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Goodbye, Year 4

I’d like to congratulate Year Four on a great year – the children have worked extremely hard. Throughout the year, I have seen a noticeable improvement in many of the children’s behaviour and attitude to learning. Some of the children have been exceptional from start to finish too which has paid off in their learning.

I’d like to say an extra well done in literacy to Sami and Lili who have both made double the amount of expected progress in a year! In maths, Lili, Rishitha, Faizaan, Meva, and Nevan have made great progress. A big well done to Grace, Henry, Max and Nevan who have also made brilliant progress in reading.

Some of my highlights of the year include:

• Swimming (especially the fun session!)
• The production at Easter
• The effort that the children put into both their class assemblies
• Working at the North East City Learning Centre to produce news reports
• Guided reading sessions (excellent discussions and thought-provoking questions from the children)
• Literacy lessons and the children’s enthusiasm to improve – particularly in The Labyrinth story writing unit.
• Mental maths – improved speed!
• The quality of artwork produced – I see some future artists!

Thank you to Mrs Bald, Mrs Edwards and Mrs Freeman for the invaluable support that they have provided this year also.

I wish all of the children a fun and successful year with Mr Owen in Year Five!

Wow! What a Year!

Wow! What a year!

This year has been memorable from beginning to end with loads of learning, so many highlights, successes and fun times.

All the children should be very proud of their achievements and progress this year in all their learning. Huge congratulations to Amana, Yutaro, Rosie, Arjun, Farhan, Max, Sean, Ben and Nahid for achieving straight Level 5s in Maths, Reading and Writing SATs. As you know every single child in the year group achieved Level 4 or 5 in the English and Maths tests. This is down to the positive attitude to learning that the children exhibit and how they, as a group of children, push themselves to be the best they can. They have been a pleasure to teach as they have been so keen, enthusiastic and committed to their learning. I would like to say a huge well done also to Jahmar, Simran, Sanna, Angel and Abdul who have made vast amounts of progress this year.

All the children who went on the residential to Dobroyd Castle have been given a DVD of photographs taken during the visit. If you came to the Leavers’ Assembly, you will have seen some of the photographs. Mr Roundtree and I had positive comment after positive comment from all the Robinwood group leaders about the children’s behaviour, attitude, enthusiasm and teamwork during our stay. I can honestly say the children were a credit to themselves and a credit to school. Millie, Bethany, Sally, Theo and Ellie were ‘stars’ with their unfailing effort and wholehearted endeavours to give everything a go, despite some of the activities being challenging and a little scary.

Another highlight of the year was the Year 5 and 6 production of Bugsy Malone. Ethan did a cracking job as Bugsy; Daniel and Shoaib were outstanding as the inept police officers; Karina was a heroic Baby Face; Hafsa danced beautifully; Isa was a fantastic Cagey Joe. The whole year group again gave everything 100% and learnt songs, scripts and dance routines with gusto. I think they should consider entering Britain’s got Talent next year!

The Leavers’ Assembly was another exemplary performance with bags of laughter and not a tear in sight. Chanda was very impressive with her confident and expressive public speaking, Raheem did an excellent Mr Roundtree impression and Jonathan was an inspiration with his wild and wacky dancing during our singing.

I’ve been a teacher for over twenty years and teaching this group of Year Sixers has been a joy and a pleasure. They are responsive, mature, hardworking and good fun. I wish them great success at secondary school.

They will be missed!

Moortown Making a Positive Contribution

It’s been a busy half-term, including lots of money-raising activities going on.  Here’s an update on three events at which you have generously donated money:

• Our Summer Fair this year raised £1148.94 for the PTA.  This is a tremendous demonstration of the commitment and goodwill parents /carers, children and staff have for our school and its community.  It’s even more significant when we remember just a few months ago we were wondering if the Summer Fair would go ahead due to the absence of a PTA Chair at the moment, and it should help to motivate us all to continue to raise funds.  Money raised currently goes towards class trips and other activities.  If you’ve other ideas about fund-raising events or how we should spend the money, please contact Mrs Maver.  (Please note: the winner of the Half ‘n’ Half Jar has still not come forward to collect their prize of £100.50 – it’s ticket 176.  We’ll donate this money to the PTA if nobody claims the prize soon.)
• The Hot Shots sponsored football event during Community Week raised £341.10.  This money has been donated to a charity helping victims of Japan’s earthquake – an idea put forward to the School Council a few months ago.
• Most recently, £75.11 was donated at the Year 5 and 6 production of Bugsy Malone.  This money will be donated to our current two charities, WWF and NSPCC.  As well as being hugely enjoyable and great for children’s confidence and engagement, it’s great that our termly productions can be supported by family and friends in this way.

Thank you to all for your continued support.

The Really Big Summer Adventure

Change4Life have launched their new campaign to run throughout the six week summer holiday to inspire children and their families to increase their physical activity and healthy eating.

Year 3, 4 and 5 will be receiving their Really Big Summer Adventure maps this week full of daily activities, weekly challenges and gold medal rewards to keep active all summer long. 

However, all children, parents and carers are encouraged to use the Change4Life Fun Generator with over 100 fun activities to keep children up and about during the summer holidays.

Have a happy and healthy summer!

It’s the summer…

…so there are no homework activities or spellings to learn.

Don’t forget learning can still happen in the holidays:

• take your children to the park and talk about what they can see, hear and smell;
• take a trip using a bus or train, and take time to look at the timetable (Why is it in the 24 hour clock? How long will the journey last? When will we arrive?)
• enjoy visits to the local library;
• spend time baking (What unit of measurement will we use to weigh? If we want to make twice as much, how much will we need? When will the food be ready?);
• encourage your child to write some postcards to friends and family;
• take a trip to a museum or art gallery.

Research shows that the long summer holidays can mean some children’s learning regresses and they might struggle in the autumn term to keep up.  Frequent talk-times, reading, counting and tables practice are so important!

On Our Doorstep

A visit to Tropical World taught us about lots of different animals and their habitats.  Even though a tarantula or snake are not local to Leeds, we are fortunate enough to have them on our doorstep!

We also spent a lot of time in Roundhay Park investigating the wonderful green space that is within walking distance of our school.  Yes, you’re right!  We walked all the way from school to the park (we did cheat on the way back and jumped on the bus!).  We had a great day and finished it off with an ice cream treat.

SEAL statement 11 July

‘I am ready to cope with a change of teacher’ is the final SEAL statement for our Changes theme. 

This week the children will be spending an afternoon with their new teacher and teaching assistant in their new classroom. 

During the session the children will be able to ask questions about their new class and get to know their new teacher, helping them to get ready for this upcoming change.

08 July 2011

This week, we are looking at words we need to spell correctly in our writing.

These words will be tested on Friday 15 July.

08 July 2011

The spellings this week are all words that have an ‘ed’ ending. Nouns and verbs practise numbers 1-8. Adjectives and adverbs practise numbers 1-10.

1. asked
2. looked
3. showed
4. stopped
5. dragged
6. explored
7. touched
8. travelled
9. bewildered
10. abandoned

The spellings will be tested on Friday 15 July.

08 July 2011

This week’s spellings for Bananas and Oranges are words that have a consonant followed by a ‘le’ ending.

Apples have words that are plurals ending with ‘s’.

They will be tested on Friday 15 July 2011.