Living and Learning: Healthy Eating
In Living and Learning, we’ve been looking at healthy eating.
We discussed how some people may be persuaded by what they are seeing in adverts.
Help at home by discussing some more items to add to each of the columns above.
Cooking starts with preparation – washing hands is absolutely essential. Some other key things to think about, as we put into practise in DT at school, are the grip you’re using with the knife, making sure to use any heat responsibly and making sure things are cleaned before use, especially things like fruit and vegetables.
Science: virtual farm tour
This morning, we met Sam who took us on a virtual tour of a dairy farm.
We learnt about how a dairy farm works. Did you know that the cows wear a fitness tracker so the farmer knows how many steps they do each day and how long they spend lying down and standing up. This is so that the farmer can check on the health of the animals.
We learned about how the cows are milked and that they produce up to 50 litres of milk a day!
We learned about how the cows have been selectively bred for specific desirable characteristics. These cows are bred so that they produce a lot of milk. Other cows are selectively bred for their size so that they grow big and quick or for their hardiness so that they can live in tougher weather conditions.
We also learnt about how wheat production is similar. We produce wheat that has desirable characteristics like its size and its resistance to drought. 
What is a rainforest?
“A rainforest is warm and humid filled with lots of trees,” said Ehtasham.
Edith the geographer stated, “The precipitation levels are extremely high.”
“There are four layers: forest floor, understory, canopy and emergent,” explained Betsy.
Tommy reminds us of the importance of the Amazon Rainforest, “It removes so much carbon from the atmosphere but it’s being cut down.”
Stellar spellers
Take a look at some fantastic spelling practice from Y6, this week.
Our focus has been unusual spelling patterns and the different ways you can write them in order to best remember them.
Help at home by practising spellings as part of writing sentences or when polishing your handwriting.
Summer term after-school clubs
***Update***
The following clubs have availability and there is still time to sign up.
The after-school clubs for this term are available for booking from this Wednesday. We hope your child/children can get involved with our extra-curricular activities.
This term, clubs will run for 10 weeks rather than 8 weeks starting week commencing 29th April.
Please contact the office if you have any queries about the after-school clubs.
Super swimmers
UPDATE 26.04.24
Our team have qualified for the Nationals. What a great achievement – well done to all the children.
Our Year 5/6 swimming team competed in the English Schools’ Swimming Association North East Primary Schools’ Team Championship at the Grammar School at Leeds. A special thank you goes to one team member who joined the team late on.
All the children performed brilliantly throughout the afternoon competing against schools from Yorkshire. We are proud to announce the team came away with two silver medals in the freestyle (missing out on 1st place by just 1.2 second) and mixed stroke races.
Here are part of the team celebrating their success.
Following the team races, there was chance for the children to compete in individual races. In their breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle heats, the children came away with four 1sts, two 2nds, one 3rd and one 4th place.
The children were a credit to the school – supporting each other and giving 100% in every single race to get some great results.
A huge well done to the whole team.
Living and Learning: Health and Prevention
Today’s Living and Learning lesson was all about germs! (More specifically, preventing the spread of them!)
Have a go at the quiz we did in class.
What’s the science behind sneezing?
How can we stop germs from spreading?
We carried out an experiment where just four people in the class had green paint on their hand. They high fived other people and those people did the same. It didn’t take long at all before we were all covered in ‘germs’.
It really, really highlighted the need for handwashing. Seeing the green spreading from such a small starting point was shocking!
Help at home by discussing when it’s needed to wash hands and how long for! How else can we prevent germs from spreading?
Moortown Netballers
Some of the netballers from our after-school club took part in the Leeds Well School Partnership Bee Netball competition at Allerton High this week.
This was their first team event and we were very proud of their performance and team work. Thank you to parents for supporting and for helping with transport.
The Tuesday after-school netball club will be restarting in the summer term for those children who would like to come and join.
Netball activities are also available over Easter from Leeds Rhinos Netball.
Big Walk and Wheel final position
After the two week Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge, we now have the final results.
In our category of small primary schools, we finished in 20th place out of 459 schools with an average of 89.81% active journeys to school. We achieved the highest national (20th) and Northern England (3rd) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.
With a total of 1655 active journeys across the two weeks, this is a great achievement and we want to thank families for supporting this challenge.
Help at home: By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you are helping us make a positive change to the school run. With less cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.
Living and Learning: seeing change positively
This week, our Living and Learning lesson focused on coping with change.
We talked about different changes someone may face in their life and focused on one story in particular of ‘The New Kid’.
Help at home by analysing feelings on a deeper level. The boy in the video wasn’t just ‘sad’. He felt lonely, isolated, scared and alone. Sometimes it can help to have a more accurate description of how you’re feeling so you can even better work out how to make it better and cope.
We also discussed how feelings change depending on our environment and the things happening to us. Importantly, we also decided what could be done about these feelings.
Remember – change is a positive thing! It means you’re growing and developing as a person. When you’ve the right strategies, change can be a powerful and exciting thing.
Finally, we gave strategies and advice for anyone coping with – or struggling with – change.
