Author: Mr Roundtree

The Health Protection Agency report that they expect this to be a ‘normal’ flu season; they are no longer experiencing a pandemic. The virus that caused the 2009 pandemic, ‘swine flu’, may be one of the common flu viruses circulating this winter, but this is not a pandemic as the virus has been circulating in our communities for some time.

The most important measure to prevent the spread of flu is to have a flu vaccination of those in high risk groups. If any pupils are in high risk groups, they should get vaccinated through their GP surgery.

It is very important to try and prevent the spread of flu within schools by following the measures listed below:

• Any child with a fever should stay at home.
• They should not return to the school until they have had at least 48 hours without fever or other flu symptoms.
• Mouths should be covered when coughing and paper tissues used when noses are blown. The paper tissues should be promptly placed in a waste bin for disposal. We have tissues at school but it’s a good idea for your child to have their own, too.
• Because flu viruses can be carried on hands, please encourage your child to regularly wash their hands, particularly after noses are blown or wiped.
• People affected by fever should be encouraged to rest and to drink plenty of water or other fluids. This will speed up recovery. Some paracetamol in small amounts should make things more comfortable.

Most people affected by flu–like illness will start to improve after 2 to 3 days – children tend to get better quicker than adults. Rarely, those affected by flu-like illness may develop breathing problems. If that happens, they should contact their GP.

Our Year 6 forums will start next week. I spoke to the older members of our School Council about some guidelines that our pupils should follow so that they can communicate effectively but quickly.  We agreed that the forums should be a balance of expressing opinions, demonstrating learning and asking questions, but also representing our school and our high standards.

Here are the guidelines that our councillors came up with:

• We will use positive language (just like everywhere at Moortown Primary).
• We will use capitals and full stops.
• We will try to spell all words correctly, but know that one or two words might be typos (accidental errors when we use a keyboard) and some words might be hard to spell but we still want to use (‘wow words’, for example).
• We will not use text speak (we know this is better for informal communications).
• We know that our teacher might choose not to publish a post that has too many errors, or might choose to correct these.

Thank you to Sally, Chanda, Rene and Aqsa for setting these guidelines.

Tomorrow is Takeover Day!

This is a national event that we promote and celebrate at Moortown Primary.  It offers the chance for children and young people across the country to work with adults and get involved in decision-making.  Children can gain skills, knowledge and inspiration and experience in some way the world of work.

Last year, we were one of two Leeds schools to be selected to go to Merrion House and visit the Chief Executive of Education Leeds.  The children had a working lunch and considered various issues facing schools today.  They also enjoyed visiting the offices and seeing all the different people who support teaching and learning in Leeds.

This year, we’ve volunteered our skills again!  A group of older children will visit the Healthy Schools team for Leeds.  We’re such a great example of a happy and healthy school, I’m sure our children will be able to help the team in many ways!

Tomorrow, children in each class will take over part of the day.  They might teach the new spelling rules, they might read a story, they might talk about topics!  One child from each class will also lead the Friday Assembly – they’ll choose the people who deserve certificates, for example!

A recent article published on the BBC website suggests being a pushy parent is not such a bad thing.

Recent research suggests that parents who push their children to work hard at school have a big impact on their child’s academic success.  The effort a parent puts into ensuring their child buckles down to schoolwork has a greater impact than that put in by the child or the school, according to researchers at Leicester and Leeds universities.  Amongst the aspects the researchers considered were how much time parents read to a child and how often they attended school meetings.

Most parents / carers tell me they’d like to support their child more, but don’t know where to start.

Well, a good starting point is our own website  – go to the blue section (‘Learn More’) and look at the National Expectations section which outlines standards and in bold, there are practical ideas.

You can also use the BBC website – it has some great activities and advice to support you and your child to learn more.  (I like Digger and the Gang to support maths – Nash, Flick and Sprat will help your child get their numerical skills on track!)

And most importantly, get involved in hearing your child read (ideally on a daily basis, even if just for five minutes), and help them to learn their times tables and spellings – check out our homework information including the Parents and Carers Guide which you can download.

Today, children in Year 1 – Year 6 in our school have had a brief reminder of the importance of being aware of ‘stranger danger‘.  For example:

• not getting into a stranger’s car
• making sure they go home with the right person
• not encouraging chat with strangers

We encourage you to talk to your child about this as well. 

There has been a number of incidents in Leeds schools this term so far.

We want all our children and parents / carers to be safe, happy and healthy learners.

Thank you to all the parents and carers who took the time to complete the annual survey in the Summer term.

As with previous years, we wanted to know your views about key aspects of school life: enjoying, achieving, feeling safe, being healthy etc.  We also had a particular focus on how we communicate with you.

Some key findings

100% said that their child enjoys being at Moortown Primary School and feels safe at school.  Over 90% of respondents said that Moortown Primary promotes a healthy lifestyle, that our ethos promotes their child to respect and cooperate with everyone, that behaviour is good and that communication is effective.

Based on your responses, there are just a few areas which we want to keep improving at.

Making a Positive Contribution

Although 82% of parents / carers said we encourage our children to make a positive contribution (and only 2% disgreed), we want this to be better.  This year, we’ll have a second Making a Positive Contribution Themed Week; the last was in 2009 and was a great success.  We’ll continue our lunchtime litter-picking club; this is where Mrs Bald selects from many enthusiastic volunteers to leave the school at lunchtime and tidy our local environment (look out for our Clean Up Kids during Thursday lunchtimes!). At Christmas, we’ll sing Christmas carols to the local community at Marks & Spencer again.  We’ll continue to support our two charities (WWF and NSPCC), as well as other emergency appeals (last year, helping victims of the earthquake in Haiti; this year, helping flood victims in Pakistan). Along with other Leeds schools, we’ve established links with a school in South Africa because we want our children to learn more about other cultures.

These are just a few examples of how we will encourage a positive contribution – we’re always happy to hear more.

After-school clubs

We want to provide a wide-range of clubs.  80% of you said curriculum and clubs meet the needs of children (and only 3% disagreed).  Based on your comments, most of you considered clubs, not the curriculum, when responding to this.  Your suggestions included more physical activities and drama – clubs on offer this term include gymnastics, yoga, taekwon-do, football training, street dance and street dance.  This is a greater range than ever before and all will go ahead if there’s enough interest following the taster sessions. A very small number of you also commented about the lack of clubs for children in Reception.  We offer fewer clubs for these children because by the end of the school day, we (and most parents) find their child is too tired.

Communication

Nearly all the comments regarding communications were positive: many of you appreciate the variety of different ways we’ve started to communicate, including this website and Twitter, but also texts and emails, the noticeboards and the newsletters. The only area to improve relates to cancelling clubs at the last minute: obviously this is inconvenient and we always try hard not to do this, although sometimes things out of our control mean we have no alternative.

It’s not always possible for teachers to be around at the start and end of the school day, but please be aware that teachers are happy to speak with you either straight away or by making an appointment – do this directly with the class teacher or through the school office.  We always want to listen to your questions, comments and concerns.

Thanks once again for the responses.  We do take note of areas to get even better, and we do use your responses in Ofsted documents.

If you’d like more information about the Annual Survey and the responses, please contact school.

Parents and carers recently received a letter from Ofsted saying that our next inspection would not be until 2011-12.  This is due to our sustained good performance.

We know Moortown Primary is a great school. This year, we have had the best ever Key Stage 2 SAT results (100% of children attained national expectations in Maths, and 97% in English).  Our attendance rate has greatly improved – it’s now much closer to national standards.  Our Local Authority School Improvement Partner (12.07.10) has praised leadership for the systems in place that link self-evaluation and school improvement, and rates our capacity for sustained improvement as outstanding.

We believe that this delay in inspection will allow us to carry on getting better and better at the things we know matter, including the things you raise in the Annual Survey.  However, the delayed inspection means a more up-to-date recognition of our recent successes and outstanding achievements is also delayed.

Thank you to everyone involved in our school: parents, staff and most of all our pupils.  Please carry on telling friends and neighbours about how great Moortown Primary is – a happy, healthy and successful place to learn.

The Ofsted letter (07.07.10) reads:

Dear parent

Moortown Primary School

I am pleased to provide some important information about Moortown Primary School.

As you may know, during its last inspection in April 2007, Ofsted inspectors judged your child’s school to be good. Schools which are performing well are now inspected less often than other schools.  This usually means that good schools are inspected once in every five years, whilst satisfactory schools will be inspected at least once every three years.

Some good schools are inspected after three years; others may have their inspection put back.  To help decide whether we can wait longer than three years before undertaking a full inspection of a good school, such as your child’s, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate look at various sources of information, as listed below.  This is called an ‘interim assessment.’

The results of the interim assessment

In carrying out the interim assessment, we considered the following:

• pupils’ academic performance
• pupils’ attendance
• any visits carried out by Ofsted since the last inspection
• complaints about the school by parents or carers
• any other significant issues brought to Ofsted’s attention

I am pleased to inform you that our interim assessment shows that the school’s performance has been sustained and that we can defer its next full inspection.

As a result, the next full inspection will not take place any earlier than 1 September 2011 unless we receive information in the course of the coming year that causes us to inspect earlier.

I wish everyone involved in the school continued success in the coming year.

Yours sincerely

Christine Gilbert

Most people will know that one of the awards we have at Moortown Primary School is the Basic Skills Quality Mark which recognises the great work our staff do in teaching key skills such as reading, writing and maths. Recently, we had a monitoring visit and here’s some of the feedback we’ve received:

Moortown Primary is a lively, united school which provides a welcome learning environment.

The key to the school’s recent successes is the detailed knowledge that the staff have about the abilities and attributes of every child. The Headteacher maintains a comprehensive tracking system…devised by himself to fit the needs of the school. He has at any one moment up to date knowledge of how each pupil is progressing.

Staff have questioned the elements of the curriculum and teaching style that work best for the school’s children…it is relevant to all pupils. Different styles of learning have been addressed. The detailed staff knowledge of the pupils means that work is planned effectively to meet individual need.

Pupils met on the monitoring visit were lively and fully engaged in their learning.

This and other recent recognition (such as Miss Collins’ award for care and guidance, Yorkshire Evening Press awards for best topic and learning mentor, our success at the ICT Celebrating Success conference) show just how fantastic Moortown Primary School is.  Quite possibly our best ever Year 6 SAT results back this up, too!