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Star Wars Anti-bullying

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWY5FSBI_Ic&feature=youtu.be

An example of one of our brilliant anti-bullying homeworks

06 January 2012

Your homework this week is creative and is due in on Wednesday 11 January 2012.

I can produce a piece of work for our Snowbound display.

Create a piece of work about snow, ice or being snowbound. Your work could be:

• Art work about snow or ice
• Collage or a collection of snow vocabulary – in other languages, too, perhaps
• Poetry
• Recounts or reports of snowy days
• Weather forecasts
• Your own idea

For this homework activity, your efforts should not go in your homework book. It should be bright, colourful, attractive and ready to be put up on display.

Our new SEAL theme is…

Rights and Responsibilities

SEAL stands for Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning.  This is a national scheme that promotes self-awareness, managing feelings, empathy, social skills and motivation. 

At Moortown Primary, we’re dedicated to the value of SEAL in promoting a happy and healthy place to learn.  However, we’re always thinking about other ways to meet our children’s needs and interests.  That’s one of the reasons we choose to sometimes break away from the national SEAL themes to do something different.

This half term, we’ll think about our rights and responsibilities and, importantly, that if we have rights, we also have responsibilities.  We last taught this in Spring term 2010 and it was very successful.  For example, children said:

• We have the right to resources; we have the responsibility to look after them.
• We have the right to have money; we have the responsibility to earn it.
• We have the right to live in a clean and tidy city; we have the responsibility to not drop litter.
• We have the right to food; we have the responsibility to make healthy choices.
• We have the right to play sports; we have the responsibility to follow the rules.

As you can see, some important messages are promoted.  Each week this half-term, we’ll concentrate on a different area:

• Week beginning 03 January: being healthy
• Week beginning 09 January: community and making a positive contribution
• Week beginning 16 January: learning
• Week beginning 23 January: jobs and money
• Week beginning 30 January: staying safe
• Week beginning 06 February: general

Perhaps you can support your child’s learning by discussing and promoting rights and responsibilities at home, too.

It’s Party Time

On Thursday 15 December it will be the Christmas party for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 after lunch.  The children must come to school in their school uniform but are welcome to bring some party clothes to change into for the party.

Please ensure that the clothes are easy for the children to put on themselves and that they are in a named carrier bag.  Please remember that they will be playing party games and dancing so make sure that the shoes that they bring are sensible. 

Thank you.

09 December 2011

To spell words with the “ch” sound.

09 December 2011

The homework this week is talk time and is due in on Wednesday 14 December.

I know what Christmas means to different people.

We want you to have a discussion at home about what Christmas means to different people. Try to think of lots of different people and what they do at Christmas time.

09 December 2011

This week’s spellings are words ending in ‘le’. Your child will be tested on Friday 16 December 2011.

• handle
• angle
• table
• uncle
• ankle
• candle
• able
• simple
• grumble
• dawdle

09 December 2011

The homework this week is practice makes perfect and is due in on Wednesday 14 December.

I can show what I have learnt about time.

The children all have a sheet with nine blank clocks stuck into their homework books. Their task is to carefully draw the minute and hour hands to show a time. They then have to write the time in words underneath. The children have been encouraged to challenge themselves according to how confident they are at time telling.

09 December 2011

More plurals this week! This time we are investigating how the spelling changes when making plurals for words that end in y. There are two rules:

1. Add s if the final letter is preceded by a vowel.
2. If not preceded by a vowel, change the y to an i and add es.

Spellings will be tested on Thursday 15 December.

We’re outstanding!

Mrs Rush, the Chair of Governors, writes: 

‘Moortown is an outstanding primary school’ (Ofsted, November 2011)

I’m delighted to tell you that the recent Ofsted inspection of MoortownPrimary School concluded that our children attend an outstanding school.  The report was extremely positive about the school:

Learning

Based on Key Stage 2 SAT results for 2010 and 2011, we already know that progress and attainment at Moortown Primary is extremely high.  It’s good to have this confirmed by Ofsted:  ‘All pupils attain highly by the time they leave the school, having achieved outstandingly well both academically and in their personal and social skills… Pupils are happy at school because they really enjoy learning and take great pride in their work.’ 

Other outcomes

As well as achievement, the inspectors conclude: ‘A number of aspects of their personal development are outstanding, including the extent they feel safe, their behaviour, the contribution they make to the community and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.’  Unsurprisingly, the extent to which they adopt healthy lifestyles was also judged to be outstanding.  In addition, thank you to all parents and carers who have avoided term-time holidays in recent years: attendance over the last three years is now judged to be good.

Teaching

The quality of teaching is judged to be good overall with instances of outstanding teaching.  As part of the inspection process, Mr Roundtree observed some lessons with an inspector to make sure his judgements were accurate; feedback to us (not in the final report) is that his judgements are very accurate and reflect high expectations of his staff.  This is good for us long term because we know we can rely on the school’s own monitoring and evaluating process in the future, and on the high standards expected by the school’s leaders.

Curriculum

The school’s curriculum was radically overhauled in 2008-09 so that children could learn through topics and themed weeks.  The new curriculum is described as ‘exciting’ whilst retaining ‘excellent attention to the basic skills of literacy and numeracy’.

Leadership

The report praises the governors’ good leadership which has led to ‘the development of an exceptionally strong staff team which is totally committed to ensuring the best for each and every pupil’.  In particular, it refers to Mr Roundtree’s high expectations and his ‘visionary’ leadership, and cites this as one of the main reasons why our school has gone from ‘good’ (Ofsted, 2007) to ‘outstanding’ now. 

An area to develop

The previous inspection (2007) had two areas to develop, one of which was to improve the teaching of basic skills of learning and writing in the Foundation Stage in order to speed up progress in Reception and Year 1.  The inspectors this time reassured us that teaching in the Foundation Stage is good.  This is something with which local authority advisors and school leaders agree.  Inspectors now think the provision (which is more about making best use of space and resources to enable challenging learning to take place) can be improved further, with better use made of outside activities and greater challenge for more able children.  Some of the feedback given from different inspectors about the Foundation Stage appears a little contradictory.  Also, some of the findings appear to conflict with the principles of learning through play and with the assessment data (Moortown’s Reception children attain higher than the local authority and national averages); however, we’ve already begun to consider how we can put these actions in place, bearing in mind the limited space we have. 

(The report also states: ‘Many improvements have been made since the previous inspection, including the management of provision for pupils with special educational needs’ – this was the other area to develop from the last inspection.  We’d like to say well done to Mrs Weekes, who is responsible for all aspects of inclusion.)

Parents’ and carers’ views

We’re happy to note that the inspectors were impressed by the school’s attempts to engage all parents and carers, from its ‘first class website and use of new technologies’ to its more traditional ‘family’ ethos.  You’ll be able to see a summary of parents’ and carers’ responses to the Ofsted questionnaire in the final report.  In the meantime, it’s perhaps best summed up by the fact that 99% said that ‘overall, I am happy with my child’s experience at the school’.  A sole respondent disagreed with this statement, and only a very small number of parents and carers (always less than 5%) disagreed with others.  It’s impossible to deal with each individual concern in an anonymous survey, but please be assured that if you follow our school policies (whether they are for uniform, term-time absences, behaviour or some other aspect of school life) and if you raise your concerns in the way set out in the school’s complaints policy, then school teachers, leaders or governors will be ready to listen.

I’m sure some of you would like to read more.  The inspection report will soon be available on our own school site and on Ofsted’s website.  You might be interested to hear more about the inspection, its report and the next steps forMoortownPrimary School– we’d like to invite you to an informal meeting led by governors: either Wednesday 11 January 2012 at 2.30pm or 6.30pm.  You don’t need to confirm attendance.

Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to say a big well done to all school children and staff on this wonderful achievement.