Well done to Reception, Y2 and Y3 whose attendance is all above the school average or 97.1%.
Despite a lot of illnesses last week, our average attendance so far this year (up to 28 November) is great: 97.1%. This year’s Reception class attendance is the highest ever for this period, compared with any previous Reception class – a magnificent achievement!
Well done to Reception, Y2 and Y3 whose attendance is all above the school average.
A headteacher from another outstanding school recently visited us in order to carry out lesson observations to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning.
At Moortown Primary, we don’t like to rest on our laurels. This morning, a headteacher visited our school in order to carry out, alongside me, lesson observations to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning. This is useful for one main reason: to check my judgements about the quality of our provision, so we can be confident that our ‘self-evaluation’ is an honest and accurate assessment of our strengths and areas to get even better.
The headteacher (from another outstanding school in Leeds) visited all the classes, spending around 15-20 minutes in each class. This may not seem a lot, but you can get a ‘snapshot’ of standards in a class quite easily in this amount of time. (Any judgements need to then be backed up with pupil progress at the end of the term/year – this is the crucial.)
From the whole-school point of view, the headteacher was impressed by:
In each class, she was impressed by various things; here I list just a couple of examples from each classroom:
There are always ‘next steps’ to try out new or different teaching strategies, but the overall conclusion from the headteacher is that teaching is good and outstanding.
Well done to all staff – what a great team.
This week’s homework is Practice Makes Perfect and is due on Wednesday 03 December.
I can remember my lines for the Christmas Production.
The Christmas Production is drawing nearer and that means it is now really important for everybody to know their lines. Not only that, you need to make sure that you know when you come on stage and what you do when you’re on.
Here are a few ways to help you practise…
Year 1 and Reception have been visiting Year 2 to learn about how to keep their teeth healthy. The children had great knowledge on what they needed to do to have healthy teeth and we tested just how well they were brushing their teeth by using a plaque disclosure tablet. We found the parts of our teeth that we needed to brush most and then brushed for two minutes until they were squeaky clean. We did look a little odd with our purple mouths though!
This week’s Rs for learning are…
To see how resilient we could be, Year 2 took on the Marshmallow Tower Challenge. Each team of three were given half a packet of spaghetti and a whole load of mini marshmallows. Our towers were very difficult to make sturdy and kept falling down! Everybody did a great job staying positive and trying and trying and trying again if their tower fell down.
Great teamwork!
And the prize for tallest tower goes to….
This week sees us concentrating on all things healthy. So far, we’ve learnt about being safe with drugs and been taught PE, not by Miss Rushbrooke, but by Year 6!
As well as this, we’ve tried out two new physical activities and thoroughly enjoyed them both.
Martial Arts
Thai Chi
We’ll keep you posted on what other intersting activities we get up to for the rest of the week. Watch this space…
During our SEAL theme of the Eight Rs for Learning, please do check out these great guides to help your child be ready for learning.
During our SEAL theme of the Eight Rs for Learning, please do read the great leaflets produced by Family Action and the NAHT.
They promote readiness – and that’s one of our eight Rs.
The series of leaflets (so far) cover:
Learn more about the guides and keep a look out for more in the series.
This week’s homework is Creative and is due on Wednesday 19 November.
I can show what I have learnt in Katie and…
It is the end of our first Big Topic and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. Now it’s time to show everything you have learnt over the last eight weeks. Here are some ideas of ways to present your work.
A quick well done to those children that have been using Mathletics at home. We’ve really enjoyed playing on Live Mathletics and some children have tried Level 2 questions and even Level 3! Have a look at the activities you can complete, particularly in the Counting and Number section and Grouping and Sharing.
I have assigned everyone an activity this week that you will have to complete before you can go on anything else. All of the children should be confident with this as it’s related to arrays, which has been our maths focus this week.
Please let me know if your child’s multiplication activity doesn’t seem to have been assigned.
We’ve just been awarded silver level for the School Games Mark, a government-led awards scheme to reward schools committed to the development of sports competition. Read the report’s summary here.
The Sainsbury’s School Games Mark is a government-led awards scheme launched in 2012 to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community. Schools in England are able to assess themselves across bronze, silver and gold levels of the Mark. We had a visit from someone from Sport Industry Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University to check our assessment. I’m delighted to say we’ve just been awarded a silver level for 2013-14 and proudly display our ‘medal’ on our health page and PE and sports funding pages.
Here are some extracts from the report (dated 04 November 2014):
Moortown Primary School has been awarded the Silver Mark Award for the academic year 2013/2014.
Moortown Primary School received a validation visit for their application for a Mark award on Tuesday 21st October 2014. It was clear from the evidence provided that the school met the criteria to achieve a Silver Mark and in some areas of the criteria met Gold standard.
Every pupil in the school receives at least two hours of PE and school sport per week (in curriculum time only). The school organised school sports days for KS1 and KS2 that incorporated teams within the school. The school’s sports leaders plus other pupils helped in the organisation and running of the sports day.
Moortown Primary School has an excellent take up of extra-curricular sporting activities with 43% of the students participating in these activities; this exceeds the silver standard criteria. It is clear that sporting extra curricular activities are a crucial part of sports provision at the school with numerous lunchtime clubs and after school clubs taking place.
The school provided clear evidence of offering talented young sports people support in developing their sporting potential. The school have adopted an excellent policy called a ‘learning mountain’; this involves talented children teaching other students their specific skills during PE lessons. Alongside this the school has a well-maintained gifted and talented register.
The delivery of sporting opportunities at the school is good with 7 sports being offered at level 1 and 7 sports at level 2. This exceeds the standard for silver. Moreover, the school provided clear evidence of providing three B teams in football, rugby and football. The school showed excellent signs of promotion of School Games activity to parents in newsletters and have an active school twitter page, which regularly posts photos and team results. Moortown have an excellent policy in place where some students are asked to write match reports on school fixtures and then the reports are uploaded onto the school’s website.
11% of pupils are engaged in leading, managing and officiating in School Games activity, which exceeds the percentage required for Silver, the Gold standard is 20%. While the school actively engages students in the planning and development of School Games activity, currently the school does not have a school sport organising committee or crew in place. There is a need for a separate school sport organising committee to be in place to meet the criteria for gold in this category.
The school provided clear evidence of having three active links with local sports clubs and utilising sports coaches to support school sport. It is also clear the school uses the resources available to them to train wider school staff to support school sport. Last year the school brought in a specialised sporting teacher and this member of staff has trained other members of staff to lead sporting activities in the school.
The following are suggested improvements to the collection of evidence should the school wish to submit for gold next year:
• Looking at ways to increase the extra-curricular activity from 43% to above 50%, and increasing the percentage of leading / managing / officiating activity to meet the 20% requirement at gold. The Your School Games website has a section around School Sport Organising Crew which may highlight some additional roles and responsibilities that are included.
• Currently Moortown Primary School does not have a separate school sport organising committee in place. To achieve a gold Mark, a separate sporting committee would have to be in place and regularly meet to discuss sporting matters at the school. It was noted that the school does have a council and therefore to formulate a separate school sports committee should be straightforward.
• The school provided excellent evidence of having 3 active links with local sports clubs, which all seemed to be longstanding partnerships. However, to achieve a gold Mark Moortown Primary School needs to have at least 6 active links with local sports clubs.
• Currently Moortown Primary School offers 7 sports at level 1 and 7 sports at level 2 of School Games activity. To reach gold standard the school needs to be offering at least 9 sports at level 1 and 9 sports at level 2. Alongside this the school currently only has three B teams competing at level 2, to reach gold standard the school needs to have four B teams and one C team in place.
Congratulations on achieving your Silver Mark.