Another school year – welcome back.

And, just as importantly, welcome to all our new parents, carers and children, whether in Reception or to those who have join us in other classes in school.

Our first weekly message of the year has some important information for the year ahead at Moortown Primary School…

Dates for the year

Key dates for the school year are in our school calendar. We’re preparing a list for you to print out and have ready to check, too.

Attendance

Last year’s attendance rate across England was 92.5% – a figure which is considerably lower than before Covid.

We’re really pleased that last year’s attendance at Moortown Primary was 95.5% – let’s see if we can beat that this year.

Read this help helpful guide from the NHS to decide if your child is ill enough to have to miss learning.

Homework

This Homework Guide sets out what we expect children to do and why. Reading, spellings, times tables and number facts are essential for all children to be confident with. The focus of your support at home should be ideally around these areas. Your comments in the Reading Record book (at least once a week) are really helpful for your child’s teacher.

Every child in Key Stage 1 and 2 has a Reading Record. Please sign the Reading Record so we know your child has been reading at home. You might also include a comment that relates to how they got on. In the Key Stage 2 Reading Record book, there are activities – one of these is set by the teacher each week. There are other activities for children to engage with in the Reading Record, too.

Your child’s first Talk Time task is published today.

Check out the weekly Living and Learning theme in our school calendar, too – there are more learning ideas here (usually showing on each Monday of the school year).

Each child in Key Stage 1 and 2 has a new homework book. The book is for your child to practise spellings, writing, times tables and number facts. It doesn’t need to be sent back to school.

Uniform

A uniform develops a sense of belonging, prevents competition and saves money. Wearing school colours helps us to keep up our high standards of behaviour. Please make sure your child is following our Uniform Policy. If we notice any problems, we’ll send home a reminder. A few things come up most often:

Hair: Long hair should be tied back, and hair accessories should be small and simple (this is so that it does not distract from learning and for hygiene reasons)

Jewellery, watches and other accessories: Only plain stud earrings (no more than 4mm wide) and items that are absolutely required by a religion are allowed. Advisors recommend no earrings are worn for PE; therefore, we’ll ask your child to remove earrings before the lesson. This needs to be done by the child. If they’re unable to remove or put their earrings back in by themselves, they must not wear them on the day they have PE.

PE kit: Keep it simple and non-branded – check out page 2 of our policy for a handy guide.

Our school rules

We’ve three school rules:

• We’re respectful.
• We’re ready.
• We’re safe.

Help at home. Talk with your child about the rules:

• Make sure your child knows the three rules.
• Is one more important than another?
• Is there a rule that your child thinks is missing and should be included?
• Make a link between our school rules and home: are there similar rules in your home?
• Discuss these rules and other rules in a wider context, including the country’s laws.

Read our full Positive Relationships Policy.

Reading in Key Stage 2

In Key Stage 2, once children have become independent readers, they’re involved in the process of choosing what book they read at home. To make sure children read a wide range of suitable texts, we rotate between ‘solo reading’ and ‘group reading’:

• solo reading happens in the first half-term of each term: Autumn 1, Spring 1 and Summer 1
• group reading happens in the second half-term: Autumn 2, Spring 2 and Summer 2

So, this half-term is solo reading – each child in class has taken home their own book.

• Each child’s book is checked by the teacher to make sure it’s appropriate in both content and challenge – please check that your child’s reading a book at what seems like the right level, so they can read it fluently and enjoy it.
• Your child should read the book at home on a daily basis – 10-15 minutes should be the minimum.
• In ‘Book Club’ sessions, teachers may direct children to an activity to complete alongside their reading for that week.
• A signed Reading Record allows parents to communicate with their child’s teacher that reading at home has happened regularly – please make sure your child is reading at home, and add comments in the Reading Record.
• In the weekly ‘Book Club’ session, children discuss their book with their class mates and celebrate a love of reading.

 

As always, contact school if you’ve any questions or concerns about anything we’ve said here.

Children settled into the new school year really well this week. It’s likely they’ll feel tired after a busy (and hot!) week back. Have a restful, happy and healthy weekend.

This is our last message of the school year. We hope you and your child have had a good one. Thank you for all your support throughout the year – it’s always very much appreciated.

Extreme reading

We’re already getting some entries through for our Summer Competition this year. Here at Moortown Primary, we love reading and thought we’d celebrate that this year with the theme of extreme reading. Here’s a couple of pics – one from Moortown Primary  and one from Sphere Federation school – we love them!

To enter, email your pics to moortown[email protected] by Friday 08 September. Enter ‘Summer competition’ as the subject. All entries will be displayed in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.

Talking of reading, check out the Leeds Libraries Summer Challenge.

Our school day

A reminder…

From September 2023, the school day starts at 8.45am and ends at 3.15pm every day. This is to meet the government’s expectation for a minimum school week of 32.5 hours.

In the schools white paper published in March 2022, the government announced that all mainstream, state-funded schools would be expected to deliver a minimum school week of 32.5 hours by September 2023. The white paper was subsequently abandoned. However, an email from the Department for Education this week reiterates this expectation.

Measles

The following comes from the Department for Education for all parents and carers to read.

Measles can be very serious and spreads easily. Children and adults who contract measles can end up in hospital or suffer long term health consequences. In rare cases, it can be fatal.

Measles is completely preventable with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first dose is offered to children at 1 year of age and the second dose at 3 years and 4 months. Measles outbreaks happen when not enough children have been vaccinated and can be very disruptive in educational settings.

Schools are also encouraged to remind parents to check that their children’s vaccines are up to date. You can catch up on your MMR vaccine through your GP whatever your age.

Read more about the MMR vaccination.

 

Whatever you get up to, have a very happy and healthy summer. We’ll see you again on Tuesday 05 September – remember the 8.45am start!

This week’s message comes from Mrs Weekes…

There might only be one week to go until the end of term but nothing’s slowing down – it’s all going on!

Just this week, we had another reminder about how amazing our Year 6 children are. Their SATs results were released this week and we’re so proud of all of them. In Reading and in Maths, 94% reached or exceeded the expected standard, and 100% in Writing and in Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. (The national average is around 72% for each subject.) Awesome results – a massive well done to all of the children, to you for your support and all of the staff who have taught them over the past few years. A special mention to one of our pupils who did all of their SATs in hospital – they still got amazing results! (The figures here are subject to change because we may ask for some test papers to be re-marked.) The Year 5,6 end-of-year production was also fantastic – well done to all!

Our Key Stage 1 children have also been busy with end of key stage assessments. At the end of Year 2, 90% of our children are achieving expected level or above in Reading, 80% in Writing, and 87% in Maths. In Y1, 83% of our children reached the expected standard in their phonics.

We’ve had many other highlights this year. We finally got to open ‘The Green’ and many hours of fun have already been spent playing on the grass – it’s so nice having that little bit of extra space. (It still seems a bit of a luxury!) We’ve also had two very successful residential visits: Year 4 children spent two nights at Herd Farm, just up the road, and Year 6 pupils spent a couple of nights at Robinwood in Todmorden.

I’d like to say well done to Miss Goswami, Miss Birch and Miss Needham who have all finished their first two years of teaching . This means they’re no longer regarded as ‘Early Career Teachers’. Well done and thank you for all your hard work.

Also, we say goodbye to Mr Wain, who’s going to teach at Scholes (Elmet) Primary (one of our Sphere Federation sister schools). Thank you to him for all of his hard work and great teaching and good luck with the move.

As you know, we pride ourselves on being a happy and healthy place to learn. We’ve been even healthier this week because it’s been a Health themed week. As always, Mrs Taylor, our Health Lead, has done a great job of organising lots of different things, from yoga to kickboxing. Thank you to everyone who came and supported the children at Sports Day, too (we did miss Mr Roundtree’s commentating, but thanks to Mr Wilks for stepping in so well). Check out our recently updated guides: Mindfulness and Physical Activity. Also, make sure your child completes the health questionnaire alongside you – it’s this week’s homework.

Finally, I’d like to thank the PTA. They’ve worked so hard this year to get things up and running after they were so badly hit during the pandemic – they’re back to being a unit to be reckoned with! Unfortunately, due to industrial action, the Summer Fair had to be postponed but their hard work hasn’t gone to waste as we have a new date in the diary: Friday 22 September. Watch this space for more information.

As the end of term approaches, I hope you all have a great summer and enjoy spending time with your families. Thank you for all your support this year – all of us working together make a great team!