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Writing: The Dream Giver

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been planning and writing a narrative based on the beginning of this short film – The Dream Giver.

We learnt how to write using prepositional phrases to help set the scene.

…above me…

…on the windowsill…

…inside the golden eggs…

We learnt to write similes to help build the narrative in the reader’s minds.

The stars twinkled like diamonds.

The ballerina danced as elegantly as a swan.

I flew as quietly as a mouse.

The children did an amazing job at writing their narratives! We were so impressed with their ideas. They shared them with Year 5 and Year 5 were too.

Here are a few of the narratives for you to have a read:

Help at home by discussing your child’s narrative and what similes they used. 

PE: gymnastics

This half term, we have been developing our gymnastics skills. We’ve been exploring jumps, balances and putting together sequences of movements.

Help at home: Our personal best challenge is to balance on one leg. Give this a try at home. Remember to look at something still to help you keep your balance. Can you beat your previous time?

Reading and Writing – Not Now Bernard!

In our Reading and writing lessons this week we have been learning how to put what we have read on to its feet in real life. The children have channelled their inner actors and actresses, by acting out scenes from our story Not Now Bernard! They have done really well with this, sharing some great ideas, laughs and most importantly they all supported each other in the classroom making it happy and healthy place to learn.

Science- Materials and objects.

In this lesson the children learnt about objects and materials. They explored different materials, discussed the different properties of them and then looked at objects made from those different materials.

Once they had a clear understanding of the properties of different materials, they then looked at how certain objects can be the same but be made from different materials. They then took part in an experiment identifying and classifying different objects. Following that, they then labelled each object with its material.

Art: Soap carving

This week, we started our soap carving. The children were very excited to get going. They created a design, which was inspired by the sculptures of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Afterwards, we learnt how to use spoons, paper clips and a wet paper towel to create shape, form and texture in our soap. We were really focussed and created some brilliant sculptures.

Some parents even came in to help!

Help at home – talk to your child about the visual and tactile elements of art. How did they create texture? How did they use form and shape?

RE drop down morning

This morning Year 5 looked back over our RE learning that we have done in KS2 so far. We first discussed what are the main world religions and when they originated. We discussed which religions were monotheistic and which are polytheistic.

Then we focussed on Christianity for the rest of the morning. We made fact files about Christianity on cubes. We found the making of the cubes a little tricky but we showed great perseverance.

Afterwards, we discussed different denominations of Christianity focussing particularly on Catholics and Protestants. We completed a RIC and was able to confidently discuss the differences.

Finally, we looked at Christian festivals, focussing on Holy Week. This is the most important week for Christians. We completed a table describing each day and which significant events happened on each day.

I was very impressed with how much information the children had retained.

Help at home by discussing different religions and what they have learnt. The BBC bitesize website has some excellent videos.

Anti Bullying Day – Odd socks day.

This week in school our wonderful Year 1s have been learning about bullying. We came in wearing odd socks to symbolise that everyone is unique and that being different doesn’t matter.  The children spent the day learning about what bullying is, how to stop it, how to help others and how to move forward if you are or if you see someone being bullied. This was learnt through the acronym S.T.O.P. This stands for Several Times On Purpose. They also learnt that S.T.O.P isn’t just there for us to identify what bullying is but it also works as a solution: Start Telling Other People. Overall, or Year 1s did an amazing job on this and really impressed us all with their caring and supportive manners.

Anti-bullying day 2025

Today is national anti-bullying day and the beginning of anti-bullying week. Lots of children wore odd socks to create an awareness of this important day and to celebrate how we are all unique and different. We also centred our learning around this too.

We read our school’s anti-bullying policy which outlines what bullying is and what we can do if we or someone we know is being bullied.

“Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally (including online), several times on purpose.”

We define it by using two STOP acronyms:

• Several Times On Purpose
• Start Telling Other People

One’s a definition of bullying and the other’s a solution.

Our school definition helped us understand the different types of bullying – physical (hurting our body), emotional (hurting our feelings) or cyber bullying (online).

We took part in the BBC live lesson too and the children were secret agents trying to find as many ways to stop bullying as they could!

We used our weekly circle time to think about the role we all have to STOP bullying and discussed how we can share our feelings.

We know that we can go to these people or places for help:

• Safeguarding team – Mrs Weekes, Mr Wilks and Mrs Russell
• Any other members of staff
• A trusted adult
• Someone in your family
• Friends
• Childline (0800 1111)
• Write a worry slip and put it in your Living and Learning box or the whole school worry box (outside the school office)
• Email stayingsafe@spherefederation.org

Help at home: discuss our school definition of bullying with your child. Do they know the difference between friendship ups and downs and bullying, and between a one-off situation and something that’s happened more than once?

Me and My Money Week

This week we have had a very busy and very informative Me and My Money week!

We have learnt about tax, bank accounts, converting currencies, debit and credit cards and budgeting! We have also discussed our values and ideas about money both now and in the future. The children were very enthusiastic and full of questions about everything from interest to VAT!

We have had visitors from the Yorkshire Building Society and Virgin Money as well as an online assembly from Barclays. Yorkshire Building Society spoke to us about budgeting and gave us the task of organising a party for £400. We had to think about food, guests, entertainment and decorations all while keeping in budget. The children loved doing this activity. I was impressed with their thoughtful ideas.

Virgin Money spoke to us about the Make £5 Grow project. This will involve each child being given a £5 loan which they can use to make, create or design something that they will then sell at an event later in the year. Any profits they make the school will keep and Year 5 will decide what to do with them. The children were very excited to get going with this and I will post more information about it soon.

To finish the week off we used the one and two pennies we had collected all week to write out MOORTOWN on the school playground. It looked great! We also took part in the sponsored Hotshots challenge. I was really impressed by every single child with some reaching over 40 mph! All the children were also really supportive of each other which was great to see.

Help at home by discussing what we have been learning this week as well as discussing how you might use money.

Me and my money week

This week has been all about money and we’ve learnt a lot about money, spending, prices and saving. Here’s what we’ve got up to:

It’s party time!
We did an activity where we learned how to plan a party. From thinking about what makes a good party to how much we were spending on balloons. We started by ranking elements of a party by how important they are.

Finally, we had to think about what we would spend on what. Each group had a budget of £100 for 30 guests and the children quickly realised how they needed to save money on a venue for the party so that they could have more decorations or food!

The children had to decide between their wants and needs.

The Lost Purse
We had an online activity with some workers from the bank. During this session we learnt:

• People can pay for things using cash or electronically.
• The price of everyday items like a meal deal from the supermarket.
• People can sometimes borrow money but they have to pay it back otherwise there is consequences.We also were able to give advice to someone on how they should spend their money. ‘Mr I Spendalot’ wanted to book a £500 holiday. He could have either spent his money on his debit card or use his credit card and have to pay it back. We decided that maybe using his debit card was a good idea if he knew that he could afford it!

Help at home by thinking of different items that you have or would like and and decide: Is it a need or a want?

Hotshots!
The children had 3 chances to score a goal and see how fast the ball was travelling. Any sponsorship donations can be given online via Gateways.

Moortown Penny Trail

Check out the school’s news page to see our penny trail making ‘MOORTOWN’.