Author: Mr Roundtree

Amongst all the chaos and communications and coordinating of the last couple of weeks, we received some great feedback following a visit from an external educational consultant (and Ofsted inspector)…

At Moortown Primary, we don’t like to rest on our laurels – we’re always keen to hear the views of others so we can keep getting better – so we invited a consultant in to do a ‘deep dive‘ in History.

(‘Deep dive’ is a new expression used by Ofsted – it’s an in-depth examination of a subject, typically involving lesson visits, pupil interviews (with their exercise books), and teacher interviews. Typical Ofsted inspections now feature about three to five ‘deep dives’ in different subjects.)

Our history deep dive was an important way to help us evaluate changes that we’ve made this year in how we plan and teach topic subjects. Read more about our curriculum here, but be aware we plan to update this page soon, better reflecting the changes we’ve made.

Here are some of the comments:

The main body [of the lesson], requiring children to read and become experts in an aspect of Viking life that have had a longer-term impact on life today, was thoroughly explored with exemplary reference to recent work on ‘digital footprints’ clearly resonating with the children. During the silent read session, the teacher moved effortlessly around the groups to qualify any queries regarding challenging vocabulary.

[The teacher] has established good presence and relationships with his class… The task to consider and explain how elements of everyday Viking life impact on our life today certainly captured the children’s imagination. Subsequently, attitudes to learning were strong as they maturely debated and collaborated.

In discussion… children could confidently recall elements of previous historical learning and, impressively, the links between civilisations is having an impact on learning and memory.

The Key Stage 2 children also spoke about their love of the subject. When challenged to find a piece of work in their books that they had particularly enjoyed and could remember a great deal from, it was hard to quell their enthusiasm and this in itself evidences their thirst and enjoyment for the subject.

The school’s intent for history is now well established and although its knowledge-based implementation phase remains in its embryonic form, the evidence points to a curriculum that children will enjoy and more importantly, learn a great deal from.

The unique strand of linking British and ancient historical periods [during the deep dive, the topic was Vikings in Britain, with comparisons made to a similar period elsewhere, the Golden Age of Islam] is totally unique and evidences the imaginative thinking of leaders. Such thinking is allowing teachers to teach to a greater depth thus fostering higher expectations of what pupils can achieve in historical knowledge, vocabulary and skill development.

Mr Wilks is the leader for History and the other foundations subjects. He’s done a great job in planning and leading the recent changes we’ve made, and in supporting teachers.

The consultant left us with two areas to improve which we’d already identified as next steps for us:

1. to develop ways to improve children’s memory of vocabulary and facts in this new knowledge-led curriculum (it would be reasonable to say most schools are in this position following Ofsted’s shift of focus in September)
2. to employ even greater use of first-hand learning experiences.

To the mums, dads, carers of Moortown children: well done! You did it – you got to the end of the week, and for that, you should feel pleased with yourselves. We know it’s been tough. It’s the weekend now, and it’ll be a strange one in this ‘new norm’.

Try to find ways to relax. Maybe you can include a David Walliams story part of that. He’s reading a free audio story every day at the moment. Each day’s story can be heard here, or your child can listen live at 11am (perfect time for you to have a break and a cuppa).

We’ll start with our third top tip to support your child…

Tip number 3: practical tasks for practice

We all agree we’d rather have all the children in school, the best place to learn different subjects and develop socially and emotionally, too. And we all agree that home learning is tough, especially when many of you will be working from home, too (and all of us are feeling cooped up so much).

There’s one thing about being at home that’s a real advantage, though, and that’s the chance to get your child joining in with practical tasks around the house.

• For younger children, setting the table can help to develop motor skills and promote characteristics of effective learning like being involved, concentrating and enjoying achieving what they set out to do.
• Being at home is a perfect chance to practise telling the time (by the end of the school year, most Year 1 children should be able to tell the time to the hour and half past the hour) – so what time does PE with Joe Wicks or Let’s go Live with Maddie and Greg start, or what time is lunch? For older children, how much longer until then?
• For older children, serving out food can help to develop mathematical skills of estimation and fractions.
• Have you a flat-pack that’s been lying around waiting to be assembled? Think about the reading skills and design and technology skills that will be developed if your child gets stuck in to help with this.
• Even putting something in a microwave is an opportunity – what power is the microwave and how can we set the time to match?

Often, our instinct is to get on and do the job while the children are occupied elsewhere – it’s usually easier that way. However, it might help to try to look out for these opportunities. Some children learn better by doing things in a practical way. Don’t feel you must insist on all three home learning tasks done if you feel confident they’re practising skills in a more practical way.

Two new suggestions to support your child’s learning…

Why not join Leeds library online? Once you’ve joined, you can use their e-reading options, which are free and a great way to spend time, learn something new or look after your wellbeing.

The Maths Factor, endorsed by Carol Voderman, is free to use at the moment. It’s a comprehensive package of tutorials. We’d suggest your child watches one a couple of times and then perhaps has a go at something similar. You could work your way through them one by one, or dip in and out, looking at the one that most closely matches the home learning that’s been set by the teacher.

We’ve added both links to our menu of useful home learning sites.

Finally, a repeat call to respond…

Do you need to use school during the pandemic? It would really help us to plan ahead if you can complete this short form and return to us by email (or call us on the number provided if you can’t email). The dates on the form go right through the Easter holidays and include the bank holidays – we’re doing our best to be able to open throughout this situation. Please only consider this in light of current guidelines.

In today’s update, we’ve a second top tip for the week. There’ll be another one tomorrow…

Tip number 2: struggling with a home learning task

Our teachers are trying to make sure that the tasks they set are accessible to all – they should often cover previous learning (giving your child a chance to practise existing skills) or they should be quite open-ended (meaning your child can approach the task in different ways, to suit his/her needs).

However, you still might sometimes find that your child (or you!) is struggling with a home learning task. If this is the case, please don’t become stressed or anxious, and don’t try to push your child in a way that could make him/her really reluctant to do more. Instead, we’ve three suggestions:

You could try emailing your child’s teacher. Each teacher will have published on the Homework page their email address – it’ll follow the same pattern as joebloggs@spherefederation.org

Teachers aim to reply on the same day, but it might involve a wait. So, another solution could be to check out a home learning task that’s been set by a teacher in one of our sister Sphere Federation schools:

• Moortown Primary homework pages
• Scholes (Elmet) Primary homework pages
• St James’ CE Primary homework pages

(Some of our teachers work really closely across the schools and will have shared the same home learning tasks, so sorry if this suggestion doesn’t always work out.)

The third suggestion is to try something completely different from this list of home learning activities. (We’ve mentioned this before, but this list has a couple of updates.) The home learning tasks are a guide, but you can choose to be flexible in your approach.

A final piece of advice we can give you is a repeat: stay calm and don’t get stressed about it. If your child can do two of the three tasks successfully, plus some daily reading and practice of something like counting or times tables, then that’s already a productive day.

And a few more things to say…

During this time, your child might end up being online more than they normally would. There are lots of sites to help make sure your child stays safe online – Thinkuknow is one of them. They’ve produced a short guide for parents of primary and secondary children.

We know that this is a difficult and worrying time for everyone – but particularly so for adults and children living with domestic abuse. If this affects you or someone you know, check out these resources to help support you through this time. As always, if you or someone else is in immediate danger please call 999 and ask for the police.

Finally, apologies to you for the short time when our websites experienced a glitch yesterday. It was for a really short period of time thanks to the support team we use, but we know at a time like this (maybe half-way through a home learning task even!), it wasn’t ideal. (Thanks to the parents who alerted us, too.)

Once again, we’re going to start this update with a big thank you to you, the parents and carers. We know this is tough for you. One of our own teachers with two children has commented that finding the balance between supporting her own children whilst working from home is tough. Remember, though, you’re doing a great job in tough times.

In today’s update, we’ve a top tip. There’ll be another one tomorrow and one more on Friday…

Tip number 1: supporting more than one child at home

If you’ve got more than one child at home, you might like to access the home learning tasks using different devices – perhaps one on a computer at home, and one on a mobile phone. (Like most websites these days, ours is set up so that looking at it on a smartphone works, with no squashed text or other content.) This will mean the children can settle to their learning at roughly the same time.

Another solution to support home learning with more than one child is to balance things out: quiet reading for one, and the home learning task for another.

And a third way might be for both children to have a go at the same task. This won’t always work, but often will, maybe with a tweak or two. For example, if a younger child is set a phonics challenge (such as spotting things around the house that begin with a ‘ch’ sound, like ‘chip’), the older child could be set the same task, but with longer words, or words that have ‘sh’ somewhere other than at the start (like ‘kitchen’).

If you’ve established a routine that includes PE with Joe Wicks at 9am, that could also give you time to check out the tasks for each of your children and think about how to be flexible, making them work for you and your children.

We’re going to end the update with another thank you, and that’s to you again. On behalf of all the teachers, the Heads of School and me, we’re saying thank you for the great feedback we’ve been getting for the communications. In these socially distanced times, we’re really happy to hear what we’re doing remotely is helping in some way.

Are you a parent or carer who may need to use school during the pandemic?

It would really help us to plan ahead if you can complete this short form and return to us by email (or call us on the number provided if you can’t email). The dates on the form go right through the Easter holidays and include the bank holidays – we’re doing our best to be able to open throughout this situation. (Thank you to all the staff who have been able to commit to this.)

Please only consider this in light of current guidelines:

• The government has asked parent to keep their children at home, wherever possible: the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread.
• The government has set out key principles to ensure we are providing childcare for a limited number of children and only those who absolutely need to attend.
• Every child who can be safely cared for at home, should be.