Walk to School Week
Walk to School Week will run alongside our themed week where children are encouraged to take a walk in the community on their way to school, maybe even picking up a piece of litter on the way.
Two walk to school competitions will run over the week – firstly, the return of our Where’s Wally challenge (using our walk to school website video) and also a reward for the class who make the most journeys to school on foot during the week.
Each day your child walks to school they should put a counter in their class’ totaliser jar. Even by parking further away from school your child could then to do the final part of their journey by foot. By Friday, the class with the most journeys to school on foot will win a martial arts session with John Weatherall, White Rose martial arts.
We hope you will support this initiative in helping children make a healthy start to their day and also helping towards reducing congestion at our gates.
Parent/carers coffee morning
During our themed week next week, there will be the chance to come along to an informal coffee morning and meet other members of our school community – representatives from our governing body and PTA. This will take place in the Space on Wednesday 20 May 9-10am.
A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 10am in the main playground.
Everyone is welcome.
Who do you think you are?
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place next week, from Monday 18 May 2015.
A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education.
Events during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging and body image, diversity of people around us – this might include race, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender. There will be various visitors to support this. Classes will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations such as our local charity, St Gemma’s Hospice; local care homes; Moortown Community Group; and taking pride in the local community by litter-picking.
Identity day
Following a suggestion from one of our school councillors, Friday 22 May 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. We invite a £1 voluntary donation and proceeds will be shared between St Gemma’s Hospice and the Nepal earthquake appeal.
Who do you think we are?
Do you think you’d recognise some of our staff in their early years? This photo competition will run throughout the week with details to follow separately. Again, proceeds will be shared between St Gemma’s Hospice and the Nepal earthquake appeal.
We’ll keep you up to date about events during the week through Twitter and the class news pages on our website. It’s going to be a busy week!
Our website and Twitter continue to keep you up to date with key community events. Upcoming events include the Roundhay Park Fun Run on 20 June and the PTA Summer Fair on 04 July. We hope you can support these.
Talk times
At Moortown Primary, we really value the importance of speaking and listening:
- the more a child listens well to lots of speaking, the more (s)he will be able to understand and use and write
- the better a child speaks, with interesting words and structures, the better (s)he will write, with interesting words and sentences
Thanks to the parent (Reception, Year 4) who recently mentioned a great resource. I’ve shared it with teachers, but why let them have all the good ideas?! Use the ideas in The Key Jar to open up some thought-provoking discussion at home or on a journey.
(Find out more information here.)
Great effort from all players
Well done to our netball teams who took part in the North East High 5 netball competition alongside over 20 local schools and had the opportunity to meet players from Yorkshire Jets.
Keeping safe and fit
John, from White Rose Martial Arts, demonstrated in the assembly today some of the skills that can be learnt at the karate after-school club, running again this term.
Pupils who have already attended the club confidently showed their karate techniques alongside some key messages about self-defence from John.
There was a lot of interest from the children so please contact John directly to secure a place for your child. Information can be obtained from the office or your child’s teacher. There is a free taster session on Tuesday 05 May but places are limited.
Our new SEAL theme for this half term is...
…relationships.
This theme explores feelings within the context of our important relationships including family and friends.
It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of learning: self-awareness, managing feelings and empathy.
There is a focus throughout the theme on helping children understand the feelings associated with an experience that we all need to cope with at some time: that of loss – whether of a favourite possession, a friend, a family home, or a loved one. Although relatively few children are bereaved, most will experience losses of other kinds during their childhood; losing a home, losing friends because of moving house or changing schools, or losing a pet are examples.
We would therefore ask for parents / carers to alert us to any experiences your child has had that might make this area particularly difficult for them – for example, a bereavement.
Attendance matters
With just four days left of this half-term, we still have 146 pupils who have 100% since 23 February – and that’s despite a bad case of chicken pox spreading like wildfire amongst our younger children!
For the whole year so far, there are 48 pupils with 100% – almost a quarter. In alphabetical order of surnames, well done Farhaan, Owen, Isaac, Ben, Ethan, Henry, Bella, Jack, Will, Vijay, Sam, William, Faye, Alexandra, Mia, Hibba, Byron, Lewis, Albie, Edward, Grace, Sachpreet, Isabelle, Natasha, Phoebe, Musa, Umaimah, Manya, Nico, Oliver, Aisha, Ethan, Lucas, Isabelle, Finn, Zeewa, Georgie, Alexander, Neive, Alex, Grace, Megan, Ebonnie, Albert, Archie, Jorja, Noah and Ethan!
As for each class, here are the attendance rates (with last year’s figure for the same period in brackets):
- Reception: 96.7% (96.1%) …that’s a great increase, so well done!
- Year 1: 97.3% (97.1%) …well done!
- Year 2: 96.4% (98.0%) …please help us increase this year’s figure.
- Year 3: 98.3% (97.6%) …this year’s figure is amazing – just like the class last year as Year 2.
- Year 4: 97.3% (96.7%) …another increase – great!
- Year 5: 96.1% (97.9%) …please help us increase this year’s figure.
- Year 6: 97.3% (97.0%) …well done – the fifth class to have a higher attendance rate than last year!
We’re really happy with the fact there are five classes with higher attendance rates than last year. For the whole school, our attendance rate is 97.1%. This is good, although last year was just a little better: 97.2%%.
Thank you to all parents who have tried so hard to ensure your child is happy and healthy and at school as much as they can be.
Some important news: from September 2015, attendance lower than 90% will be regarded as persistent absence. This means we would contact the local authority’s Attendance Team with regard to visiting to support and advise families where attendance is too low. This would include three children in Reception, one in Year 1, three in Year 2, three in Year 4 and one in Year 5 – eleven children in total. (Year 3 and Year 6 have no pupils where attendance is lower than 90%.)
Fantastic feedback
Yesterday, we were visited by a headteacher and senior school leader from a school in Stoke. They came to find out more about our creative curriculum – how we plan our topics to ensure we have exciting topics that cover the National Curriculum. Here’s some lovely feedback…
I just wanted to thank you for the time you spent with us yesterday. The curriculum was everything we hoped it would be and is exactly what we need to help us move our provision to the next level. I appreciate the hard work you have obviously spent on this area and it is good to meet another team who are committed to ensuring learning is truly personalised to the pupils’ needs and are dedicated to working to achieve it.
As I said yesterday it was great to meet another head who has the same vision, enthusiasm and excitement for education that I feel I have… not to mention the same attention to detail!
Your school is an absolute credit to you and I hope that we will have opportunities to work together in the future.
Curriculum enrichment themed week
Themed weeks are always popular. Next week, we try something new – five consecutive themed days, each centred around a particular subject of the curriculum. A variety of events and visitors are planned.
On Monday, we’ll focus on Maths. We welcome the Happy Puzzle Company to school for a Puzzle Challenge Day. Using large 3D puzzles and challenges, pupils will improve their personal learning skills, thinking skills and team-working skills, whilst boosting their confidence in the processes used.
After school on Monday, there will be an opportunity for you to come and buy a puzzle or two. Happy Puzzle Company will be in The Space and will have a large range of puzzles available for you to buy. You should have received details and a voucher about this – ask at the office if you haven’t.
All lessons on Tuesday will have a Science theme. Children from Year 1 to Year 6 will be joined by Hands on Science, and will take part in their CSI Fingerprints workshop. Children will take their own fingerprints and be shown how to identify and find the characteristics that make them unique.
We’ll be enjoying a play by the Quantum Theatre on Wednesday: ‘The Writing on the Wall’. This will help us focus on composition, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation in our English.
Thursday and Friday mornings will see the return of the ever-popular learning carousel! Groups containing children from each class, Reception to Year 6, will focus on different areas of the curriculum: Art, Music, Computing, Geography, PE and DT. There will also be taster sessions in Urdu (led by our own Mrs Maqbool) and Mandarin (led by Master Mandarin). Children will rotate through the groups and will take part in all of these activities.
In addition, we’re hoping to welcome a local newsreader to an assembly – Harry Gration. He will speak to the children about the importance of Maths and English in his job at Look North.