Living and Learning: Creative cultural and spiritual homework
Wow – what fantastic creative homework based on the children’s cultural and spiritual experiences. We spent time looking at all the homework and the children were able to give stars to each other about what they liked. The homework gave a great insight into the identity (our current Living and learning theme) of the children in terms of what they celebrate or what they enjoy culturally.
We even heard about a festival for dogs, Dog Fest, and Jack had a great suggestion for a brand new festival to celebrate friendship.
Living Streets update
We are pleased to work alongside the Living Streets local Moortown group to support our aim for children to make healthy, active and safe journeys to school. Here is an update from the group.
A BIG THANK YOU!
Both Living Streets UK and Living Streets Moortown would like to say a big thank you for all the noticeable improvements you have helped to bring about on journeys to and from school this year:
• Reduction in parking in Allerton Avenue (which is access only for residents) and on the double yellow or zig-zag lines adjacent to the school
• Reduction in vehicles mounting the pavement near to the school
• Reduction in vehicles parked with engines idling
• Increase in the number of families opting to Park & Stride from M&S* when driving is unavoidable
* M&S has 200 free 2-hour spaces available and the short walk to school is much safer and more enjoyable with fewer cars passing through key crossing points on the routes to school (such as Allerton Avenue and the
shopping parade entrance & exits).
This is fantastic progress and with continued support from all the families at Moortown we’ll see further improvements in air quality, safer ‘vehicle-free’ pavements and more families choosing to make and enjoy active trips to school.
OUR CURRENT PRIORITIES
While all the improvements we have seen around the school gates are encouraging, there is still a lot to be done. Cars, vans and HGVs continue to be driven up footpaths and recently there appears to be an increase in drivers passing through the main M&S lights while the green man is on so please be mindful of this when crossing.
We are already campaigning to deal with issues like these and the great response we had to our recent survey of parents and carers has helped us to submit a feedback document to the ‘Connecting Leeds’ consultation – a proposal to improve bus and other sustainable travel options in Moortown. We recently met with a representative from the project and are hopeful that some of the suggested pedestrian improvements will be incorporated into the scheme which is due to be delivered next year.
THE YEAR AHEAD…
The Moortown Living Streets Group is still in its first year, but we already have some exciting plans for 2019, including a project to monitor local air quality as well as some great ideas to get Moortown moving!
➢ Register to get involved or receive news here
➢ Access info on walking to school here
Thank you once again for you support to date – it’s making a real difference and we’re keen for that to continue throughout the year ahead.
Season’s Greetings!
From everyone at Moortown Living Streets Group
E: moortowngroup@livingstreets.org.uk T: @moortownlsg
Air resistance is amazing! Part 2
To test the science behind the parachute slowing us down when running, we set up an experiment involving parachutes, eggs and a window.
Year 5 worked in groups to make three different parachute sizes. We wanted to investigate which parachute had the most air resistance and therefore slow the egg’s fall the most to prevent it from breaking. It was important to keep everything else the same so that we could tell that it was definitely the parachute size affecting the results.
Next, it was the moment of truth. We waited patiently below to observe the speed of the parachute’s fall and whether or not our eggs cracked. A slower fall would mean more air resistance and, ultimately, an egg in less danger!
We found that the larger parachutes fell slower and had more success protecting their eggs. Smaller parachutes fell very quickly to the ground. This means larger parachutes have a greater air resistance and smaller parachutes have less air resistance.
Science mini topic
We’ve now started a science mini topic based on forces. To begin this topic, the children were shown a series of forces-related photos and asked to come up with questions based on what they would want to know.
There were some great scientific questions and these will lead into some investigations we will be doing based on forces.
BBC website has a number of videos on forces if you want to find out more.
Cross Country
Update 28.11.18
Congratulations to Edris and Billy who have qualified as wildcard runners for the Leeds City Finals at Temple Newsam in February.
Well done to all the Key Stage 2 children who represented school in traditional cross country weather today at the Leeds East North East cross country event at Cardinal Heenan school. For some of the children, this was the first time they have taken part in a competitive event and spirits were still high despite the muddy and cold conditions.
Thank you to Mrs Small, Mrs Charlesworth and Mrs Maqbool who accompanied the children and for parents who helped with transport and gave support at the event.
We had a fantastic response to this event with over 50 children wanting to take part. Even though we managed to increase our numbers, unfortunately there were still children who didn’t get chance to participate this time. There will, however, be other competitive and participation opportunities happening over the year.
Living and Learning – Identity
For our next few Living and Learning sessions, we have asked the children to bring in something that represents them. This links in with our current theme all about Identity and what makes them special and unique.
We will do this over the next three weeks so please note the dates and groups below.
Tuesday 27 November Arctic Ocean
Tuesday 4 December Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean
Tuesday 11 December Pacific Ocean and Southern Ocean
The children should choose to bring in or talk about something to do with their family, an interest they have or any achievements they have made and be ready to share this with the class.
Takeover Challenge Day
Takeover Challenge day is on Friday 23 November
What is Takeover Challenge?
Takeover is a fun engagement project which sees schools and organisations across England opening their doors to children and young people to take over adult roles.
It puts children and young people in decision making positions and encourages schools and organisations to hear and act upon their views and ideas. Children and young people gain an insight into the adult world and schools and organisations benefit from a fresh perspective about their work.
Recently, our new School Council discussed how children could be involved in ‘taking over’ at school. Therefore on Friday, takeover activities will include serving school dinners (representatives from Year 4), working in the school office (representatives from Year 5), leading assembly (representatives from Year 6) and accompanying Mrs Weekes on a learning walk around school (representatives from Year 5 and 6).
In addition there will be opportunities within class where children will takeover. For example, taking the register, spelling/times table tests, parts of lessons, PE warm ups and guided reading.
Check our class news pages to see this in action.
Christmas dinner menu
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 13 December. Please contact the office, before Monday 26 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
16 November 2018
This week, the whole school has the same Creative homework which children should be ready to discuss as part of our homework review on Thursday 22 November.
I know how to STOP bullying.
This homework is a response to our learning this week during anti-bullying week. Throughout the week, each class has had the chance to talk about what bullying is, what the different types of bullying are and how can we STOP it:
- Start
- Telling
- Other
- People
As part of your discussion you may find our school definition of bullying useful, as agreed by our School Councillors:
Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.
As the homework is Creative, you can do anything you want to respond to the statement. Here are a few ideas to help you:
- Create a cartoon strip of a bullying scenario and how it is solved.
- Create an acrostic poem using the word bullying.
- Write your own ‘kindness statements’ for your class.
- Create a scenarios quiz for your class to decide what they would do.
It’ll be all Wright in the flight.
This week’s invention theme has been Wilbur and Orville Wright’s brainchild: the aeroplane! We’ve enjoyed some science this week all about flight.
We started by making some paper aeroplanes. Plane 1 was the control, Plane 2 had one wing flap and Plane 3 had both flaps on its wings. We wanted to measure how far each plane travelled across the classroom.
In our groups, we each had roles and had to work cooperatively.
It was important to keep certain variables the same in order for it to be a fair test. We needed to know if it was the wing flaps affecting the distance travelled and not something else.
Tape measures were used in order to record each throw. We threw each plane three times to get an average distance.
We generally noticed that Plane 1 flew the furthest. Plane 2 always seemed to take a left hand curve and Plane 3 sometimes did a loop in the air. This led to our discussion about air resistance. The particles in the air were being blocked by the wing flaps, stopping the plane from cutting through the air and travelling as easily.
Imagine you have your hand out of the car window. What happens if you hold your palm up towards the sky? What happens if you hold your hand so the palm is facing the way you’re going? That is air resistance in action!
Our discussion led us to the following conclusion:
The greater the air resistance, the shorter the distance travelled.
