Living and Learning: staying by assessing risk
Continuing our learning about staying safe, Y6 went to Allerton Grange today to use their climbing wall. Not only did we have a great time, but we learnt about why the harness and helmet were essential for this sort of activity and were taught how to behave when undertaking an activity with greater risk involved.
The children loved the climbing; many conquered fears; and their behaviour was exemplary.
Miss Rushbrooke learnt how to keep others safe too by being the belayer for the climbers.
Lots of us made it to the top and those that didn’t pushed themselves out of their comfort zone.
Living and Learning: Staying Safe week day 3
We welcome four visitors to school today who will be giving a variety of staying safe messages as part of our themed week.
Thank you to Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative who have been busy carrying out maintenance checks on lots of bikes and also delivering basic bike maintenance sessions to Year 5 and 6. Their shop is local in Chapel Allerton.
Thank you to Barrie and Christine, local volunteers from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), who are delivering water safety sessions to children in Reception to Year 4 across the day.
Dave from dside is with us today and Friday to deliver e-safety sessions to children in Year 1 to Year 6.
Finally, this afternoon, the Moortown Fire Service visit us to deliver a fire safety talk to Year 5.
These are just some of the visitors supporting our Staying Safe themed week to enhance our staying safe learning.
Living and Learning: Staying safe in the home
As Year 6s, the children will need to be more independent around the home so we learnt how to use the kitchen safely on our own.
We discussed making toast with the toaster and using a grill. We decided it would be safer to use the grill with an adult around but we could use the toaster on our own. At home, ask us how we can use the toaster safely – we should have loads of tips!
We talked about that pesky situation where your piece of toast is too small and you can’t get it out safely with your hands.
We know how to use the hob safely so we can cook our beans to go on toast.
And, we learnt the dos and don’ts when cooking jacket potatoes in the microwave.
Finally, we finished with pudding and now know how to make the safest hot chocolate. Ask us to make you a tea, coffee or hot chocolate – we can do it safely.
The children were really interested and involved in the whole session with lots of suggestions and questions to further their learning.
Living and Learning: Safer Internet Day
It’s Safer Internet Day and this has been a focus of learning today as part of our Staying Safe themed week. Below are some top tips for parents and carers to support your child to enjoy technology and the internet safely.
Our internet, our choice, so…
- Choose to have a conversation
Talk regularly with your child about how they use technology, and find out what their digital life is like, including what their favourite sites and services are and also how being online makes them feel. Listening to your child will give you the best possible idea of how you can support them. Not sure where to begin? Have a look at our suggested conversation starters for parents.
- Choose to take a balanced approach
As parents it’s natural to feel worried about the risks posed by your child being online, but for young people the online world is exciting and fun, as it brings so many opportunities for them. Remember that your child will use technology and the internet differently given that they are growing up in a world immersed in all things digital. Try to look at both the positive and negative aspects of being online and empower your child with safe choices they can make instead of overwhelming them with restrictions.
- Choose to make use of the tools available to you
There are lots of tools to help you manage the devices used by your family. For example, knowing how to activate and use parental controls can help protect your child from seeing inappropriate content online. For advice and guidance on how to make use of parental controls and other safety features on devices, check out our free Parents’ Guide to Technology and Internet Matters’ step-by-step parental controls guides for online services.
- Choose to get help and support
It can sometimes feel like young people are the experts in all things digital but remember – you are the life experts. You are always there to help your child but make sure you know how to get support too by visiting our Need Help? page. You can take steps to support your child online by using features such as privacy settings on social media and understanding how to make a report on a range of apps, games and services.
- Choose to be current and topical
This Safer Internet Day focuses on the very relevant topic of consent in the digital world. Use this as an opportunity to support your child with how they tackle digital consent within relationships and friendships as well as how online services use the data we provide. Use our quick activities as a family this Safer Internet Day to help you unpick this topic together.
Living and Learning: Staying safe in our environment
Y6 visited the local park this week as part of Safety Week. On the way there, we discussed what risks we might come across: traffic on the road, trip hazards, dogs in the park and slippery equipment.
We enjoyed playing on the equipment – safely of course – before heading back to school and filling in a risk assessment for visiting the park.
This sort of activity is increasingly important for our Year 6s as they’ll be taking more and more responsiblity for themselves as they get older and move into high school. At home, start discussing doing things on their own and what they can do to do those things safely.
Free bike check Wednesday 06 February
Living and Learning: Staying Safe information
A variety of safety related information will be sent home during this themed week. Have a look through the information with your child to support and reinforce this learning at home.
Living and Learning: Staying Safe week begins
Our Staying Safe themed week started today with a launch assembly by Leeds City Council’s road safety team. This included some key active travel and safety messages.
The trainers worked with a number of classes throughout the day.
- Year 3 pedestrian training
- Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 scooter training
- Year 6 Speed Indication Device – checking vehicle speeds in the 20mph zone on Shadwell Lane
Another visitor, Richard from One Day Creative, has worked with three classes today to deliver e-safety themed drama workshops. Other classes will take part in this learning tomorrow.
Ask your child what they have learnt so far based on our four main objectives for the week:
- Staying safe online
- Staying safe at home
- Staying safe at school
- Staying safe in the environment
Thank you to those parents and carers who attended the e-safety session at the end of the day. We hope you found it useful to learn more about your child’s e-safety learning. To help with practical support with devices at home, O2 in partnership with NSPCC offer a free service over the phone, 0808 800 5002, or in one of their stores.
Tomorrow is Safer Internet Day so there will be lots of in class learning on this subject. Have a look at our e-safety end of year expectations for your child’s year group.
An awesome author in Year 6
We’ve got some great writers at Moortown Primary. It’s brilliant to read about one of them, Thomas in Y6, being recognised for this. The writing below was done at home. Thomas was inspired by listening to an audio book of a Sherlock Holmes story read by Stephen Fry – and what great results just from listening to the story and soaking up the language!
The writing was shared on Twitter and a top literacy advisor, Pie Corbett, was impressed.
In some tweets to Thomas’s mum, Pie Corbett comments that it’s a good example of how children imitate their reading: ‘It’s a marvellous example of a child capturing the right tone through listening carefully to the book being read.’ It just shows that audio books – not just written books – can inspire impressive vocabulary and description! Pie Corbett goes on: ‘It’s interesting that he ‘heard’ it which also makes the point about the value of being read to…’
Well done, Thomas – we’re all very proud of you!
Follow Pie Corbett on Twitter.
Living and Learning – Let’s be more active
Across the nation, school’s are working towards providing a more active environment to learn in. Here at Moortown, we all Wake Up and Shake Up everyday to increase our heart rates which benefits our physical, emotional and mental health as well as improving our brain function.
In Year 6, we went on a bike ride in the class room for around 10 minutes which was great fun and got all of our hearts racing.
