SEAL statement 04 Jan
This half term we are focussing on 7R’s of learning in place of our usual SEAL topic. The first statement is ‘I can take responsibility to learn well.‘
We shall be looking at a different area of learning each week, starting with responsibility.
Taking responsibility for learning may include:
- using listening skills in lessons
- asking questions
- contributing and working well in a group to complete a task
- bringing guided reading books, spelling books etc to school when needed
- learning spellings and tables at home
- completing homework
SEAL ‘thought’
Managing emotions, in particular anger, forms an important part of our SEAL Getting On theme. This comment was posted by a parent in response to our calming down statement:
Prophet Muhammad gave this advice:
“When one of you becomes angry while standing, he should sit down. If the anger leaves him, well and good; otherwise he should lie down.”
This is said because the likelihood of you lashing out, harming anyone and getting out of control is very difficult whilst sat down and almost impossible whilst lying down.
Thank you for this comment.
Calendar working again
Google tell us they have fixed the bug that was causing our calendar to display events on the wrong days, so we’ve reinstated it to the site.
Sorry for any confusion that was caused by the problem.
Problems with our calendar
We use Google Calendar to publish our timetable of events, meetings and holidays. Unfortunately, Google has identified a bug which is causing events to be shown on the wrong days. They’re working on the problem; until they find a fix we’ve taken the calendar page down.
The next few important dates on our calendar are:
- Tuesday 14 December, 2.15pm – Reception, Y1 and Y2 Christmas production
- Wednesday 15 December, 2.15pm – Reception, Y1 and Y2 Christmas production
- Thursday 16 December, 2.30 to 4.30pm – PTA Christmas Fair
- Friday 17 December – school closes for the holidays
- Tuesday 04 January – school reopens
Sorry if you’ve been confused by our calendar recently!
SEAL statement 06 December
‘I can see things from other people’s point of view’ is the final SEAL statement for our Getting On theme.
This follows on from our work last week on solving problems where, as part of the problem solving process, children are encouraged to listen to each other to consider their feelings.
To close or not to close…?
The BBC website has described the dilemma headteachers face regarding whether they should close their school or not. Schools can’t please all parents on this issue: this week, most parents have praised us for staying open whilst many other Leeds schools haven’t, but there have been one or two parents complaining that we should also have closed. Today, many parents wanted to know if we would be open tomorrow – but closing our school is a last resort and a decision I don’t take lightly.
The article lists many different factors and conflicting opinions that have to be considered. For example, people have today been advised that they should only travel when it is “essential”. The Department for Education regards travelling to school as essential and says both staff and pupils should try to do so safely, but the National Union of Teachers disagrees, arguing that “essential” should mean emergency services, gritters etc.
When making a decision to stay open or close, my main priority is safety: the safety of children, obviously, but also the safety of parents and carers who need to collect their child, the safety of staff who face challenging journeys home, and even the safety of our neighbours on Shadwell Lane, a road that can get severely clogged up with traffic (this has in the past blocked emergency vehicles from gaining access).
At Moortown, we’re lucky in that many staff live locally. Teachers and support staff stayed for as long as they could today: Mr Owen and Mr Wilks, for example, stayed until after lunchtime so that they were around to provide extra supervision, and then faced very long journeys home on foot, whilst Mrs Weekes, Mrs Wilson, Mrs O’Malley, Mrs Sherriff and Mr Wilson stayed throughout the day ensuring those children still at school were safe, and that parents need not dangerously hurry to school.
I’m extremely grateful to all staff for their efforts and to parents who collected their child as soon as it was safe to do so.
Please continue to be patient and check our website for the most up-to-date information, which will be in the blue Twitter box. You might also like to receive the tweets on your mobile phone – text follow moortownprimary to 86444. This is free and works for all networks except T-Mobile.
SEAL statement 29 November
This week our SEAL statement is ‘I can use peaceful problem solving to sort out difficulties.’
As part of our Getting On SEAL theme the children look at the peaceful problem solving process to sort out any ‘getting on’ problems with each other.
This approach to resolving problems encourages children to:
- ensure they both feel calm (using calming down techniques)
- tell each other how they feel
- come up with their own solution to solve the problem
Look out for the Peaceful Problem Solving poster displayed around school and reminder cards can be found on keyrings in all classrooms. (Download it, too, so you can use it at home.)
Health Protection Agency advice
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.
Year 6 Forums
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.
SEAL statement 22 November
‘I can keep calm or help others to calm down’ is the new SEAL statement for this week.
In class children will be learning about a variety of techniques to use if they need to calm down.
Some of these techniques include:
- taking deep breaths
- walking away from the situation
- tell someone how you feel
- have a drink of water
Have a look at the calming down keyrings in each classroom for more ideas.
