Me and My Community week
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place from Monday 4th November. This is the first of two themed weeks in the year. In our ‘Me and My Community’ week, children will learn about what it means to belong to a community, from family to national or even international communities. Importantly, our children will also learn to respect and celebrate different communities. A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of our Living and Learning education.
Events and learning during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging and self-esteem, diversity of people around us including race, age, religion and disability and children will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations and taking pride in the local area for example by litter picking.
Active travel in the community
We encourage children to get out in the community in an active way on their way to and from school, with prizes available as part of the themed week. By walking/scooting/biking to school, families will by keeping our community safer and healthier by reducing congestion at the school gate. Maybe even pick up a piece of litter on the way. Even by parking further away from school your child could then to do the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter. Bike and scooter storage facilities are available beside the Year 3 and 4 classrooms.
Email us (moortownoffice@spherefederation.org) a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark in our community on your route to school, for the chance to win one of five vouchers. Entries to be submitted by noon on Friday 8th November.
New school charity
At the end of the themed week, classes will have the chance to discuss our charity shortlist and the Junior Leadership Team will have the final vote for which charity they would like our school to support, replacing our current charity, The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.
Identity day
Friday 8th November will be a non-uniform Identity Day. 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. There is no donation or contribution required for this day.
SAVE THE DATE PTA coffee morning Friday 8 November 9-10am
As part of the week, we welcome all parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 9:50am in the main playground.
Can you help?
Maybe you speak another language and you would be happy to speak to children about this or you would like to share about your own family culture and heritage. If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have any local community links that may support our week?
Our website continues to keep you up to date with key community events as well as our community noticeboard.
Living and Learning: protected characteristics
In Living and Learning, we looked at how we respect others. We discussed discrimination, protected characteristics and the Equality Act 2010.
Discrimination is defined as “the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic.”
We remember the protected characteristics by using:
DR S GRAMPS
Disability
Race
Sex
Gender reassignment
Religion or beliefs
Age
Marriage or civil partnership
Pregnancy and/or maternity leave
Sexual orientation
We looked at different scenarios (both made up and real-life cases), where people were treated unfairly and tried to find a solution to the problem. Everyone is the class believes everyone should be treated fairly.
We now have a greater understanding that individual characteristics make everyone in the world unique and we can respect people in several different ways.
Help at home: Name the protected characteristics without looking.
Maths: multiples
Today, we investigated multiples and common multiples.
By working logically and systematically, we found the multiples of one number, eg 4, the multiples of another number, eg 3, and found the numbers in both lists, eg 12, 24 and 36.
Some of our learning involved adding numbers to Venn or Carroll diagrams and explaining our reasoning.
We had to work well as a team!
Help at home by recapping key terminology such as factor, multiple, prime and composite.
Connect Challenge
Today, the whole school completed our Connect Challenge, in memory of Rob Burrow, by running walking or skipping seven laps of the back playground and the green. All the children gave 100% and were even asking to do extra laps. It was a great active morning!
Thank you for your donations so far. You can still donate on Gateway until the end of the week with money raised to be split between the Rob Burrow Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Appeal and our school charity, The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.
Opening a parcel…
Y6 have been inspired by their class novel – Secrets of a Sun King by Emma Carroll.
In the book, Lilian finds a strange parcel on her grandad’s doorstep and what she finds inside completely turns her life upside down.
We wanted to use suspenseful vocabulary and interesting sentence structures in our writing, where we pretended we were about to open a similarly mysterious package.
Have a look at the incredible writing below.
Leeds Schools Sports Association cross country races
We have received details about the LSSA cross country races for this year. These races take place on a Saturday and children compete against pupils from other Leeds schools.
Please note, parents/carers are responsible for taking and supervising their child/children at these events. There will be a parent representative.
There are opportunities for Year 3 and 4 girls and boys to race 900m and Year 5 and 6 girls and boys to race 1500m.
Race 1 – Saturday 19th October 2024 – Woodhouse Grove School
Race 2 – Saturday 9th November 2024 – Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School
Race 3 –Saturday 14th December 2024 – Prince Henry’s Grammar School
Race 4 – Saturday 18th January 2025 – Middleton Park Subject to confirmation from LCC
More details about race 1 will follow shortly.
Here are some of our Key Stage 2 children taking part in one of the races last year.
Connect Challenge Wednesday 02 October
What is it?
The Connect Challenge is in memory of Rob Burrow CBE. It involves a rugby ball being ‘passed’ between local schools and each school taking part in a physical activity event.
When is it?
The challenge will run from Thursday 26 September, (Rob’s birthday) until Thursday 3 October. Our event is in the morning of Wednesday 2nd October.
Why are we remembering Rob?
Rob Burrow CBE sadly died on 2 June 2024, four and a half years after he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Throughout that time, Rob and his family bravely chose to publicly share their MND journey to raise awareness of the disease.
What is our Connect Challenge?
We will complete seven (Rob’s rugby shirt number) laps of the green and the back playground by travelling in different ways – walking, jogging or skipping. Children should come to school in outdoor PE kit on the day.
We will be raising money at the event, to be split between the Rob Burrow Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Appeal and our school charity, The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.
We request a donation of at least £1. This can be paid online via school gateway.
Help at home: discuss this challenge at home and the reasons why we are remembering Rob. This challenge is also about friendship. Rob’s ex team mate and friend Kevin Sinfield has now raised over £8 million for MND charities. Ask your child how can they be a better friend?
Starting sentences in different ways
In writing this week, we’ve been learning about how sentences can start in different ways.
If you kept repeating the same starts, it would get really boring!
Y6 analysed how some example sentences started and put them into groups.
Working as a team, they had to discuss their reasons using their grammar knowledge.
Help at home by analysing how the sentences have been started in this class news post!
Summarising
This week’s reading focus has been summarising.
We’ve looked at some history-based texts about the Stone, Bronze and Iron Age.
We worked as a team to digest the important information and formulate it into our own words.
Living and Learning: 8Rs
This week, Y6 discussed each of the 8Rs and how they help us to learn.
We also had an honest reflection about our strengths and areas of improvement.
“I think I need to be more resilient at times,” share one person.
“I’m great at being ready at the start of lessons but sometimes I forget towards the end,” explained another.
I really appreciated this mature honesty. It was nice to celebrate the strengths, too.
“I have a great memory so I’m good at remembering things,” beamed a different Y6.
Another shared, “I am nervous about risks but really good with taking safe ones.”
Help at home by having a look at the picture above and spotting which two Rs need to swap places!