently have an account, will be credited with £10.
If you’re unable to attend in person, please hand in any money to be deposited to the office in a sealed envelope addressed to Mrs Tiffany.
Here are the remaining paying in dates for this year (the penultimate Monday of each half term).
- 03 February
- 23 March
- 11 May
- 06 July
To find out more about the accounts or if your child would like to open account, please enquire at the office.
What is reflection?
In this week’s science, we have been learning how you can see objects round corners using mirrors!
We also discussed how the angle of the travelling light ray is the same as the angle of the reflected one.
Ask your child to define what reflection is using these words:
- travel
- direction
- light ray
- light source
- change
- mirror
Living & Learning – Community Week
Here’s Y6 showing off what makes them who they are!
And this second picture is definitely showing it, too!
Living and Learning: My Community week so far
This week, we are enjoying our ‘My Community’ themed week based around these themes.
- Who am I? (identity)
- Who are we? (diversity)
- Where do I live? (community)
- How do we all live together? (equality)
There have been lots of events, visits and visitors so far.
- School community coffee morning and Wake Up Shake Up on Monday
- Bulb planting with Friends of Moortown Park
- Visiting Allerton Grange drama department for a community themed drama session led by Year 12 pupils
- A visit from Linda Gledhill from the deaf and hearing impairment team
- A visit from the RNIB to raise awareness of visually impaired members of our community
- JustDifferent disability workshops
- Litter picking in the local area
- Hate Crime workshops led by West Yorkshire Police
- Visiting Donisthorpe Hall
- A visit from Moortown fire service
- A visit from our PCSOs
- Learning carousels across different classes
Still to come is a visit to a group run by Moor Allerton Elderly Care; Greek language sessions led by a parent; a visit to St Gemma’s Hospice and choosing our new school charity.
The week will culminate with Identity Day on Friday 29 November.
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.
Thank you for all the entries we have received for the active travel in the community competition.
We encourage families to get out in the community in an active way on the way to and from school. Email (moortownoffice@spherefederation.org) a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark on the route to school, for the chance to win one of five £10 vouchers. The winners will be drawn in the assembly tomorrow afternoon so please ensure your entries are sent by 12 o’clock tomorrow.
Thank you for supporting the themed week and please discuss the week with your child to reinforce this important learning.
Living and Learning – Just Different
Y6 enjoyed a visit from Julie who works for a charity called JustDifferent. She came to talk to us about living with a disability.
Having been diagnosed with myoclonic dystopia, she gave us loads of insights and information about coping with a disability. There are lots of different types and everyone is different and deals with theirs in different ways.
Did you know that over 10 million people in the UK have a disability? Some you can’t see – these are ‘invisible disabilities’.
Her main message: people with disabilities are just that – people. We talked about how that made them just a bit different but how we are still similar in lots of ways, too.
Juile – a former police officer – was fascinating to listen to. Everyone came away with an increased awareness and understanding of what disabilities are and how to show our support.
We cracked the code!
Resilience was oozing out of the Y6 classroom in our geography lesson today. They cracked a code by using six figure grid references and solving an anagram.
Sam said, “It was so challenging. I feel tired now! But also proud.”
Zidaan said, “I thought it was super challenging. Our problem was that we were overthinking it and made it too complicated for ourselves.”
“I feel really proud. We worked so well as a team,” said Poppy.
Homework Heroes
Yet again, the homework in Y6 has been varied, delivered enthusiastically and worked hard on. We had drama, posters, videos, poems and comic strips. Here are some of many highlights. 
We know how to STOP bullying!
