Author: Mr Roundtree

Every year, we invite you to complete the annual survey of parents and carers. Thank you to the 89 people who completed the 2019 survey.

The agree/disagree statements were closely based on those that Ofsted use for their Parent View. This gives you the chance to tell Ofsted what you think about your child’s school, from the quality of teaching to dealing with bullying and poor behaviour.

We also asked whether you’d recommend the school and invited comments about what you like and what we could improve on.

We’re delighted that the statements prompted a very positive response: at least 94% of parents agreed or strongly agreed (and most strongly agreed).

Particularly positive responses can be seen for a few statements, including two where responses were 100% in agreement. These relate to My child makes good progress at this school and I receive useful information from the school about my child’s progress.

Also very positive was that 98% of parents would recommend us to others.

A couple of respondents expressed concerns that seem to influence their responses throughout the survey. Sadly, the parents chose not to provide their names or explain why and this means that we’re not going to be able to try to address their concerns. If you’re one of these parents, please do consider arranging an appointment to speak with Mrs Weekes and/or me, Mr Roundtree – we’d really like to explore your views and see what we might be able to do to make things better.

The statements, with one or two typical comments, are:

1. My child is happy at Moortown Primary School. (‘Both our children enjoy coming to school and have made some lovely friends.’)
2. My child feels safe at this school. (‘The overall school and staff make my child feel safe.’)
3. My child makes good progress at this school. (‘I can’t believe how far my reception child has come this year. It’s phenomenal’ and ‘Miss Rushbrooke is a wonderful teacher, ensuring academic progress, but with a great imagination and strong sense of fun – if only she hadn’t had to contend with SATs!’)
4. My child is well looked after. (‘From teacher to headteacher, everyone cares’ and ‘Very much so…The caring culture means that the children look out for each other, too.’)
5. My child is taught well at Moortown Primary School. (‘My child is taught in a fun and engaging environment and is learning to the best of her ability’ and ‘The open mornings demonstrated the high quality of teaching.’)
6. Adults in school make sure pupils are well behaved. (‘It is such a great environment I have rarely heard of any trouble from pupils.’)
7. Moortown Primary School deals effectively with bullying. (This is the one statement which didn’t earn a 94+% agreement, but that’s because 22% answered they didn’t know, with comments saying their child hasn’t encountered bullying: ‘We’ve had no experience but I can see that there are high expectations of behaviour’ for example.)
8. The school is well led and managed. (‘Well organised, clear communication, plenty of options to feed back, connect and always an open door and time for conversation. Thank you brilliant hard working team.’)
9. The school responds well to any concerns I raise. (‘All staff have been very approachable in this regard.’)
10. I receive useful information from the school about my child’s progress. (‘The reports and parents evenings are very helpful.’)

Would you recommend the school? (‘We cannot speak highly enough of this school.’)

Tell us something you like about the school.

63 comments received, some of which relate to very specific reasons, but typical comments include praise for our teachers, our children’s behaviour and our community feel. ‘Nice culture and friendly inclusive environment. High quality staff and teaching. A standout is its respectful learning environment’ and ‘Caring and involved staff members. All seek to help and assist parents as well as pupils.’ are typical comments which we appreciate greatly!

Any reference here or throughout the survey to particular teachers will be passed on to teachers, who welcome the feedback as part of their commitment to performance improvement.

Tell us something the school could improve on.

55 comments received, although many of these are actually positive comments like ‘I like it the way it is. A shame we can’t opt out of SATs…’

As in previous years, the majority of comments reflect conflicting viewpoints, especially in relation to homework: some want more, some want less; some don’t like the creative homework, some don’t like the whole-school homework tasks… The conclusion, as in previous years, is that we can’t please everyone all the time about an issue like homework, but we will keep reviewing this. Interestingly this year, another example of differing opinions relate to the degree of competition in our school. Two other common issues that were raised are school dinners – we’ll pass on this feedback to our caterers – and the inconsiderate/unsafe parking of some parents/carers – we’ll continue to monitor and try to address these concerns in whatever way we can.

The survey results and the comments will be passed to Mrs Weekes, as Head of School, who will review the feedback alongside me, as Head of Federation, in order to identify up to three key actions that we will do. Mrs Weekes will also feed back to staff any particular concerns that were raised as well as – far more common – make sure staff are aware of the praise they’ve earned.

…our 2019 Summer Competition!

Moortown Primary is a happy and healthy place to learn – and we want your child to celebrate this by creating the words ‘happy’ (for children up to Year 2) or ‘healthy’ (for children in Year 3 to Year 6) from letters that your child spots in the environment.

Here’s an example of a letter ‘h’ which we’ve found on the internet – somewhere in their surroundings, can your child find the five letters that spell ‘happy’ or the seven letters that spell ‘healthy’?

We found the example above on the internet, but it would be even better if your child were to take pics from real life – perhaps they could find all the images on one day out, or perhaps they set themselves a target of finding one letter every week of the holidays. Your child could spot ‘letters’ near their home or on holiday. They could make the letter shapes from their own body, stretched into different positions, or they could even ask different family members to create the shapes!

There will be four prizes of £15 book tokens – two for the best ‘happy’ words and two for the best ‘healthy’ words.

Please paste the words into a Word document – one side of A4 – and email to school ([email protected]) by Friday 06 September 2019.

Good luck!

Moortown Primary is a happy and healthy place to learn – and we want your child to celebrate this by creating the words ‘happy’ (for children up to Year 2) or ‘healthy’ (for children in Year 3 to Year 6) from letters that your child spots in the environment.

Here’s an example of a letter ‘h’ which we’ve found on the internet – somewhere in their surroundings, can your child find the five letters that spell ‘happy’ or the seven letters that spell ‘healthy’?

We found the example above on the internet, but it would be even better if your child were to take pics from real life – perhaps they could find all the images on one day out, or perhaps they set themselves a target of finding one letter every week of the holidays. Your child could spot ‘letters’ near their home or on holiday. They could make the letter shapes from their own body, stretched into different positions, or they could even ask different family members to create the shapes!

There will be four prizes of £15 book tokens – two for the best ‘happy’ words and two for the best ‘healthy’ words.

Please paste the words into a Word document – one side of A4 – and email to school ([email protected]) by Friday 06 September 2019.

Good luck!

We’re over-the-moon to announce that Moortown Primary has achieved the School Games Platinum Mark Award for the 2018/19 academic year.

The School Games Mark is a Government-led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust, to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community, and we’re delighted to have been recognised for our continued success.

We’re extremely proud of our pupils for their dedication to all aspects of school sport, including those young volunteers, leaders and officials who made our competitions possible.

As part of our application, we were asked to fulfil criteria in the areas of participation, competition, workforce and clubs, and we’re pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded this year.

A special thanks to Mrs Taylor, our Health Leader.

We look forward to another happy and healthy year in 2019-20!