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Your views matter… 4

This is the fourth in a series of news articles about your views, as expressed in the end-of-year annual reports, the annual reports and (article five) in person to me. The content of this page comes from the Newsletter we sent home earlier this page, along with a few additional points.

Thanks to all of you who returned a survey before the holiday. We received 82 responses this year (a lot more than last year – thanks). Of those who agreed or disagreed, here is the summary of the responses:

Obviously, we’re delighted that so many people who expressed an opinion were so positive – that‘s wonderful news. Thank you for your continued support – it’s this level of enthusiasm for the school that makes Moortown such a happy and healthy place to be.

There was quite a high level of ‘unsure’ responses (not included in the data above). On average across the statements, 7.5% were ‘unsure’.

This is particularly the case for the statement about bullying, where 21 respondents were unsure. However, as one parent notes (and many others commented in a similar way): “selected ‘unsure’…because we’ve had no experience of this”.

Nine respondents were also unsure about supporting their child at home and knowing how well their child is doing. As a result, we’ve planned more learning workshops and we’re repeating the open morning initiative, where you can actually observe the teaching and learning taking place. Parents last year said they found this helpful. (Don’t forget: every Class Newsletter features suggestions to help at home, too – these practical suggestions will engage your child in active, relevant learning!) This year, we’re going to have two of these. We’re also introducing a termly ‘traffic light’ system to let you know how your child is doing – you’ll receive the first at parents’ evening. Because of this response, and because of one parent’s suggestion (see Your Views Matter… 5), we’re also about to subscribe to Mathletics which we hope will enable you to support your child quite easily at home.

There were also nine more of you who were unsure around how well we develop children’s child’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural skills. rather like bullying, we think this has a lot to do with not communicating enough about this important aspect of school life. Over the course of the year, we do feature homework which specifically relates to elements of spiritual, moral, social and cultural  development – look out for these. We also plan, later in the year, to develop a page on the website which explains more.

Your views do matter. I hope you can see that we do listen and we do respond as much as we can. In the next news article, read about how we listen to individual parent concerns and questions, too.

Your views matter… 3

In the previous two news posts, I’ve presented a summary of the end-of-year annual reports and your responses on the subject of behaviour and our ‘warnings’ system. Your views on homework were far more mixed…

The creative homework is good, rather than too much learning by rote.

We feel there’s too much creative homework and we would be in favour of more talk time and practice makes perfect.

On the whole my children enjoy homework (especially creative)…

I am happy with the practice and talk-time homework but feel the creative homework should be reduced.

As you can see from the quotes above, your views vary considerably, even about just one aspect of homework. Of those who put forward a particular opinion, around a quarter were completely positive; a third had mixed views, usually positive but with some suggestions for improvements; and just under a half wanted our homework policy to change in some way. You might think this presents a clear case for the need to revise the policy, but the problem is that the suggestions put forward differed quite a lot. Two broad areas of agreement are:

• many wanted to see the amount of homework increase in Year 5 and Year 6 – this is something we’ve already put in place
• quite a few of you wanted the homework to be more structured / less open-ended / more Practice Makes Perfect – this is something we will look into, perhaps through a subscription to software to enable more practice of skills at home

Look out for two more news articles about your views…

Research findings

Did you take part in the Leeds Beckett University packed lunch parent survey?  Today the findings are published, revealing parents’ choices in providing children’s packed lunches.

03 October 2014

Here are this week’s spellings.  There will be a spelling test on Friday 10 October.

03 October 2014

This week’s homework is creative homework.  It needs to be handed in by Wednesday 08 October.

We’ve been very lucky to ‘jump into’ many paintings with Katie over the past few weeks – her grandma is magical and can somehow make paintings come to life.

Which painting would you like to jump into?  What would happen when you were inside the painting?

Be as creative as you like! Chat about ideas with your child: Could the homework be in the form of a poster, a letter, a comic strip, some writing, a PowerPoint…? Could it use photos, drawings, fold-out ‘extras’ on the page…?

I would like to jump into this painting:

     What would I find?  Who would I meet? What might change in the picture? Would I want to stay?

03 October 2014

This week’s homework is Practice Makes Perfect and is due on Wednesday 08 October.

I can write a report.

In English, we have written a report on Vincent Van Gogh. It will now be great practice for your child to write their own report at home on a subject they know a lot about and we all know a lot about Moortown Primary School.

Your views matter… 2

I’ve already described how we listen to your responses to the end-of-year annual reports. In this and the following two news articles, I’ll talk through the findings of the annual surveys. Here, I’ll describe the feedback we received on the subject of behaviour and our ‘warnings’ system.

One respondent pondered why we were asking this, and wondered whether it was because warnings and our policy overall wasn’t working. Not the case! We have a Relationships Management Policy (other schools might call this a Behaviour Management or Discipline Policy, but we place relationships at the heart of what we do) and it works really well, including the warnings system. We actually asked the question because we always want to review what we do – a chance to step back and reflect on whether we can do even better – as part of a continual cycle of self-evaluation. (It was also prompted by some remarks by the then Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, who suggested last year that schools return to using lines as a form of discipline – more on that below…)

Another parent wondered whether we should have positive consequences, too – we do! Each classroom teacher has their own system(s) in place. In Year 3, for example, Mrs Keatings rewards teamwork as well as individual effort, using team points and stars respectively. In Year 6, Mr Owen favours ‘golden tickets’ whilst Mr Wilks is partial to ‘fuzzies'(!). And don’t forget we have our weekly certificate assembly, where teachers acknowledge especially impressive learning and SEAL skills, as well as the coveted Cool Class Cup, awarded to the class whose individual pupils have earned the most Cool Class tokens.

Unlike the question on homework (more about that in a later news article), your views on our behaviour systems were almost all very, very positive: the vast majority of you supported the warnings system as a way to manage bad choices in school and most of you did not want any changes made, whether this involved lines or some other consequence. Many of you were adamant that we should not allow writing to be seen as a punishment, and a sizeable minority took the opportunity to criticise the views of Mr Gove – a ‘dinosaur’ with little expertise in the area of education sums up a significant number of your comments. Whilst I don’t wish to comment directly on Mr Gove’s ideology, or that of any Secretary of State for Education, I am pleased that you do support what we do around relationships and behaviour.

(Incidentally, one parent did say that they had reinforced the five warnings consequence that his/her child had received at school by issuing lines at home. First, it’s really encouraging to know that home treats poor behaviour choices as seriously as school does, and that we will be supported in this way; second, it was great to also read that the mix of consequences at both school and home worked; and third, it shows that a sort of mixture of traditional and modern strategies can work, as long as the overall message about behaviour choices being good/bad is consistent and clear for the child.)

Thank you for your views. Some specific points – like two requests to know more about the consequences at each stage of the warnings system – can be acted on really easily. All the comments will be passed to the Pupil Support sub-committee of the Governing Body for further consideration.

Look out for more news about your views…

Your views matter… 1

Towards the end of the school year, you’ll have received your child’s annual school report.

Just after receiving the report, parents / carers have a third scheduled parents’ evening to discuss its contents. One of the Year 1 teachers (Mrs Taylor) attends this, too, so the transition to Year 1 can be as smooth as possible – it’s a good time to reflect on the year and to ask questions and raise any concerns as the Reception children move up school.  Many of you who have a child in an older class also met with your child’s teacher (either the current or next one) to discuss the report, although this was done on a more casual basis in that you were encouraged to arrange a meeting if you wanted one.

We also asked you to complete a brief response about the report and the school year: what went well, what we could have done better and what questions / comments / concerns (if any) you have for the next year.

Well, we’re in ‘the next year’ now and I have passed the small number of points you raised (typically two or three in each class) to your child’s new teacher.  They have begun to act on the points you noted, and will respond directly to some of them at parents’ evenings (Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 October).  As always, if you’d like to talk sooner, please call in before or after school – teachers are usually available for a short chat (although longer discussions are best left to a pre-arranged meeting).

Incidentally, there were very few points to improve on (just two or three in the entire school), and lots of praise in the report responses.  Teachers have asked me to pass on their thanks for your very positive and appreciative comments.

Look out for some more responses to your end-of-year feedback (the annual surveys) over the next day or two!

Put on your sorting hat.

Naughty Katie destroyed all of Kandinsky’s paintings this week so we decided to help the art gallery by sorting all of the scattered pieces according to their shape.

Sometimes we had to bring our hoops together because some shapes fit under both criteria. This is called a Venn diagram.

Lots of great maths and lots of fixed pictures!

Generating lots of openers in our English lesson…