The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell

The Wolf Wilder is about a girl named Feodora and she tames wild wolves to be on her side. One day her mother goes to prison for taming wolves. When Feo's house is burned down by the General, she knows that she has to escape with the wolves. She travels to St Petersburg to try and save her mother with a friend.

My favourite part of the book is that it is set 100 years ago and that in the middle of the book one of the wolves is shot by the General. It is really dramatic. I also liked how emotional the book makes you.

I would recommend this book for children who are about 11 years old. It is full of excitement and adventure. It is fun to read and you will pick up what happens very quickly.

From Lois

Empathy Day 2018

On Tuesday 12th June, we were delighted to take part in the second ever National Empathy Day. We are privileged to have been one of Empathy Lab's trial schools over the past three years, and have seen a huge impact on our children's attitudes from the work that we have been doing. This year, our main themes have been Loneliness and Friendship.

Mr Siddles said, "It was wonderful to see so many children actively engaged in their empathy work and then sharing it so enthusiastically in assembly."

Author Jo Cotterill (A Library of Lemons, Electrigirl) was our special guest on the day. She delivered a fantastic assembly to the children in Key Stage 2 about the importance of empathy and how to demonstrate to somebody that you are listening to them. She then talked about how events can be interpreted differently, depending on your point of view.

 

After break, Jo delivered two exciting writing workshops to the pupils in Deer Class and Eagles Class. The children really enjoyed sharing some of their work with her. She then met with a group of interested parents, and talked to them about her life as an author and recommended some of her favourite books.

Miss Eyles in Year 6 thought it was a great day and said, "We worked hard to understand the difference between sympathy and empathy

Tom said, "She came and gave us some pictures and asked us to write about how the people in the picture feel. Empathy is important because if you don't empathise with people, they might never get better but just stay the same."

    

At the end of the day, there was a huge queue outside Mr Biddle's classroom as she sold and signed copies of her books, including her latest publication, Jelly.

While all this was happening, Squirrels Class were organising the very first Moorlands Empathy Awards. The class had chosen five book characters that they all empathised with, and then split into small groups to prepare an argument explaining why their character should win the award. On Wednesday, with the help of Mr Allen, Mr Biddle and a few members of Deer Class, they led a fantastic assembly where each group talked about their character and gave reasons why they should win. As the pupils and staff left the assembly, they were all given a voting slip where they could vote for their favourite character. The winner, with 89 votes, was George from The Smartest Giant in Town.

Mr Biddle said, "We are looking forward to carrying on with our empathy work in the future. It fits in perfectly with our school's core values and is now becoming firmly embedded across the school. The staff of the school have worked really hard to get this far and we're now seeing the benefits."

William's highlight of the day was, "When I went up in front of the whole school and thinking about all the different characters."

A visit from the poet Joseph Coelho

Last Thursday, we were all extremely excited to have our first visit from our new Patron of Reading, the poet and author Joseph Coelho. As our patron, Joseph will be visiting us again next year, and keeping us up to date with what he's doing by Skyping the school every half-term. He'll also be running some training for teachers and leading sessions for parents.

 

Miss Fuller collected Joseph from his hotel in Great Yarmouth and, when he arrived, he performed an excellent poetry show for the children in Key Stage Two. It was funny, but it also made us think about ways we can use language. He shared some one word poems with very long titles, taught us about different types of poetry and answered lots of questions from the children. He then spoke to some of the children about poems that they'd produced, which were based on his poem about hot dogs!

 

After break, he led a poetry workshop in Squirrels Class and, after enjoying a delicious roast dinner from the school kitchen, ran sessions with Hedgehogs Class and Rabbits Class. He shared a copy of his new book, Luna Loves Library Day, and talked to parents about the importance of reading at home.

He finished the day by selling and signing copies of his books. Miss Eyles then drove him back to Norwich station so that he could prepare for running the London Marathon on Sunday (which he managed to complete in just over five and a half hours- well done Joseph!).

We had a wonderful day with Joseph and can't wait until he visits us again in September. We'd like to say a big thank you to the Friends of Moorlands who worked extremely hard to raise the money to pay for Joseph's visit.

'That was brilliant, I didn't realise that poetry was so much fun.' Year 6 pupil

'He's really funny.' Year 1 pupil

Book shopping at Norfolk Children's Book Centre

On Friday 19th January, Mr Biddle and Mr Siddles took five children from Year 5 and 6 to Norfolk Children's Book Centre. We were very excited because we'd been given £500 to spend on books for our school library from the Siobhan Dowd Trust.

When we first arrived, we spent ten minutes looking around the shop. We decided that we needed a balanced mixture of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels and poetry, so we split up into small groups and started to make a list of what we wanted. After an hour of discussion, we eventually came up with three large piles, which we then needed to narrow down. We eventually managed to do this and returned to school with two fantastic boxes full of new books for everyone to share.

We'd like to say a huge thank you to the Siobhan Dowd Trust for their very generous donation! It will certainly make a massive difference to our school library.

Reading Displays

There are some absolutely amazing book-related displays appearing round the school. It's wonderful to see the high profile that reading is getting.

Tell Me A Dragon by Jackie Morris

The Gruffalo's Child by Julia Donaldson

Bill's New Frock by Anne Fine

Varjak Paw by SF Said

Wonder by RJ Palacio

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

Deer Class share their favourite books

Romy's Authors

Here's s short video where Romy shares some of her favourite authors and books. We hope you enjoy watching it!