Our weekly message: Friday 16 October 2026

Thank you for your kind words on hearing the news that I’ll be leaving Moortown Primary and Sphere Federation at the end of the Autumn term. After working in schools for 30 years (10 years as a teacher and 20 years as a headteacher), it feels like it’s time for a change and new challenge, although I’ll be very sad to leave my Sphere Federation family.

Earlier this week, our Chair of Governors sent a letter to you explaining the interim arrangements for the Spring and Summer terms. I’m confident that Mrs Weekes, Mr Wilks and all the great teachers and support staff here at Moortown Primary will continue to help your child to flourish in this happy and healthy place to learn.

Junior leaders

Our new Junior Leadership Team (JLT) were voted for this week. Well done to everyone who made a speech – we were impressed by all of you.

After a democratic decision, our new junior leaders are:

• Matthew and Zachariya in Reception
• Finley and Alice in Year 1
• Ella and Aydin in Year 2
• Emir and Benjamin in Year 3
• Harriet and Hannah B in Year 4
• Raeya and Hirrah in Year 5
• Tess and Oliver in Year 6

Congratulations to you all – we’re sure you’ll do a grand job.

AI and safeguarding

As we all know Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making the news for all sorts of reasons. Whilst there’s some amazing things happening, there has to be a constant awareness of safeguarding. We need to make sure that we’re not exposing personal details to the wider world.

At the moment, there’s a lot of posts on social media about AI and school photos pics – perhaps you’ve seen them. Some people are recommending that parents ask AI to remove the watermark from a sample school photo so that they don’t need to pay the price. If you do this, your child’s photo’s ‘out there’ for AI to use in the future, responding in whatever way people ask.

Your child’s digital footprint (including photos) are your responsibility until they’re old enough to give consent; in legal terms that would be 18 years old. Please be aware of this when using social media and AI.

Well done!

One of our Y6 friends has amazed us this week with her taekwondo talent: British National Champion for three years running! She’s worked incredibly hard in training and has overcome many challenges and tough competition to achieve her goal. What an achievement at just 10 years old!

Our weekly message: Friday 09 October 2026

With over five weeks in school, we’re now well and truly settled into the school year. School leaders have been busy doing observations of teaching and learning around school – there’s lots of great teaching and even greater learning going on! You can get a chance to see some of this next week…

Watch us while we work

We’re looking forward to seeing lots of you on Tuesday next week for another of our popular Watch Us While We Work sessions. These are a chance for you to visit your child’s class and see some teaching and learning.

• Start time: 9am (please arrive promptly)
• Focus: Reading and Maths (later in the year, the focus will be Phonics or Spelling and one of our Feelings First sessions)

Teachers will try to make the activities home-friendly so you can continue to support your child at home if you’d like.

There will be two short sessions, each about 15 minutes, and you can attend two classes, swapping half-way, so you can see two of your children if you need to.

The vast majority of children enjoy sharing their learning – it’s a cause for celebration and feeling proud. We recognise there might be one or two who struggle with the change or the extra people – please consult your child’s class teacher if you’ve any concerns.

Parents and carers of children in Reception should look out for Stay and Learn sessions across the year.

Is your child in Year 6?

The deadline to apply for a place in secondary school is approaching: 31 October 2026. Find more information on the Leeds City Council website.

Me and my community

Our next themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be take place from Monday 02 November. This is the first of two themed weeks in the year. The rest of this week’s message is a preview of the themed week…

In Me and My Community week, children will learn about what it means to belong to a community, from family to national or even international communities. Importantly, our children will also learn to respect and celebrate different communities.

A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this aspect of our Living and Learning education. Events and learning during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging and self-esteem, and the diversity of people around us, including race, age, religion and disability. Children will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations and taking pride in the local area, for example by litter picking.

Active travel in the community

We encourage children to get out in the community in an active way on their way to and from school, with prizes available as part of the themed week. By walking/scooting/biking to school, families will be keeping our community safer and healthier by reducing congestion at the school gate. Maybe even pick up a piece of litter on the way! Even by parking further away from school, your child could then travel the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter. Bike and scooter storage facilities are available beside the Year 3 and 4 classrooms.

Email us using [email protected] with a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark in our community on your route to school, for the chance to win one of three vouchers. Entries to be submitted by 4pm on Thursday 05 November.

New school charity

At the end of the themed week, classes will have the chance to discuss our charity shortlist and the Junior Leadership Team will have the final vote for which charity they would like our school to support, replacing our current charity, Martin House Hospice.

Identity day

Friday 06 November will be a non-uniform Identity Day. Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend, a team they are part of or support, or traditional dress to represent their heritage. There is no donation or contribution required for this day.

SAVE THE DATE: PTA coffee morning Monday 02 November 9-10am

As part of the week, we welcome all parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 9:50am in the main playground.

Can you help?

Maybe you speak another language and you’d be happy to speak to children about this or you’d like to share about your own family culture and heritage. If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have any local community links that may support our week?

Lots to look forward to. In the meantime, have a happy and healthy weekend!

Our weekly message: Thursday 01 October 2026

Tomorrow is one of five training days for teachers – this means school is closed tomorrow. The dates for the training days are:

• Tuesday 01 September 2026
• Friday 02 October 2026
• Friday 23 October 2026
• Monday 07 December 2026
• Monday 07 June 2027

Please remember to keep checking our website calendar for forthcoming events.

Wraparound pitta pizzas

This term, we’ve added new items to our wraparound menus. The food we offer is a healthy option. Healthy and nutritious can be good fun too – our wraparound crew found this out last week when they made their own pitta pizzas. They look really tasty!

Rights and Responsibilities

Last week in Living and Learning, your child considered rights and responsibilities. Here’s a few pics from children in Year 3 considering what’s responsible and what’s not…

Alongside every right comes responsibility. At school for example, children have the right to play and relax, and the responsibility to play alongside others safely and respectfully. In lots of situations, we’ve the right to express our views, but we have the responsibility to do so in a respectful way.

Spend some time thinking of more examples in different situations: rights and responsibilities at home, in a shop, in a park…

BBC Bitesize ‘Rules, rights andresponsibilities’ is worth checking out with children in Key Stage 2.

Cooking

A couple of weeks ago, we asked if you’d be kind enough to make a voluntary donation to cover the cost of ingredients  for our DT: Food and Nutrition sessions each term. This is so we make life easier for you by buying the food in bulk rather than asking for children to bring in their own ingredients. It also means that we can continue to offer this opportunity to learn important kitchen skills.

Thank you to those of you who have made a contribution.

If you’ve not already, please consider making a donation. We’ve set up Arbor for quick payments of £6, but you can also call into the office with any donation amount – we’d be grateful for any amount to contribute to costs.

Year 5: Bikeability

Bikeability takes place in the Spring term for children in Year 5. This year, it will take place from Monday 01 March to Friday 05 March 2026.

The training has two core elements: basic skills and road safety. If your child is unable to ride a bike, they may be unable to take part in the road safety aspect as they will not be able to cycle outside of school. We’re giving plenty of notice in case your child would like to practise before March.

Dropping off and collecting your child

Do you have to use a car to drop off and collect your child from school? The best way to travel to and from school is to walk, scoot or cycle. If you do drive, please remember to drive and park with respect and care.

Allerton Avenue is being used so much for parking:

• it is ‘permit only parking’ for residents
• sometimes residents can’t get in or out of their own driveways
• emergency vehicles would not be able to access if needed
• manoeuvring, overtaking and turning in the road all increase the likelihood of accidents
• it becomes dangerous for families who are walking to and from school

If you park on the double yellow lines or zigzags anywhere round school, this causes danger to our children, pedestrians, and other drivers. Please don’t park on them or across the road from them. Read more about these road markings and the law.

Marks and Spencer’s car park is a perfect alternative. It’s free for two hours and parking there eases congestion on Shadwell Lane and surrounding streets.

We know that the lack of parking is frustrating, but please help us to keep the environment safe, our children safe and show that we consider the residents who live around school. Thank you for your cooperation and support.

You might want to report a problem to Leeds City Council – the more who do so, the more likely something will be done. We suggest using the link to Report a Traffic Management Issue – it only takes a minute.

Finally this week, another reminder – please make sure you’ve let us know of any allergies your child has, or any other medical condition we should know about. And if you’ve got any updates about emergency contacts, please let us know those, too.

Our weekly message: Friday 25 September 2026

It’s been a wonderful start to the new school year with lots of happy and healthy learning activity from Reception to Year 6…

Check out our Class News pages to find out more about what your child’s been up to.

Platinum!

We’re proud to be awarded the School Games Mark recognising our commitment, engagement and delivery of competitive school sport. Just before the summer holidays, we were delighted to be awarded Platinum again!

National assessments

There are various national assessments that children in England do – it can be confusing keeping up with them all…

• Reception Baseline Assessment: within the first 6 weeks of entering Reception
• Early Years Foundation Stage Profile assessment: between April and June of the academic year in which they turn 5 (usually the Reception year)
• Phonics Screening Check: in June of Year 1
• Key Stage 1 tests: at the end of Year 2
• Multiplication Tables Check: in June of Year 4
• Key Stage 2 tests (sometimes referred to as SATs): in May of Year 6

Read more about the assessments. You can always ask your child’s teacher about these, too, of course.

Staying safe: Does your child have a mobile phone with one of these apps?

The NSPCC has published figures (April 2025 to March 2026) showing which platforms children name when they talk to Childline about online sexual abuse:

• Snapchat: 324 mentions in one year (that’s 19% more that the year before)
• TikTok: 234 mentions
• Instagram: 197 mentions
• Discord: 92 mentions
• WhatsApp: 39 mentions

Between them, these five platforms came up in nearly 900 counselling sessions.

Attendance matters

At the start of the year, it’s quite possible your child might pick up a bug or feel a bit more tired than usual. This is perfectly normal and helps to build up some resilience. Check out this short YouTube clip from the Department for Education about illness and attending school. There’s also advice on our new Attending School website page.

If your child really does need to miss a day at school, please tell us as soon as you can.

Did you know that schools have the right to decide if they will authorise the absence or not. In most circumstances, we authorise the absence, but sometimes, we don’t – we make the decision based on one or more of the following factors:

• doubt: if there is a specific reason to doubt the illness
• frequency: if a child misses school very often
• no communication: if a parent/carer fails to give a reason or fails to contact the school, the absence automatically goes down as unauthorised
• no requested proof: if we ask for reasonable medical proof for frequent absences and the parent fails to provide it

Talking of attendance…

Religious festivals

Some of you know may know that children are allowed up to two days per year to celebrate religious festivals. At times, this has been when a festival has fallen on a weekend so families have requested a day either side of the weekend or asked for the two days at one time.

Working together to Improve School Attendance 2026 (DfE) states religious observance can only be recorded on the actual day recognised by the relevant faith group. For example, this means that for Eid (or any other festival), we are allowed to authorise an absence for the day of Eid alone, and not extended celebrations. (And if the actual festival is at the weekend, an absence at another time can’t be recorded as religious observance.)

Finally, do you know anyone with a child starting school in September 2027? It seems a long way off, but we’ve already had enquiries about starting school then. We’ve four dates planned in for open sessions to visit our school – 

• Wednesday 14 October – 6.00pm
• Tuesday 10 November – 2.00pm
• Friday 20 November – 9.30am
• Monday 23 November – 5.00pm

There’s no need to book a place.

Our weekly message: Friday 18 September 2026

Thanks again to all those who entered our Summer Competition. Summer might seem a distant memory, but these creations bring a sunny smile to our faces…

Make sure you check the Class News each week. Since the start of the year, there have been over 35 Class News stories to read across school, from Reception to Year 6!

This week’s message focuses on some specific teaching and learning guides that you might like to check out so that you can support your child at home…

Handwriting

This year, we’ve refreshed the way we teach handwriting. Children have told us that with better handwriting, they feel more confident and proud of their learning! Our Handwriting Guide is easy to follow and a great way to support your child. Check out the guide to letter formation and our three top tips on page 3.

Spelling

We’ve also updated the way we teach spellings in Years 2 to 6. Our Spelling Guide describes how we teach spellings in Key Stage 2, including sequences for teaching different spelling rules and patterns and related lists of spellings to learn.

Feelings First

Last year, some of you attended a Watch Us While We Work session where we showed you a Feelings First session. The feedback from the session was really positive. We’ve prepared this Feelings First Guide to give you an idea of the feelings we cover each half term (page 6) and our simple definitions of each feeling (page 7).

Homework

We’ve made a small tweak to our Homework Guide which reflects a change of routine for children in Key Stage 2: their spellings to learn is now around a two week cycle, with a small test each fortnight.

Relationships and Sex Education

At the start of each year, we like to encourage you to be aware of our Relationships and Sex Education Policy. Later in the year, your child will have Relationships and Sex Education lessons. In those lessons, we’ll talk about anatomical terms and different relationships. However, we might need to use the terms at other times, such as when dealing with incidents of misuse or disrespectful language, and we’ll talk about lots of different relationships at any time of the year, too.

Cooking

Over the course of the year, your child will enjoy three opportunities to prepare food:

• Year 1 and 2: a fruit smoothie, overnight oats, and fruit bars
• Year 3 and 4: egg pot, chopped tomatoes and garlic, and savoury scones
• Year 5 and 6: vegetable and chickpea curry, pasta bake, and bread

We’ve a couple of requests, please:

Most importantly, please alert us to any allergies your child has. We’ll do our best to adapt recipes.

For parents of children in Years 1 to 6, thank you to those of you who contributed towards the cost of ingredients last year. Doing this means:

• we make life easier for you by buying the food in bulk rather than asking for children to bring in their own ingredients
• we can continue to offer this opportunity to learn important kitchen skills

To make sure that we can continue to offer this across the year, please make a voluntary donation. We’ve set up Arbor for quick payments of £6, but you can also call into the office with any donation amount – we’d be grateful for any amount to contribute to costs.

For more about our Cooking curriculum, please check out our Cooking and Nutrition Guide – this includes the food preparation skills children will practise (this is Year B).

All the guides mentioned here (and more) can be found on the blue Learn More pages of our website.

Finally this week… Please remember to update us with any changes to the information we have about you or your child. This includes any changes in health details and contact details.

Our weekly message: Friday 11 September 2026

Did you catch Tuesday’s message with news of our Summer Competition winners? Well done to them and to all who entered – we loved seeing all your creative ideas.

At the start of every half-term, children in Years 1 to 6 begin a new topic. This week’s message is all about the new topic so you can chat with your child at home about what they’re learning over the next few weeks.

(If your child’s in Reception, check out their Class News page.)

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term, we’re historians. We’ll develop our understanding of the past, both in Britain and the wider world.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary. See pages 26 and 27 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Each phase also has key historical concepts which will feature within most lessons. These historical concepts are themes that are revisited, strengthened and deepened during your child’s journey through the history curriculum. See page 23 of the Curriculum Guide.

Years 1 and 2

In this topic, children will learn about a significant British historical event: The Great Fire of London. Children will learn about life at the time of the Great Fire of London. They’ll learn where the fire started and how it spread so quickly and the innovative ways that it was extinguished. Importantly, they’ll learn about the different sources of evidence that have helped us answer these questions, including Samuel Pepys’ diary. Finally, they’ll learn about the significant changes that occurred as a result of the fire, such as legal changes about the way houses were built and the beginning of a fire service in London.

Years 3 and 4

Children in Years 3 and 4 are learning about Ancient Greece. They began by sequencing periods of British history and seeing where the ‘golden-age’ of the Ancient Greek civilisation sits alongside. They’ll then learn about two contrasting city states: Athens and Sparta. Children will learn about the type of government these states had and what the lives of the people living there were like. They’ll then debate which city state was the best.

Importantly, they’ll focus in on the influence that Athens has had on the world: democracy, mathematics, philosophy, literature, culture… Finally, they’ll learn about how the civilisation ended. 

Years 5 and 6

In this topic, children learn about Stone Age to Iron Age Britain and contrast it with Ancient Egypt. They begin by looking at and creating timelines which sequence the periods of British history and also placing Ancient Egypt on this timeline. They’ll learn about the advances and innovations that occurred during the New Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. They’ll learn about and understand that the sources of evidence we have are limited to archaeological evidence. They’ll then learn about the Ancient Egyptian civilisation and contrast this with what was happening in Britain at the same time – it’s a stark contrast!

The key concepts for this topic are innovation and power.

How can you help?

Check out the links above. They’ll take you to BBC Bitesize webpages with some really good pages about the different units being studied this half-term.

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. The Class News pages of the school website are a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

Find some books from the library which match what your child is learning. I’m sure there will be plenty of books about the history your child will be learning about.

Watch television shows about history. Horrible Histories is great (regardless of your age!).

For KS1, there’s an excellent website about the Great Fire of London. As well as a game for children to play, there’s information for adults as well.

If it’s a rainy weekend and you’re looking for something to do, why not spend a morning or afternoon in a museum? A visit to Leeds City Museum (next to Millennium Square) would be great for all children but especially for Y3,4 and Y5,6 children as it has some Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian exhibits, including Nesyamum, the 3,000 year old Leeds mummy!

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Summer competition

During the summer holidays, we asked you to get creative with our school logo – the ‘brill buddies’. We’ve had some amazing entries and some great interpretations of the logo – including some mermaids!

Here are our winners!

Well done to everyone who entered the competition – all entries (or photos of them) will be displayed in the entrance near the office.

Key dates 26/27 - amended version

In our Friday message, we sent out a list of key dates for this academic year. We’re sorry but there were a few errors so here is an amended version – please refer to these key dates rather than the ones sent on Friday.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Our weekly message: Friday 04 September 2026

It’s been great to see you at the school gates and to welcome the children back to school – and to welcome new children joining us, too. We’ve loved hearing children greet us happily each morning!

Summer competition

Did you enter our Summer competition this year?

Thank you to those of you who did. We invited you to re-create our school logo in some creative way. Today was the deadline to send in a creation featuring our Brill Buddies logo – we’ll be deciding the winner on Monday.

Attending school

We know the Autumn term can be a time when younger children pick up a bug or two. Check out our Attending School page for advice about when you’re child might be too ill to come to school.

Last year, our attendance figure was 96.9% which is great. Can we aim for even better this year? Watch this short clip (only a minute long) about why attending every day matters in primary school.

Dates

Here’s a list of key events across the year.

For a fuller and up-to-date picture of what’s going on, check out our school calendar.

(Have a look at our weekly Living and Learning theme at the start of each week in the calendar, too – this week, our theme’s been ‘I follow the school rules’ so please talk about these at home.)

A few updates

We’ve updated a some policies recently…

Our Homework Guide includes an update about spellings to learn and a couple of other tweaks (the actual policy on pages 2 and 3 hasn’t changed).

We’ve updated our Positive Relationships Policy to reflect a change in language when adults in school use ‘3, 2, 1, stop’ – check out our new expectations on page 2.

Our policy for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) now includes a policy around resources to support pupils (things like fidget objects).

Finally, we reviewed our Uniform Policy in the Summer term, but it might be worth a re-read to check our expectations, especially for PE days.

Our website

As it’s the start of a new school year, we thought it might be a good time for a quick ‘tour’ of some of the key pages of our website.

The Find Out section is there mainly for the key information you need to know about. Particularly useful pages are:

• the Calendar: at the start of the year, we send home a list of key events across the year but for a fuller and up-to-date picture of what’s going on, check out the calendar (have a look at our weekly Living and Learning theme at the start of each week in the calendar, too – this week, our theme’s been ‘I follow the school rules’ so please talk about these at home)
• Policies and Other Points: this page contains lots of information, including our Positive Relationships policies and our Uniform policy – important ones for you to know about

The Join In section describes lots of different ways that you and your child can get involved, from wraparound care and clubs to any job vacancies we may have. There’s information about our Governing Body in this section, too. (On the subject of governors, please contact us if you know of someone who might be interested in becoming a governor.)

The Learn More page is where to go for ways to support your child’s learning. The Class News pages are always the some of the most visited pages – they help to keep you up to date with what your child’s learning. Other pages give you information about different subjects – Reading, Writing, Maths and other curriculum subjects. If you’re a parent of a child in Nursery or Reception, check out the Early Years page, too.

Next week, we’ll talk about our new topic for children in Years 1-6. It’s a History topic – start asking your child now what they’ve been learning in History! In the meantime, have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our last weekly message of the year: Friday 17 July 2026

We’ve reached the end of another happy and healthy school year. This week’s message is a long one, but hopefully the headings will help you to read the parts that matter to you…

Have a happy and healthy summer holiday…

As we reach the end of another successful school year, we’d like to thank you for your continued support, encouragement, and partnership throughout the year. Your involvement has played an important role in helping our children be happy and healthy at Moortown Primary and beyond.

We’re very proud of all that our pupils have achieved and grateful to our dedicated staff for their commitment and care. Together, we have celebrated many successes.

I hope you and your family enjoy a well-deserved, restful and enjoyable summer holiday, creating some happy and healthy memories together. We look forward to welcoming everyone back refreshed and ready for another exciting year on Wednesday 02 September.

Junior Leadership Team review of the year

As we approach the end of the school year, we asked our Junior Leaders for some of their highlights…

Year 1

• ‘Handwriting has been one of my favourites because I love learning about new letters.’
  ‘I’ve enjoyed leading my class and discussing the new lunch menus throughout the year.’

Year 2

• ‘I saw one of my club suggestions – Spanish club – get put into action.’
• ‘In Year 2, our skipping festival was so fun.’

Year 3

• ‘I’ve loved having an important role and responsibilities within my class.’
• ‘I enjoy the meetings and helping around school.’

Year 4

• ‘York Museum was a highlight when we were learning about the Romans.’
• ‘My favourite part of Year 4 was residential and I tried the leap of faith.’

Year 5

Our summer competition

Over the summer holidays, we invite your child to re-create our school logo in some creative way – maybe a painting, a collage, even a mobile.

It could be anything – the only rules are:

• it needs to be ‘display-able’, so we can put it on display along with the other entries
• it needs to show our Brill Buddies logo in some recognisable way (but the more original, the better

To enter, your child needs to bring along their pieces of art in the first week – no later than Friday 04 September. Entries will be displayed in a Moortown Primary Brill Buddies display in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.

Summer savings

This is a reminder of something from a previous message…

The Great British Summer Savings scheme starts next week. Running from 25 June to 01 September 2026, its aim is to help families feel a bit less squeezed this summer.

The scheme includes reduced VAT on days out, including tickets at attractions like soft play, adventure centres and theme parks, children’s tickets for theatres and cinemas, and children’s meals in restaurants. Children aged 5 to 15 in England will also be able to travel free on local bus services throughout August.