We’ve reached the end of the school year – we hope it’s been a happy and healthy one at Moortown Primary for you and your child. Our message this week is a long one:
- Our first message is about swimming – it’s especially important for parents of children moving into Year 3 next year
- We’ve a uniform update – this is for everyone
- Also for everyone are some links for holiday ideas
- After this, we’ve an array of celebrations of our happy and healthy school!
Swimming lessons at Moortown Primary
We’re making an exciting change to how children in Years 3 and 4 access swimming lessons.
Currently, children in Year 3 go swimming. With travel included, it takes up a large part of the afternoon for a relatively short weekly lesson.
From next year, Moortown Primary and Scholes (Elmet) Primary (another Sphere Federation school) will share a time slot in the year for a pop-up pool – a purpose-built, temporary swimming pool. It will mean children in Key Stage 2 will benefit from an intensive 3 week block of lessons where they will swim for 45 minutes every day with fully qualified, external swimming instructors.
This alternating cycle begins with Scholes (Elmet) Primary in 2025-26 (so there are no swimming lessons next year for Moortown children). In 2026-27, we’ll have the pool. Across the two year cycle, all children in Key Stage 2 will benefit: children will either swim in Years 3 and 5 or in Years 4 and 6 during their time in Key Stage 2.
We understand this may seem like fewer lessons overall. However, the intensive, daily format has been shown to significantly boost children’s progress. Here’s why:
- Faster skill development: Swimming every day builds confidence and skill without the gap between weekly lessons that often leads to forgetting.
- More time in the water: Without the need for travel, children get more meaningful lesson time.
- Less disruption to learning: A concentrated block avoids weekly interruptions across the year, protecting curriculum time.
- Improved outcomes: Qualified instructors can better tailor lessons to each child’s needs, helping more pupils learn to swim and develop water confidence.
We’re confident this change will mean even more children can learn to swim whilst also saving on learning time lost throughout the year.
Uniform update
Please remind yourself of our Uniform Policy so you and your child can be ready for September. We’ve made a couple of minor changes: nothing major, mainly making the guidance around additional items hopefully a bit clearly.
Happy and healthy in the holidays
Breeze is back and heading to a park near you this summer! Read more about the series of local and low-cost days out. Fancy something even more active? Check out the range of events from Active Leeds.
Why not balance this with some reading? The reading challenge from Leeds Libraries this year is all about getting outside and enjoying a bit of fresh air. The Summer Reading Challenge theme is Story Garden and is all about the outdoors, which is full of enchanting words, all kinds of creatures and plants, and fascinating facts – get ready for a book-borrowing adventure! Children will be able to find new reads linked to nature, and access activities at the library – and best of all, it is completely FREE!
We’ve many things to celebrate this year. The last two weeks haven’t been any different…
Well done!
At the end of the school year, there are different statutory assessments for children in different year groups. With assessments still coming in or yet to be confirmed, it’s early days to look too closely at the results, but here’s a quick first look:
- The vast majority of our Year 1 children reached national expectations in the Phonics Screening Check – 96.7% compared to the national figure of 80.1%
- Our Year 4 children’s average score in the Multiplication Tables Check was 24.0 out of 25 – we don’t know the 2025 national average, but that’s comfortably above last year’s figure of 20.6
- In the Key Stage 2 tests (the SATs) in Reading, Maths and Grammar and Punctuation, the outcomes for Year 6 are all above national – in fact, 76.7% of the children reached national expectations (or better) in Reading, Writing and Maths combined compared to 62% nationally
Well done to all the pupils for doing so well.
Skipping skiptacular!
There has been some superb skipping at Moortown Primary over the past year. Last week, some of our skippers were invited to skip at the stadium in Headingley before the Leeds Rhinos match. They did a brilliant job (even in the sweltering heat) and represented Moortown brilliantly!
- ‘I really enjoyed the skiptacular and all the crowd were clapping along. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.’
- ‘Lots of people watched us and I felt proud to perform it to everyone.’
Move Well
During our Being Healthy themed week, Matt from Leeds Well School Partnership visited for an assembly and to share the winning Year 2 and Year 6 entries from the recently published Move Well book. This reflective writing shared the children’s relationships with physical activity and sports. Well done to Florence and Soham for having their work published. Buy a copy of the Move Well book.
Personal best
Thank you for all the contributions towards visitors that joined us throughout the week. Our Personal Best Challenge has also raised £101 for our school charity, Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Active travel winners
As part of the Being Healthy themed week, children were encouraged to make their journeys to school as active as possible. We enjoyed checking out some great photos in our whole school assembly on Monday. There were some alternative ways that we saw this year including jumping, twirling and leaping to school! Winners were chosen at random as all of the entries were great…
And it’s always fun to simply enjoy a happy and healthy playtime!
To wrap up the 2024-25 year…
We’re saying goodbye to our Year 6 friends – a great bunch of characters who have provided much entertainment over the years. Each and every one of them has a lot to be proud of and they will be missed. Our message to them: step up, be proud and be who you want to be.
To all of our parents and carers – thank you for all your support and engagement this year. Have a wonderful summer and we’ll see you back at school on Tuesday 02 September. Have a happy and healthy holiday!