Author: Mr Roundtree

Moortown Community Group invite you to join in the Moortown Festive Lights Switch-On at 6.45pm (for 7.00pm start) on Wednesday 19 November.

This year, The Community Group will be gathering outside the ‘Transform’ premises, opposite the entrance to M&S, where mulled wine and mince pies, fruit juice and decorated biscuits will be served – all kindly donated by our local branches of Marks and Spencer and Cooplands.

For more information please see the Moortown Community Group website or their Facebook page.

The group looks forward to seeing you at this start to the festive season. Last year, they were not so lucky with the weather but the event will go ahead as planned whatever the weather. Fingers crossed for a fine night!

On Monday 06 October, Mr Owen, Mr Wilks and Miss Rushbrooke led the first of three learning drop-in sessions to support your child; this one was in English. Here are some of the comments.

• I like the handouts and the way the content of them was explained.
• Teachers are very approachable and explain everything in our language. It’s a great opportunity to get a feel for what’s going on in the class.
• Really pleased I came – learned lots.
• The practical suggestions of how to include writing in daily life and good ideas for encouraging reading were useful.
• Very useful session to find out some additional ways to help at home. The small group format worked well and it was helpful having the split by year group. The information to take home was very useful too.
• It was very organised with lots of practical ideas. It was a great idea to split the workshop into year groups.
• Very informal, good opportunity to ask questions and to talk to teachers and other parents about what works at home.
• Good advice and tips about how to encourage reading through asking plenty of questions. I liked the different methods of practising writing including using iPads.
• I feel more confident when discussing work with my children.

There is a similar drop-in workshop on on Monday 20 October at 2.30pm for Maths.

For Reception and Year 1 parents, Mrs Weekes and Mrs Burke lead a learning workshop where you get ideas about how to support the early stages of reading, writing and maths. This is on Monday 13 October at 2.30pm.

In four previous news items, I’ve discussed your responses to the end-of-year annual reports and to the annual survey.

Don’t wait until June to raise any questions, comments or concerns!

On Friday last week, a mum came to see me to discuss how she could support her son at home – someone who’s already beyond the age-related expectations in reading, writing and maths. It was 5pm or later (nearly the weekend!), but I was happy to talk through some ideas, especially since she had quite a few ideas of her own about how we might be able to help. One idea was to buy a subscription to Mathletics – a computer program that would allow her child to practise maths at home, without needing an adult to support. From discussions with parents of children in other schools, she’s heard that it’s really good.  Just days after her suggestion, we’re now exploring subscriptions. We won’t rush into it – we don’t want to waste money.  We’re checking out costs and I’m asking other headteachers if their schools use it and whether they would recommend it. (We’ll let you know if we subscribe…)

Also this year, I’ve acted on feedback about school dinners. I hope problems here are teething problems following the introduction of free school meals for all younger children – a massive planning and organisational task to accommodate 60 more pupils (and numbers continue to rise for older pupils, too). Mrs Weekes has listened and responded to parents about children and concerns with regards their special education needs. We are restricted by funding as to how we respond – it would be great to be able to buy in more support or resources – but Mrs Weekes has excellent relationships with professionals who offer advice and guidance. I know class teachers have also responded to your views. Again, it’s not always appropriate or possible to act on every request, but we do listen and consider. When a parent mentioned their child was struggling to read the whiteboards in class, one teacher immediately re-arranged seating. When someone else mentioned their child was feeling a bit anxious this year, we included the child in a small, SEAL group (to promote social and emotional aspects of learning).

We can’t always act on your suggestions (some just aren’t possible) and we can’t always listen to your views (whether you think your child would benefit from a term-time holiday or not, we won’t authorise one, for example!). However, as always, please raise your questions, comments and concerns to me or one of the teachers in school: we do care and we do listen.

I’ve already described how we listen to your responses to the end-of-year annual reports. In this and the following two news articles, I’ll talk through the findings of the annual surveys. Here, I’ll describe the feedback we received on the subject of behaviour and our ‘warnings’ system.

One respondent pondered why we were asking this, and wondered whether it was because warnings and our policy overall wasn’t working. Not the case! We have a Relationships Management Policy (other schools might call this a Behaviour Management or Discipline Policy, but we place relationships at the heart of what we do) and it works really well, including the warnings system. We actually asked the question because we always want to review what we do – a chance to step back and reflect on whether we can do even better – as part of a continual cycle of self-evaluation. (It was also prompted by some remarks by the then Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, who suggested last year that schools return to using lines as a form of discipline – more on that below…)

Another parent wondered whether we should have positive consequences, too – we do! Each classroom teacher has their own system(s) in place. In Year 3, for example, Mrs Keatings rewards teamwork as well as individual effort, using team points and stars respectively. In Year 6, Mr Owen favours ‘golden tickets’ whilst Mr Wilks is partial to ‘fuzzies'(!). And don’t forget we have our weekly certificate assembly, where teachers acknowledge especially impressive learning and SEAL skills, as well as the coveted Cool Class Cup, awarded to the class whose individual pupils have earned the most Cool Class tokens.

Unlike the question on homework (more about that in a later news article), your views on our behaviour systems were almost all very, very positive: the vast majority of you supported the warnings system as a way to manage bad choices in school and most of you did not want any changes made, whether this involved lines or some other consequence. Many of you were adamant that we should not allow writing to be seen as a punishment, and a sizeable minority took the opportunity to criticise the views of Mr Gove – a ‘dinosaur’ with little expertise in the area of education sums up a significant number of your comments. Whilst I don’t wish to comment directly on Mr Gove’s ideology, or that of any Secretary of State for Education, I am pleased that you do support what we do around relationships and behaviour.

(Incidentally, one parent did say that they had reinforced the five warnings consequence that his/her child had received at school by issuing lines at home. First, it’s really encouraging to know that home treats poor behaviour choices as seriously as school does, and that we will be supported in this way; second, it was great to also read that the mix of consequences at both school and home worked; and third, it shows that a sort of mixture of traditional and modern strategies can work, as long as the overall message about behaviour choices being good/bad is consistent and clear for the child.)

Thank you for your views. Some specific points – like two requests to know more about the consequences at each stage of the warnings system – can be acted on really easily. All the comments will be passed to the Pupil Support sub-committee of the Governing Body for further consideration.

Look out for more news about your views…

Towards the end of the school year, you’ll have received your child’s annual school report.

Just after receiving the report, parents / carers have a third scheduled parents’ evening to discuss its contents. One of the Year 1 teachers (Mrs Taylor) attends this, too, so the transition to Year 1 can be as smooth as possible – it’s a good time to reflect on the year and to ask questions and raise any concerns as the Reception children move up school.  Many of you who have a child in an older class also met with your child’s teacher (either the current or next one) to discuss the report, although this was done on a more casual basis in that you were encouraged to arrange a meeting if you wanted one.

We also asked you to complete a brief response about the report and the school year: what went well, what we could have done better and what questions / comments / concerns (if any) you have for the next year.

Well, we’re in ‘the next year’ now and I have passed the small number of points you raised (typically two or three in each class) to your child’s new teacher.  They have begun to act on the points you noted, and will respond directly to some of them at parents’ evenings (Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 October).  As always, if you’d like to talk sooner, please call in before or after school – teachers are usually available for a short chat (although longer discussions are best left to a pre-arranged meeting).

Incidentally, there were very few points to improve on (just two or three in the entire school), and lots of praise in the report responses.  Teachers have asked me to pass on their thanks for your very positive and appreciative comments.

Look out for some more responses to your end-of-year feedback (the annual surveys) over the next day or two!