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.
Lexia
I’m glad to see so many children using Lexia at home. There have been lots of certificates given out for their achievement so far. Some parents have informed me that it has requested a teacher e-mail in order to log in. Thanks for making me aware of this!
If asked for a teacher e-mail, please use: y1@moortown.leeds.sch.uk
(Please note that this email is not monitored and therefore is not a way to contact me.)
Thank you.
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.
Enjoying the library
We took our English lesson to the library today, exploring different types of story openings in the perfect surroundings. DAD helps our writing – description, action and dialogue. We compared different books and their beginnings.
Homework that’s ‘out of this world’
As always, Year 5 have really impressed me with this week’s homework. We were tasked with showing what we know about the solar system and we had some fantastic ideas: informative books, puzzles, models and diagrams adorned our classroom. We really enjoyed exploring each other’s work.
Here are some we really wanted to show you at home.
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Be safe, be seen
With lots of media attention on serious risks to children, it’s sometimes easy to forget the more traditional messages. With the dark nights now upon us, it’s worth (re)emphasising with your child the Be Safe – Be Seen message.
Cardiff Council’s Road Safety team have a great page on their website which also includes a number of other links and resources. There’s also a government site with some games.
Learning workshops
Learning Workshops, led by teachers in school, are organised to help you support your child at home.
Two different Learning Workshops took place yesterday. One was intended for Reception and Year 1 parents and it focused on phonics and simple number facts:
- “Well explained in terms of the current methods in phonics and Maths teaching. Teachers were open to questions. Thanks – much appreciated.”
- “Good overview of early learning concepts and teaching methods. A useful workshop – thank you.”
- From a parent with older children at school: “Always nice to have a refresher workshop as many things – about phonics especially – come back to me which I’d forgotten.”
The second workshop, at 6.00pm, was all about grammar and writing:
- “Great to go through all the grammar – it’s years since I was at school so a brilliant overview!”
- “Very helpful ideas to assist my reluctant writer at home.”
- “Thanks for the grammar web links.”
- “Very clear and practical presentation of the subject. Helpful tips. Mr Owen made it simple and funny.”
Thank you to the parents who attended.
Forthcoming workshops and other ways to support your child at home are in the calendar (look for the events in blue) and listed below:
- What is ‘mastery’? workshop – Monday 16 November, 2.30pm and 6.00pm
- Reception phonics teaching – 18 / 19 / 20 November
- Maths workshop – Monday 23 November, 6.00pm
- Homework open afternoon – Wednesday 02 December (only suitable for Y1 – Y6)
- Open morning – Tuesday 08 December
- Reception phonics teaching – 20 / 21 / 22 January
- Open morning – Wednesday 27 January
- Topic open afternoon – Thursday 17 March
- Reception phonics teaching – 27 / 28 / 29 April
Learning workshop
Don’t forget our Learning in Reception and Year 1 workshop on Tuesday 10 November at 2.30.
See you there!
Learning to write
The children are progressing quickly with their phonics learning and reading. Alongside blending to read, the children also need to segment words to spell. Children often find this harder and lack confidence in their ability to write.
In Reception, the children take part in shared writing activities where they can ‘have a go’ on whiteboards with the support of adults. We then encourage independent writing in all the areas of provision. This includes writing a label for their model, writing a shopping list in the role-play shop or writing a letter to a friend. At the moment the children are busy writing spells! We value all the children’s attempts at writing and model writing (and making mistakes) to them.
You can help at home by:
- providing plenty of different types of pens and pencils and encouraging your child to use a correct grip
- encouraging them to use the school’s handwriting style and to use lower case letters; we teach that a capital letter is required for the first letter in a name and at the beginning of a sentence
- praising – spelling is harder than reading words so praise, don’t criticise. Little whiteboards and pens are a good way for children to try out spellings and practise their handwriting
Don’t forget our learning workshop this week and our phonics mornings next week.
Malham
We had a fantastic day in Malham last Monday (2 November) due to the great weather we enjoyed and the great geography learning we did (both physical and human).
On our return, we wrote a newspaper article to inform others about our day so, rather than tell you about it myself, I’ll show you a couple of the reports we wrote alongside some great pictures.
Look at how drastically the weather changed along our journey!
Finally, we returned from our fairytale land of blue skies and warm weather back to foggy Leeds.
