Mr Roundtree, Author at Moortown Primary School, Leeds

It’s the holiday…

…so there are no homework or spellings.

However, there are lots of ways you can support you child’s learning, first and foremost by visiting our Help Your Child section.

There are lots of things to do in or near Leeds, from geo-caching on Monday to a spooky Halloween walk on Sunday. Here are a few other ideas to fill the October half-term holiday with activities…

take your child for an autumnal walk in Roundhay Park to collect chestnuts for a game of conkers or autumn leaves for an autumn collage;
on a cold, autumn day, stay indoors and spend time baking (What unit of measurement will we use to weigh? If we want to make twice as much, how much will we need? When will the food be ready?);
take a trip to Leeds Art Gallery – the Damien Hirst exhibition should prove a great opportunity for lots of discussion, description and possibly disagreement!
and, as always, enjoy some relaxing reading (why not read some Tintin stories from a local library in preparation for the forthcoming film?)

School re-opens on Tuesday 01 November 2011 (following a training day on Monday 31 October 2011).

Vote Bronwen for Leeds Mayor!

We’re very proud that a Year 6 pupil here at Moortown Primary has been selected as one of ten finalists for the Leeds Children’s Mayor competition. Please vote for her!

We’re very proud that Bronwen, a Year 6 pupil here at Moortown Primary, has been selected as one of ten finalists for the Leeds Children’s Mayor competition. All the Year 6 children completed a manifesto of what they would like to change if they could become Mayor for the day and Bronwen was chosen as our entrant for the competition. Her manifesto is brilliant, meeting all the criteria set (see below).

Vote for Bronwen! Voting has now opened for the finalists and anyone with a Leeds Learning account can vote. If you know of anyone who has one, please encourage them to vote.

Voting will remain open until midday on Friday 04 November.

Representatives of Leeds Children’s Services and Leeds Council undertook the difficult task of short listing the twenty Children’s Mayor entries they received down to a final ten. In order to make the short listing a fair and transparent process, they used score cards and scored the manifestos individually against four criteria:

How clear and focused the manifesto idea was
How practical, achievable and affordable the manifesto idea was
The number of children and young people who would benefit from the manifesto idea
The extent to which children would work alongside adults to make the idea a reality

As well as Moortown Primary, the schools whose entrants made the final this year are Allerton Bywater Primary School, Bramley St Peters Primary School, Calverley C of E Primary School, Hill Top Primary School, Kippax North Junior & Infant School, Queensway Primary School, Shire Oak Primary School, Strawberry Fields Primary School and Whinmoor St Paul’s Primary School

This whole programme is about encouraging children to show an interest in democracy and to get them into the habit of voting on issues that affect them.

We know children at Moortown Primary already make a positive contribution to the school and their community through the School Council, litter-picking, raising money for charity etc. It’s great individuals like Bronwen want to go the extra mile to have their views heard!

Attendance

You’ll know that as a school, we monitor attendance closely. Last year, we met our attendance targets, which is great news.

The attendance record for your child’s class – last year’s Y4 class – was broadly the same as Leeds overall, but there were two areas we’d like to improve this year:

the class’s attendance was lower than other schools of a similar nature,
the amount of unauthorised absence was significantly higher than similar schools, and even higher than Leeds overall – sadly, this was caused by a few individuals taking term-time holidays.

Please keep an eye on your child’s attendance. Research shows that too many absences affect not only learning but a child’s social and emotional aspects of learning.

Attendance

You’ll know that as a school, we monitor attendance closely. Last year, we met our attendance targets, which is great news.

The attendance record for your child’s class – last year’s Y1 class – was broadly the same as Leeds overall, but there were two areas we’d like to improve this year:

the class’s attendance was lower than other schools of a similar nature,
the amount of unauthorised absence was significantly higher than similar schools, and even higher than Leeds overall – sadly, this was caused by a few individuals taking term-time holidays.

Please keep an eye on your child’s attendance. Research shows that too many absences affect not only learning but a child’s social and emotional aspects of learning.

Well done!

Well done to pupils and parents in Y3 for your excellent attendance figures last year, in Y2.

The class had much higher attendance figures and much lower unauthorised absences than Leeds schools overall, and also, very importantly, better figures than our ‘statistical neighbours’ – these are schools that are most similar to us.

The attendance record for the class was the best in the school. This excellent data certainly helped the school overall to meet our school target for the year – thank you.

Well done!

Well done to pupils and parents in Y4 for your excellent attendance figures last year, in Y3.

The class had higher attendance figures and lower unauthorised absences than Leeds schools overall, and also, very importantly, better figures than our ‘statistical neighbours’ – these are schools that are most similar to us.

This excellent data certainly helped the school overall to meet our school target for the year – thank you.

Cyber-bullying

Next week is our Staying Safe themed week. Children will learn about safety in a variety of contexts – your child might even use a police speed camera to catch out those speeding drivers on Shadwell Lane!
We regularly teach our children about e-safety, but here’s some good advice for parents / carers to prevent cyber-bullying.

Cyber-bullying

Next week is our Staying Safe themed week. Children will learn about safety in a variety of contexts: in the kitchen, in the playground, during sports, during travel – your child might even use a police speed camera to catch out those speeding drivers on Shadwell Lane!

Over the past few years, there have been growing concerns about cyber-bullying – the use of technology, particularly mobile phones and the internet, to deliberately upset someone.

We regularly teach our children about e-safety, but here’s some good advice for parents / carers:

Be alert to your child being upset after using the internet / phones – they may be secretive or change relationships with friends.
Your child is just as likely to be a bully as to be a target.
Talk to your child and understand how they are using the internet and their phone.
Use safety tools and parental controls – if you’re not sure how, contact your service provider. Please note tools are not always 100% effective.
Remind your child not to retaliate.
Keep any evidence of cyberbullying – emails, online conversations, texts etc.
Report the cyberbullying.
Contact us at school so we can take action if it involves other pupils.
Contact the service provider eg website, phone company etc.
If the cyberbullying is serious and a potential criminal offence has been committed then consider contacting the police.

The Directgov website has some useful information and support.

Write away!

Did you know we have two published authors in our school community?

Year 3 parent, Emma Barnes, has a new book out for children called How (Not) to Make Bad Children Good. Aimed at 7-10s, it’s the story of naughty child, Martha, who is so bad that an Interstellar Agent, Fred, is sent to Earth to try and sort her out. Emma will be appearing at Waterstones on Saturday 24 September.

We’re all very proud that Carolyn Hazell, our Year 6 teacher, is also a published author. Her book, Pav the Plumber Saves the Day, is popular amongst our children, and a great resource in school to promote reading and writing. Our current Year 6 pupils are being inspired to write great character descriptions, and a former pupil described Miss Hazell as ‘inspiring’ as a teacher and writer.

Find and compare schools’ performance

The DfE has a new web tool helping people find and compare schools’ performance. Parents / carers who need to consider what school their child moves on to after Moortown might find it helpful.

The following information is an extract from a recent email from the Department of Education to schools. Parents / carers who need to consider what school their child should move on to after Moortown Primary might find it helpful. Please note that the most up-to-date 2011 exam or test results may not yet be available.

The Department for Education has launched a new web tool helping parents / carers find and compare local schools’ performance. It significantly improves parents’ ability to choose the right school for their child.

The ‘compare schools’ tool brings together a wide range of performance data in a single place.

Parents can find schools by name, keyword or location or browse via an interactive map. Each school has its own mini-site with a range of useful information such as spend per pupil and test and exam results. Parents can also compare their school with others nearby – or with any other school in England.

For the first time on the Department’s website, parents can:

select the schools that interest them and compare performance side by side
view a full list of schools in England and filter to find schools with similar characteristics
use an interactive map to view local, regional and national averages for school performance.

For more information, visit http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/search

Moortown Making a Positive Contribution

It’s been a busy half-term, including lots of money-raising activities going on. Here’s an update on three events at which you have generously donated money.

It’s been a busy half-term, including lots of money-raising activities going on. Here’s an update on three events at which you have generously donated money:

Our Summer Fair this year raised £1148.94 for the PTA. This is a tremendous demonstration of the commitment and goodwill parents /carers, children and staff have for our school and its community. It’s even more significant when we remember just a few months ago we were wondering if the Summer Fair would go ahead due to the absence of a PTA Chair at the moment, and it should help to motivate us all to continue to raise funds. Money raised currently goes towards class trips and other activities. If you’ve other ideas about fund-raising events or how we should spend the money, please contact Mrs Maver. (Please note: the winner of the Half ‘n’ Half Jar has still not come forward to collect their prize of £100.50 – it’s ticket 176. We’ll donate this money to the PTA if nobody claims the prize soon.)
The Hot Shots sponsored football event during Community Week raised £341.10. This money has been donated to a charity helping victims of Japan’s earthquake – an idea put forward to the School Council a few months ago.
Most recently, £75.11 was donated at the Year 5 and 6 production of Bugsy Malone. This money will be donated to our current two charities, WWF and NSPCC. As well as being hugely enjoyable and great for children’s confidence and engagement, it’s great that our termly productions can be supported by family and friends in this way.

Thank you to all for your continued support.