We hope you had a happy and healthy Spring break.

Industrial action

First, in case you missed an earlier message this week, is some advance warning about the forthcoming industrial action by members of the National Education Union (NEU).

The next two days of strikes are Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 02 May. Moortown Primary will be closed to pupils in all classes except Year 6 and Year 2 on these days.

We apologise for the inconvenience that this may cause. We know you understand that this is a difficult situation.

Walk or wheel to school?

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 24th place out of 514 schools with an average of 91.14% of our journeys to school being active. We achieved the highest national (24th) and Northern England (5th) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.

This is a great achievement – a big thank you for supporting the challenge.

We hope these active journeys continue. By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you’re helping us make a positive change to the school run. With fewer cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.

Class trips

Thank you very much for your responses to the recent survey about class trips. The feedback has been really helpful. The key message we’ve received is that you’re very keen for school trips to happen more regularly and that you see a lot of value in them:

• ‘I think they are an important part of the curriculum to enhance learning and make connections with the real world. They also form a memorable part of school. In summary, an invaluable experience.’
• ‘Great that these are coming back following the pandemic.  Thank you for putting time and energy into making these a possibility again. In terms of the regularity of class trips, the vast majority of people would like there to be more than one trip per year. We’ll aim to offer two class visits per year, but this does depend on receiving enough voluntary contributions from all parents/carers.

You also gave us a variety of other feedback and suggestions which we’ll consider. Examples of useful points raised include scheduling trips on a Monday or Friday if classes need parent helpers; a memorable visit doesn’t have to be something new or expensive or a long distance away; and weekly direct debits to build up contributions – we’ll ponder over your suggestions as well as start putting in place a schedule of trips across all year groups.

Attendance matters

For the year so far, up to the Easter holiday, the whole-school attendance rate is 95.8% – thank you for making sure your child attends school as much as they can.

Here’s how each class has helped contribute to the 95.5% figure:

• Reception: 94.3%
• Year 1: 95.7%
• Year 2: 96.3%
• Year 3: 95.7%
• Year 4: 96.8%
• Year 5: 96.0%
• Year 6: 95.8%

Enjoy the weekend.

If you’re celebrating, happy Eid!