Meet our new School Council
Congratulations to our new school councillors who were elected by their class in our whole school elections. Their first meeting will be held after half term.
Talented Year 2
This week, in the lead up to Moortown’s Got Talent, our SEAL statement is I recognise my talents.
After a great class assembly last week, we all know how talented Year 2 are.
Happy New Year!
Welcome back and a Happy New Year!
All the children made a great start to their time at Moortown last term and we are looking forward to seeing their enjoyment and progress this term.
Our next big topic will be ‘Life in the snow’.
09 December 2016
This week’s homework is Creative and will be reviewed on Thursday 15 December.
Convince someone to love reading.
I love reading and truly believe that everybody else should, too! Not just because it’s enjoyable but because of how much it helps our learning. Many of Year 6 love reading for a number of reasons and there’ll be some of us that don’t. Think about why you love reading (if you do) and how you can convince someone else (or yourself) that they should, too. We’ve discussed some ideas as a class and here’s what we came up with. You could:
- interview members of your family about their passion for reading
- turn your favourite book into a short movie
- create a trailer for the film version of a book
- cook a recipe from your favourite recipe book
- write part of the prequel/sequel to your favourite book
- create a poster to advertise your favourite book
- create a fake interview with your favourite author
- research the benefits of reading lots and create some statistics
And, many more…
‘sat’ or ‘sitting’…?
Yesterday, we received this email from Elle Wild, author:
I am home schooling my child, who is in Year 4 in Canada, and have been following your very useful notes for Moortown school to keep my son on track with the UK curriculum, as he was schooled there for the last 4 years.
I just wanted to give you a heads up that you’ve included a grammar error in your homework for Nov 4th.
The sentence should read, “My cat is seated on the sofa”, not “is sat”. The cat sits, the cat is seated, the cat sat, but the cat should never “be sat”. It’s a confusion of present and past tense.
I hope you won’t mind the comment terribly, and please permit me to say that I am very impressed by the careful planning evident in your weekly reports.
We’ve replied with the following:
Thank you for your email. In particular, thank you for using our site to support the home education of your son. The grammatical issue to which you refer is quite a tricky one, in that it is becoming more and more wide-spread, and I’m sure you’ll know that language is an ever-changing thing!
Part of the cause here is that Moortown Primary and most of the staff are from the north of England (Moortown is in Leeds), as raised here. To exacerbate this, the teacher in question – who’s a fantastic teacher, and one who is passionate about grammar, providing professional development for staff in other schools – is from the north east (not quite Geordie, but heading in that direction), a point raised here. And it may also relate to the deeply embedded class system, ‘sat’ being more working class, as noted here.
That’s not to say you weren’t right in highlighting this to us because of course you’re completely correct here. We do like to be accurate and this will certainly provide food for thought!
Grammar can be tricky, but the internet is a great way to clarify confusion! One of our favourite sites is Grammar Monster.
Find out more about Elle Wild’s new book, Strange Things Done.
PS We’ve corrected the homework article!
Be bright, be seen
Now the clocks have gone back, here is some safety advice from the Child Accident Prevention Trust.
Visibility is a key issue all year round, all day round, whether children are walking or on their bike. However, over the winter months, it is especially important as the school day can start and end in twilight.
During term time, the majority of child road accidents happen in the afternoon and evenings, especially in the autumn and winter when it gets dark earlier in the day.
The general principles of being visible to motorists are:
- During the day, bright and fluorescent clothing is best.
- At twilight and night time, reflective clothing or tape that is picked up in car’s headlights is best.
- It is against the law to cycle at night without a white front light, a red back light and a red reflector at the back.
- Always choose routes and cross at places that are well-lit.
- Where possible, cross the road at a pedestrian crossing
- The message for pedestrians and cyclists is to wear bright clothing during the day and reflective clothing or accessories after dark.
Drivers should be especially careful around schools and mindful of their speed when visibility is poor.
8 Rs for learning – our new SEAL theme
This half-term, we’re thinking about the ‘8 Rs for learning’. This theme is about promoting good learning behaviour for your child.
Each week, we’ll focus on different ‘Rs’. We use an animal to symbolise each ‘R’, which might help your child remember all eight – can your child remember which animal matches the correct ‘R’?
You can support your child at home – we’ve listed a few ideas to help you below. Ask us if you’ve any questions or comments.
Download top tips for promoting the 8Rs for good learning behaviour.
I take a safe risk.
Talk about the difference between a safe and unsafe risk. At school, we want your child to take a safe risk by having a go at answering, even if unsure; trying something new and attempting harder learning.
I take responsibility for my own learning.
Provide time and space at home so your child is able to organise themselves: their PE kit, reading book, homework, spellings and tables… Don’t organise everything for them!
Make a link between rights and responsibilities: your child has the right to a great education, but needs to be responsible for their own learning.
I respond to feedback.
Ask your child if they remember their ‘stars’ and ‘steps’ in English and Maths.
I can show I am ready to learn.
Make sure your child is at school for a prompt start of 08:50.
Make sure your child has had plenty of sleep so they are alert and ready to learn at all times.
Encourage your child to ask lots of questions – that shows they want to learn!
I am resourceful.
Encourage your child to be organised so they can play with a range of different toys.
Encourage your child to try new ways to solve a tricky problem.
I am resilient.
Encourage your child to keep going! Set a tricky challenge or puzzle for your child to do.
Encourage your child to think of different ways of doing things.
Don’t let your child win when they play a game – they need to experience losing, too!
Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn – be happy that your child found some learning hard and encourage them to ‘bounce back’ and learn from the experience.
I remember.
Make sure they have time to learn spellings, number bonds and times tables – a little practice daily is best.
Play memory games:
Kim’s game: show them objects for 30 seconds… can they remember all the objects?
Can they build up the sequence, ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple and a bike.’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple, a bike and a cucumber.’ etc … Take turns!
I reflect about my learning.
Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about:
how they learnt
why they learnt it
when they’ll use their learning
how they would teach this to someone else
what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today etc
What’s appeared in our classroom?
Towards the end of last week, this strange object appeared in our reading corner.
It’s a bomb shelter!
Here’s Sam explaining how he built the shelter with the help of Elias, Brandon, Archie and Oliver.
‘We used card, plumbing poles and some camo to build it. We painted some corrugated card grey to make it look like a real WW2 metal shelter. Then, we worked as a team to build it. We also put tins of beans and some torches in there to make it more realistic.’
Here are some pics:
Our class novel is…
…’When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit‘.
Yesterday, we had a great first day of our new big topic all about a class novel.
First, to find out the name of our book we learnt all about Enigma machines and became code-breakers to decipher the title!
Then, we enjoyed reading the first chapter. As we read we answered questions and found out about some key terminology surrounding the Second World War. Ask your child about what they learnt!
In the afternoon, we ‘wondered’ about the artefacts in our room and looked at some of my Grandad’s medals/war memorabilia.
We’re all very excited about our big topic and we’ll keep you posted about all the learning we’ll be doing.
‘Scoot the Route’ 26 – 30 September
Next week, we’ll be supporting Leeds City Council’s ‘Scoot the Route’ initiative to promote scooting to school to help reduce congestion at the school gates and encourage pupils to lead more healthy active lifestyles.
We will be running a competition throughout the week whereby children will be issued a ticket (below) at the gate if they come to school on their scooter. They need to complete the ticket and hand it in to the office. All tickets will then go in to a draw on Friday 30 September where children have the chance of winning one of five £10 Love2Shop vouchers.
Don’t forget you can park your scooter near the bike storage area using one of our new scooter storage pods.
