Celebrating our goals!

Well done to all our children for taking part in the sponsored Hot Shots event, raising money to help victims of the earthquake in Japan as part of My Community themed week.
Please return money raised as soon as you can – at the latest the first Friday after half-term.
Thanks.
Hot Shots!
Well done to Ahmed and Tyler who today achieved the fastest speed (41 mph) out of the boys in the Year Four shooting activity. Also, Iona achieved the fastest speed out of the girls (including me!) with a fantastic 32 mph.
Swimming Success
Well done to the children who achieved swimming awards today. If you wish to buy the badges they are £2.90. Money needs to be sent to Miss Hewson by Wednesday 08 June in a sealed envelope.
5 metres
Lili, Max, Amir, Connor
5 and 10 metres
Meva, Mehar, Liam, Henry, Adam, Grace
Champions!
Well done to Rishitha, Iona, Sami, Connor, Jatinder, Adam, Cydnee and Kiran for a super performance at the tennis competition last week. Both the Year Four and Year Five teams came in first place! Once again, the children showed great empathy for the other teams. These children should feel very proud for representing our school so well.
Easy Peasy Publishers
Year 2 were treated to a literary delight this week. Year 6 have designed, constructed and written some fabulous books, taking their inspiration from Roger Hargreaves’ Easy Peasy books. Year 6 then shared these with Year 2 and they thoroughly enjoyed it!
Some of our Year 2 children even read the Easy Peasy books to the Year 6s!
More success at Moortown!
The Quality Mark is a recognition that some schools choose to work towards to help them monitor what they do for their learners and to celebrate successes within school. Because Ofsted chose not to inspect our school this year due to our continued good provision, we welcome feedback from other external bodies. This year, therefore, we decided to be re-assessed for the Quality Mark.
The re-assessment visit happened on Monday 16 May 2011. I’m delighted to say we’ve yet again been recognised for the great teaching and learning at Moortown. Here are some extracts of the visiting assessor’s report:
“The assessor felt that this was one of the most impressive visits he has ever made in nine years of visiting Quality Mark schools. David, the head, has lots of plans – he needs no points of action or areas to develop suggested from us. It was a privilege to visit.”
“Since the monitoring visit, the school has accomplished an impressive amount of progress.”
“The school has radically reshaped the intervention programme it operates with pupils… It has put into action what many other schools are now realising – that the huge weight of strategies that have been recommended to schools over the past ten years are of limited effectiveness unless they are tailored to exactly what the pupil needs at the time that s/he needs it.”
“Classrooms all show consistency of approach in teaching – learning objectives visible, use of speaking and listening partners, learning walls for each class… Consistency in marking of writing is assured through a detailed and very clear marking policy. The Year 6 pupils who showed the assessor around school were at pains to draw his attention to these features and kept up a running commentary of how pupils learn (including telling the assessor that in the Reception class it’s ‘learning through play, you know!’).”
“Moortown has successfully devised and implemented a curriculum and teaching methodology that involves pupils in their own learning, is rigorous and demanding whilst at the same time makes learning an enjoyable experience for pupils.”
Thanks to the dedication and support of staff, parents / carers and children, I know we do a fantastic job at Moortown. It’s great to know that visitors to school are struck by this great work, too.
I’m grateful to the five parents who spoke with the Quality Mark assessor, and to the two Y6 pupils who provided a tour of the school.
We are amazing authors!
As part of our Literacy learning we have been reading lots of traditional tales. We have been learning about characters, good and bad, and investigating lots of different plots and settings. Last week we did a “Big Write” where we had to have a go at writing our own traditional tales; here are a couple of our stories showing how much learning we have done. Check out our story language and punctuation! Look at how our handwriting has improved.
We are very proud of our story writing. Mrs Weekes and Mrs Maver are amazed at the improvements we have made.
Enjoy reading our traditional tales!
Ralph(ina) the hamster comes to Moortown!
Year 2 had a very special visitor this week. Ralph (or Ralphina due to recent discoveries) came to say hello to all his friends at Moortown – I apologise to those parents battling with their child’s requests for their own furry friend! Ralph behaved impeccably despite being woken up in the middle of his sleep.

We wanted the children to have some first hand experience of nocturnal animals and they were enthralled, with everyone having the opportunity to have a stroke. If you are considering getting a hamster or just want to know a little bit more about them, you can find out more here.


Rural Reading
Year 2 have been making the most of splendid weather, by reading in new places.
Year 3 / 4 after-school TAG rugby starts this Tuesday – places still available!
We have some places left for the after-school TAG rugby club if you would like to take part.
Please return your form to the office or ask at the office for a new form.