West Yorkshire cross country final
We were very proud of our five Key Stage 2 children who took part in the West Yorkshire Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam today in the glorious sunshine.
In tough, competitive conditions, with the best runners from across West Yorkshire, they all put in 100% effort in their races and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing at this level. We even had a top 10 finisher out of 146 runners and our Year 3 girls team came 6th place our of 21 schools. What an amazing team effort!
Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.
World Book Day 2025!
Today was World Book Day and we had a fantastic day celebrating all things reading!
We started the day by swapping teachers! Each class got the chance to listen to a different teacher read and Year 4 were very happy to have Miss Wilson from Year 6. They absolutely loved listening to Miss Wilson read The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.
After that, we did a class swap with Year 1. Your children each paired up with a child from Year 1 to share their love of reading. It was lovely to watch them read together and share their favourite books with each other. It was also a great opportunity for Year 4 to demonstrate their oracy (speaking and listening) skills as they made sure they were reading with prosody and clarity. We were also all wowed by Year 1’s incredible reading!
We then joined the BBC World Book Day live lesson where we learnt a little bit more about fiction and non-fiction books and how to choose what to read next.
There was also time for your children to discuss their favourite books with their peers and share with the class what they love about their choice.
Overall, we had a fantastic day in Year 4 and look forward to the book fair coming 19th-24th March to spend our £1 book tokens!
Help at home: read daily with your children to continue developing their love of reading as well as their fluency.
Bring in your favourite book!
On Thursday (5th March 2025), it is World Book Day! We have a very exciting day planned filled with lots of brilliant activities all about reading.
As part of our day, we’ll be exploring and discussing our favourite books so it would be great if your children could bring in their favourite book on Thursday to discuss with their peers. They’ll be sharing what they love about their book in hope to inspire others to read it too. Your children will also have the chance to read some in front of the class.
I’m looking forward to hearing all about your children’s favourite books and authors!
Leeds Rhinos healthy lifestyle assembly and ticket offer
This week, we welcomed Luke from Leeds Rhinos to deliver a healthy lifestyle assembly.
We thought about different aspects of keeping a healthy lifestyle including food and nutrition, sleep, exercise, hydration and hygiene.
Luke also spoke about the ticket offer available for families for one of the upcoming Leeds Rhinos home games.
As part of our partnership, and as a reward for all the great work that the children have been doing this year, Leeds Rhinos would like to offer children and their families an amazing opportunity to attend a match at AMT Headingley Stadium (LS6 3BR) at a special discounted schools rate.
Date – Saturday 22nd March 2025
Kick off – 5:30pm
Opposition – Wigan Warriors
Standing tickets can be booked now through the school via School Gateway. Please note that tickets will be on sale until 10am on Tuesday 18th March.
Group Reading
This half term is group reading and Year 4 have been given their group reading books which they must read at home.
During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities. All reading record activities should relate to the book your children have been given. It allows your children to delve deeper into their book and have meaningful discussions with their peers about this in our sessions.
During Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the following session on the next Friday. This will be marked with a post-it note.
What to remember:
- Your child has a book that they need to read by Friday every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it note).
- The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
- A grown up must sign and comment in their reading record.
- Group reading books and reading records must be brought into school every Friday.
Help at home: listen to your child read their new book daily and ask them questions about the book. This will help them in their book club sessions.
Skipping Festival 2025
Today, Year 4 took part in the 2025 Skipping Festival and won! This means we’re through to the finals in June and we can’t wait.
They did a brilliant job and worked so well as a team – all their practising definitely paid off! It was amazing to watch them all showcase their incredible skipping skills. They also showed great support for each other and the other teams. I was so impressed by their determination, teamwork and respect.
In between the skills, the children had the chance to skip, dance and sing along to the music which they loved. They even got the chance to learn some new skipping skills like the butterfly.
Both the individual skills and the group skips were fantastic. Your children won lots of awards – including seven gold medals! We were all so happy to win and be through to the finals in June.
Well done Year 4 for trying your best and representing Moortown so well – we’re so proud of you! Let’s do it all again in June!
Leeds Beckett tennis
This week, Nic and Sky, tennis coaches from Beckett Sport Juniors, came to deliver a tennis themed assembly.
Here are the details of a special offer they are offering for Moortown pupils.
Cross Country Leeds Final
*** UPDATE*** Congratulations to our Year 3 girls team and one of our Year 4 runners who have qualified for the West Yorkshire Cross Country Final.
We were very proud of our eight Key Stage 2 children who took part in the Leeds Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam this week.
In muddy, slippy, wet conditions they all put in 100% effort in their races and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing against the best runners from across Leeds.
We’ll wait to hear if we have any qualifiers for the next round, the West Yorkshire Final.
Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.
PE: Dance
We are dancers!
In PE this half term, we have been doing dance. We’ve been exploring different elements of dance and how we can use them when creating a final group routine.
- Space – pathways
- Tempo – time
- Dynamics
We started the half term by exploring different pathways – curved, angular and freeform. We imagined we were in snow and had to imagine the trail we would be leaving as we moved through the space.
Next we looked at tempo. This is the speed at which a dancer moves: fast, slow, acceleration, deceleration or free flowing. We spoke about the rhythmic use of the body to music, sound, no sound or voice.
Finally, we thought about different dynamics in dance. These are the movements we make and the quality of these movements. The three we looked at were:
- swinging
- suspending
- vibrating
To end this unit, your children got into groups and created a routine to Roar by Katy Perry. They had to think about all the elements we’ve covered this half term in their final piece. I was amazed by all of their dances – they were fantastic! All of your children were confident dancers and demonstrated all three elements brilliantly.
Help at home: put on your favourite song and ask your child to dance to it while thinking about the three elements of dance.
Safer Internet Day
Today was Safer Internet Day! This was a day designated to all things online safety.
In Year 4, we focused on some key elements of online safety:
- Fake news
- Phishing
- Sharing personal information
- Scams
We began by discussing fake news and how we can spot it. Not everything we read online is true and we must make sure we don’t trust everything we read. Questions we can ask when deciding if an information source is trustworthy:
- Who has written it?
- Do they have a good reputation?
- Why has it been written?
- Is it opinion or fact?
- Is it high quality?
We then explored some different sources of information all about Roblox and had to rank them from most trustworthy to least trustworthy – using our questions to help us.
It’s really important to always speak to a trusted adult if you’re unsure about something you read online.
We joined a great BBC live lesson for Safer Internet Day all about scamming and phishing.
Phishing involves tricking someone into giving out personal information online by pretending to be someone else.
We learnt how to spot a phishing scam using a helpful acronym.
Whenever we suspect a phishing scam, we should always tell a trusted adult and then block and report the scammer.
Finally, we discussed how to create a safe password. Our recipe for a strong and secure password:
Ingredients:
- 3 random words
- at least 1 number
- at least 1 symbol
- some capital letters
Method:
- Combine ingredients and mix up the order.
Help at home: ask your children how they can spot a scam online and what they should do if they find one.
