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’.
Poetry Picnic
Our Halloween themed poem for the week is called Pointy Hat. We hope you enjoy listening to us performing it!
New spelling list – HT2
Year 3,4
This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:
- alternative ways for writing the long vowel ‘u’ sound
- more homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)
- suffixes (for example, changing the root word ‘great’ to ‘greater’ or ‘greatest’
- plurals (more than one of a noun)
- apostrophes for contraction (eg can’t is less formal than cannot)
- apostrophes for possession (eg Brian’s bag, the school’s logo)
Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.
| continue | funnier/funniest | potato(es) | bicycle(s) | writer |
| library’s | peculiar | you are / you’re | group’s | rescue |
| witch | have not/ haven’t | bus(es) | knew | I would / I’d |
| which | where | braver / bravest | century(ies) | has not / hasn’t |
| regular | wear | answer(s) | they are / they’re | later / latest |
| address(es) | we’re | do not / don’t | particular | conclude |
| I will / I’ll | building’s | happier/happiest | will not / won’t | groups(s) |
| heart’s | nicer / nicest | Earth’s | hotter / hottest | you will / you’ll |
Training day – Arty ideas !
We thought you’d enjoy hearing a little about what went on during our recent teacher training day! Part of the day was dedicated to developing our art knowledge and skills with our resident art teacher, Mrs Boulton.
Teachers got hands-on with paints, pastels and even soap! There was plenty of colour, laughter, and even a bit of friendly competition as we experimented with new techniques and ideas for upcoming art lessons.
The rest of the day focussed on other important areas too, including maths and inclusion. It was a full, productive day – and we left feeling ready and excited for the next half-term!
Visualising Podkin One-Ear
During our Book Club session, we used one of Authorfy’s 10 minute challenges to visualise a part of our class novel.
Our class novel is called Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood. It is the first of a series of eight books: https://www.goodreads.com/series/205224-the-five-realms
The class have been asking to read it whenever we have a spare moment!
We re-read the last pages of a chapter we finished and tried to visualise what we were hearing. Some of us did it from different perspectives and others even wanted to change how the chapter ended.
Visualising is a great activity to help understanding of a text. Help at home by visualising what you and your child have read at home.
National Poetry Day!
It is National Poetry Day tomorrow and to celebrate, we have been reading and learning a poem to perform in an assembly tomorrow. National Poetry Day’s a chance for all of us to share in the pleasure of poetry.
This website tells you about the day and why it is celebrated: https://forwardartsfoundation.org/national-poetry-day/
Our poem is Let No One Steal Your Dreams by Paul Cookson. This is same as the poem on their homework. Help at home by practising reading the poem.
The children have practised reading with prosody, projection and they’ve added actions too.
Science- Parts of the body.
In science this week we have been learning about identifying and then drawing body parts. We worked together first to identify some body parts on a picture of a person. Then we worked individually to draw and label some body parts of our own. These body parts were- the legs, the knees and the teeth.
What a year!
It’s the final day of the year before the summer holidays begin! We just wanted to write a final message to say a huge well done to all the children for such a fantastic year. It really has flown by and they have progressed and learnt so much along the way.
Also, thank you to all the parents and grown ups who have worked with us to support their children and thank you for any gifts you have given too!
Have a great holidays, from Miss Birch, Mrs Simpson and Miss Akhtar.
Here are some great memories from Year 3…
