Super Spellings
Just some examples of some really great spelling practice when children are given a list of words to learn.
Check your child’s spelling work before they bring it to school on Thursday and see whether their presentation is the best they’re capable of and that they feel they’ve put enough effort in to their practice.
Cross Country qualifier
Congratulations to Grace in Year 6 who finished 6th in the Year 6 girls Leeds East North East Cross Country race at Cardinal Heenan school last week to qualify for the Leeds final next year.
Well done to all children who represented school in traditional cross country weather. For some of the children, this was the first time they have taken part in a competitive event and spirits were still high despite the weather.
Packed lunches
On Monday, Caitlin Kitson, Nutritionist and Healthy Eating Adviser, delivered a whole school healthy eating assembly. The main focus was the importance of healthy packed lunches.
We talked about the different food groups on the Eatwell Guide, why different proportions of each food group are important for our bodies and how to achieve this in a packed lunch.
It was great to hear the children’s excellent knowledge of the Eatwell Guide when answering Caitlin’s questions.
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
Following the assembly, all children were given a copy of our packed lunch guidance and the Eatwell guide.
As an alternative to packed lunches, school meals, including a vegetarian option, are prepared daily in our kitchen and children are offered a choice of main courses and desserts. Children 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.
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.
More Curry Cooking!
Once again, the other half of Year 6 came back to the kitchen to cook the curry. We used the same skills as last time as you would expect: chopping, mixing, frying, blending, washing up and – most importantly – eating!
Written by Pippa.
What materials conduct electricity?
As part of our mini topic, Forces: Electricity, we investigated which materials conduct electricity and which don’t today.
We recapped what a circuit was first by creating a human-sized version:
Then, we worked in groups to test different materials by inserting objects made out of them into the circuit. If the bulb lit, the material was conductive.
More cooking
Following the success of our veggie burgers, half of Year 6 returned to the kitchen today for a new recipe. This time, we cooked paneer tikka masala which every single child said was delicious!
First, we needed to create a marinade for the paneer.
Then we created the base of our sauce.
Once that was done we blended all of these ingredients together (minus the cinnamon stick) and put it back in the pan. Miss Rushbrooke cooked the paneer once it had marinated for half an hour as it can be quite spitty.
A small amount of cream and butter were then added to create a smooth texture and we added garam masala and fresh coriander at the end along with the cooked paneer.
Everybody had a taste, using poppadoms as spoons and then we each got a box to take home with us. Another great session of cooking with Year 6 and another successful recipe.
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.
Today’s visitors
Today, visitors came to speak to us about sign language. Everyone learnt how to say ‘How are you?’, ‘I’m fine thank you’, ‘What’s your name?’, My name is____’, ‘How old are you?’ , ‘I am ______ years old’ and how to spell their names in sign language.
We were learning about this because our themed week is community and there are a few deaf people who live in Leeds.
Also, we were visited by members of the police who split the class in half, treating one half very nicely and the other half not so nicely: they gave one half Ribena and the other water; gave one half more talking time than the other; told one half they were cool; and gave tokens to them. This was to show that it would be unfair to treat people differently for no real reason. Hate crime is when people discriminate against others because of their race, gender, religion/belief, disability or sexual orientation.
We learnt that we are all the same and all different and we should treat others how we want to be treated.
Written by Pippa and Neive.
Our very own islands
As mentioned in the news post about our topic review last week, one of the things the children have enjoyed the most throughout Explorers is designing their own islands.
Our writing was inspired by a fantastic book, The Land of Neverbelieve, which resulted in some brilliant descriptive pieces about exploring this fantastical land. It is an island in the shape of a dragon (although many children believed it to be a wolf) with weird and wonderful areas dotted around: The Dark and Spooky Mountains, The Flowering Meadow, Book Mountain and many more. We decided to create our own islands which have demonstrated incredible imagination and more amazing writing from the children.
