Balance, Pedal, Go!
This report highlights that, according to new research by Keep Britain Tidy, a third of primary school children have never been taught how to ride a bike.
We’re happy to say that following the recent Reception balance, pedal, go bike training sessions, 24 out of 30 children can now ride a pedal bike. Two children missed their final session so the number could be even higher! Prior to the training, four children could ride a pedal bike.
Well done to the Reception children who remained focussed through their sessions and used determination to achieve this key life skill.
These sessions were funded by our PE Premium and from the staff, parent and pupil feedback, this will be an initiative we will repeat next year too.
We hope the children will continue to develop their riding skills over the holidays – maybe going on a family bike ride; taking part in the Leeds Let’s Ride event on traffic free roads on Sunday 2 September; going along to a Let’s Ride Pop Up ride locally and most importantly using their bikes to travel to school when we return in September.
It’s gold again!
At the end of each year, schools are invited to apply for their School Games Mark. The School Games Mark rewards schools for their commitment to and development of competition, school sport and physical education.
We are very proud to announce that our application has been verified and we have been awarded Gold award for the fourth year running.
Thank you to staff who have accompanied children to these events or run after-school clubs this year. Thank you also to Mrs Russell who provides excellent administration of our clubs and sporting events and competitions.
Thank you as well to all parents/carers who have helped with transport and supported at our events this year. Finally, thank you to all pupils who have tried out a new physical activity either at an after-school club or as part of a competition or participation event and to those children who have represented our school so well this year.
Free tennis weekend
This weekend, 21st and 22nd July, sees free tennis activities for all ages and abilities at David Lloyd to celebrate Great British Tennis Weekend.
Poetry
In our English lesson today, we matched different forms of poetry to their definitions.
We had to read really carefully to match them.
13 July 2018
This week’s whole homework involves completing the pupil health questionnaire sent home with your child/children.
I can share my views about health.
Pupil voice is an important part of our school and this annual questionnaire provides pupil views on some of our key health issues.
Please support your child to complete the health questionnaire by discussing these issues.
Please note the questionnaire should be returned to your class teacher by Wednesday 18 July.
Moortown PE polo and hooded tops
As we come to the end of the school year, please check at home and return to school any red polo shirts or black hooded tops that your child may have borrowed for a sporting event over the year.
Please could you ensure they are returned to the office asap to ensure we have all the kit available for our next sporting events.
West Leeds Activity Centre
West Leeds Activity Centre, who visited our recent health fair, will be running holiday camps over the summer.
Ocean Awareness Day
The whole school took to the seas on Wednesday 20 June, exploring the world’s oceans for the day and what is currently happening to them.
Reception created some fantastic art using plastic bags and some of them chose to do some writing set in the ocean. Here’s a taster of Freya’s story for you:
Once upon a time there was a whale called Shamoo. She loved being in the water especially in the sea and making friends. She loved going on adventures around the whole sea…
Year 1 and 2 investigated how salty our seas are working with our Polar Ambassador, Terry Kirk.
They also created some fantastic wave art using watercolour and wrote some lovely ocean shape poems.
Year 3 and 4 also wrote shape poems and they learnt about what lives in the deepest parts of our ocean, even creating their own weird and wonderful deep ocean creatures.
Year 3 and 4 thought about the effect of plastic on our oceans and use the bottle tops we’d collected from the milk we have every day to create their own plastic ocean art in order to raise awareness of just how much plastic we get through as a school.
In Year 5 and 6, they investigated how we explore under the sea and debugged some coding in order to make a submarine automatically photograph underwater creatures. They also learnt about what plastic does to our ocean and the creatures that live in it. Over two days, Mr Catherall and Miss Rushbrooke collected an alarming amount of plastic from school and the adult who work here. Using this, Year 5 and 6 created a collage of an ocean creature, again to raise awareness of just how much plastic we use everyday.
Year 6 also worked together to write a letter to Kirkstall market asking them to stop using plastic bags as it’s a great place for people to shop without plastic but the bags they provide make this difficult.
It was a great day which taught us a lot and got us thinking about what we could do to help look after our planet and the other creatures that live here.
Musical mood!
We’ve had a marvellous musical morning! The children listened to two different pieces of music (Morning Mood by Grieg and O Fortuna by Carl Orff). We discussed how the music made us feel and how we could represent our feelings using different colours and mark making.
Here are some comments from our discussion:
“I would use red because you go red in the face when you are sad and red is angry.”
“The song made me feel calm and made me think of whales in the ocean.”
“It made me think of erupting volcanoes!”
We had a fantastic morning filled with conversation and the arts!
Talk to your child about what colour they are feeling.
22 June 2018
We all know Roald Dahl’s wonderfully odd made up words. Create a dictionary of 8 words that we could try and use in class this half term (obviously without offending anyone). Think about the most sensible way to spell them, how their meaning might link to their root words, how you could use latin and greek roots to create them and what word class they are.
Here’s my suggestion (and how you should lay your dictionary out):
stulty – (adjective) a bit stupid
Stultus is latin for idiot which is what gave me the idea for the word and we could use it in class if somebody suggested a ‘stulty’ idea.