News

Peshawar, Pakistan

The Lord Mayor of Leeds will lead a one minute silence tomorrow to show support for those affected by this week’s tragic events in Pakistan. The event will take place in front of Leeds Art Gallery tomorrow at 11.00am and will be attended by elected members, city partners, multi-faith leaders and community representatives.

Members of the public are invited to attend and join the one minute silence, which has been organised to mourn the deaths of more than 140 people, including at least 132 children, at a school in Peshawar on Tuesday.

Lord Mayor of Leeds councillor David Congreve said: “People in Leeds and across the world have been deeply moved by the reports and images we have seen following these appalling events. It is fitting that as a city that promotes diversity, tolerance and peace, we gather to pay our respects to those who have had their lives cut so tragically short and I would invite the public to attend and show their support.”

Equally, as a school which promotes diversity, tolerance and peace, we will also gather to pay our respects at 11.00am tomorrow.

KS2 tuck shop free portion

As an incentive for selecting the pre-pay option, we’re able to offer you one week free. Therefore, the cost for one portion of fruit from 06 January to 31 March 2015 inclusive (12 weeks) is £2.20 (11 x 20p) and the cost for two portions is £4.40 (11 x 40p). Please note that if you choose to pay in advance, your payment is non-refundable and must be made in cash with the exact money.

If you prefer your child to continue paying in cash on a weekly basis, that’s fine – we’ll continue to operate this system.

If you would like to pay in advance for your child to visit the tuck shop, please return the slip and money to the office by Monday 15 December 2014.

KS2 fruit tuck shop takes place every Tuesday morning playtime.

Show Racism the Red Card

Here’s some more great feedback following our recent Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds themed week, this time coming from the team who lead Show Racism the Red Card workshops in schools.

The over-riding message that we are trying to instill is the understanding of equality for all regardless of appearance, differences and pre-conceived perceptions. The school children’s understanding of the subject matter was of a standard so high (prior to input) that it was a two-way educational process and a pleasure to deliver. A pleasure to attend and I thank you on behalf of ‘Show Racism the Red Card Team’ for giving us the opportunity. (Staff are amazing, too.)

Attendance matters

Despite a lot of illnesses last week, our average attendance so far this year (up to 28 November) is great: 97.1%.  This year’s Reception class attendance is the highest ever for this period, compared with any previous Reception class – a magnificent achievement!

• Reception: 97.6%
• Year 1: 97.1%
• Year 2: 97.7%
• Year 3: 98.6%
• Year 4: 96.0%
• Year 5: 96.8%
• Year 6: 96.1%

Some great feedback...

At Moortown Primary, we don’t like to rest on our laurels. This morning, a headteacher visited our school in order to carry out, alongside me, lesson observations to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning. This is useful for one main reason: to check my judgements about the quality of our provision, so we can be confident that our ‘self-evaluation’ is an honest and accurate assessment of our strengths and areas to get even better.

The headteacher (from another outstanding school in Leeds) visited all the classes, spending around 15-20 minutes in each class. This may not seem a lot, but you can get a ‘snapshot’ of standards in a class quite easily in this amount of time. (Any judgements need to then be backed up with pupil progress at the end of the term/year – this is the crucial.)

From the whole-school point of view, the headteacher was impressed by:

• the displays
• the Class Novel Big Topic which has just ended
• the high quality teacher – teaching assistant interactions
• the children’s learning behaviour
• the consistencies around school

In each class, she was impressed by various things; here I list just a couple of examples from each classroom:

• YR: very calm children in a purposeful environment; loads of great shape learning in many of the areas
• Y1: reading on iPads; the support of the teaching assistants
• Y2: encouraging pupils to check and help each other; the extremely purposeful, calm learning
• Y3: confident, clear support for learning; checking pupils’ responses
• Y4: good mix of teaching and pupil activity; the active role of the teaching assistant
• Y5: quality small group work; all children could talk about their writing, and the focus on ‘implicit mood’
• Y6: exciting, vibrant learning environment; the teacher closely checking that pupils are learning and feel comfortable about their learning

There are always ‘next steps’ to try out new or different teaching strategies, but the overall conclusion from the headteacher is that teaching is good and outstanding.

Well done to all staff – what a great team.

Several times on purpose

Alongside our Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds themed week it has been national anti-bullying week.

Our school definition has been discussed by the School Council and has been amended, 10.11.14, to incorporate the stop message.

‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’

Following a whole school assembly, Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team have delivered Show Racism the Red Card workshops across school and in class children have discussed these aspects of bullying:

• Our revised definition of bullying (above)
• Types of bullying – cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, special educational need and disability
• What to do if children experience bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)

Bullying resources can be found at…

• http://www.childline.org.uk/explore/bullying/pages/bullying.aspx
• http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
• http://www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents/worried_about_your_child/bullying

Children tell us what they would do if they were bullied ‘…I would tell an adult, teacher or someone I trust.’

All classes have access to their class SEAL box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.

Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds

Our themed week, Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds,  has been filled with visits and visitors providing a variety of experiences for the whole school.

We would like to thank the following for their support with our themed week:

• Heart Research UK
• d:side (drug education)
• Betty Sutherland tai chi
• White Rose martial arts
• Chapel Allerton squash and tennis club
• Leeds United
• Molly Cawthorn (Leeds United ladies)
• Leeds Rhinos
• Tesco Seacroft Farm to Fork trail
• Jhardine Farrell who delivered ‘respecting everybody’ circle times
• Leeds anti-social behaviour team
• Year 6 for taking over PE lessons for the rest of the school
• Mr Catherall for introducing the teachers to our new whole school sport, tchoukball
• parents/carers who talked about their health related job to different classes
• Public health resource centre for the loan of resources and providing health related leaflets

Finally, thank you to all staff and pupils who have fully engaged with all the learning throughout the week.  Take a look at the Class News sections of the website to find out what each class have been doing.  We have enjoyed a fun-filled week.

For further information about healthy bodies and healthy minds have a look at the Kids health website and Leeds Let’s Change for advice on more local health issues.

And an extra note from me, Mr Roundtree: I’d like to also thank Mrs Taylor for continuing to organise wonderful, packed themed weeks around being healthy or staying safe.  She puts an incredible amount of effort into ensuring our pupils enjoy some wonderful learning opportunities from staff and visitors. 

Ready to learn

During our SEAL theme of the Eight Rs for Learning, please do read the great leaflets produced by Family Action and the NAHT.

They promote readiness – and that’s one of our eight Rs.

The series of leaflets (so far) cover:

• Getting the most out of school
• Speaking and listening
• Giving your child a helping hand
• Preparing for change at school
• Your child’s wellbeing
• Independence and responsibility
• Online safety

Learn more about the guides and keep a look out for more in the series.

Silver!

The Sainsbury’s School Games Mark is a government-led awards scheme launched in 2012 to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community. Schools in England are able to assess themselves across bronze, silver and gold levels of the Mark. We had a visit from someone from Sport Industry Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University to check our assessment. I’m delighted to say we’ve just been awarded a silver level for 2013-14 and proudly display our ‘medal’ on our health page and PE and sports funding pages.

Here are some extracts from the report (dated 04 November 2014):

Moortown Primary School has been awarded the Silver Mark Award for the academic year 2013/2014.

Moortown Primary School received a validation visit for their application for a Mark award on Tuesday 21st October 2014. It was clear from the evidence provided that the school met the criteria to achieve a Silver Mark and in some areas of the criteria met Gold standard.

Every pupil in the school receives at least two hours of PE and school sport per week (in curriculum time only). The school organised school sports days for KS1 and KS2 that incorporated teams within the school. The school’s sports leaders plus other pupils helped in the organisation and running of the sports day.

Moortown Primary School has an excellent take up of extra-curricular sporting activities with 43% of the students participating in these activities; this exceeds the silver standard criteria. It is clear that sporting extra curricular activities are a crucial part of sports provision at the school with numerous lunchtime clubs and after school clubs taking place.

The school provided clear evidence of offering talented young sports people support in developing their sporting potential. The school have adopted an excellent policy called a ‘learning mountain’; this involves talented children teaching other students their specific skills during PE lessons. Alongside this the school has a well-maintained gifted and talented register.

The delivery of sporting opportunities at the school is good with 7 sports being offered at level 1 and 7 sports at level 2. This exceeds the standard for silver. Moreover, the school provided clear evidence of providing three B teams in football, rugby and football. The school showed excellent signs of promotion of School Games activity to parents in newsletters and have an active school twitter page, which regularly posts photos and team results. Moortown have an excellent policy in place where some students are asked to write match reports on school fixtures and then the reports are uploaded onto the school’s website.

11% of pupils are engaged in leading, managing and officiating in School Games activity, which exceeds the percentage required for Silver, the Gold standard is 20%. While the school actively engages students in the planning and development of School Games activity, currently the school does not have a school sport organising committee or crew in place. There is a need for a separate school sport organising committee to be in place to meet the criteria for gold in this category.

The school provided clear evidence of having three active links with local sports clubs and utilising sports coaches to support school sport. It is also clear the school uses the resources available to them to train wider school staff to support school sport. Last year the school brought in a specialised sporting teacher and this member of staff has trained other members of staff to lead sporting activities in the school.

The following are suggested improvements to the collection of evidence should the school wish to submit for gold next year:

• Looking at ways to increase the extra-curricular activity from 43% to above 50%, and increasing the percentage of leading / managing / officiating activity to meet the 20% requirement at gold. The Your School Games website has a section around School Sport Organising Crew which may highlight some additional roles and responsibilities that are included.

• Currently Moortown Primary School does not have a separate school sport organising committee in place. To achieve a gold Mark, a separate sporting committee would have to be in place and regularly meet to discuss sporting matters at the school. It was noted that the school does have a council and therefore to formulate a separate school sports committee should be straightforward.

• The school provided excellent evidence of having 3 active links with local sports clubs, which all seemed to be longstanding partnerships. However, to achieve a gold Mark Moortown Primary School needs to have at least 6 active links with local sports clubs.

• Currently Moortown Primary School offers 7 sports at level 1 and 7 sports at level 2 of School Games activity. To reach gold standard the school needs to be offering at least 9 sports at level 1 and 9 sports at level 2. Alongside this the school currently only has three B teams competing at level 2, to reach gold standard the school needs to have four B teams and one C team in place.

Congratulations on achieving your Silver Mark.

Computing ambassadors

We’re always very proud of the achievements of our pupils. Here’s a recent letter (11.11.14) from the National STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Centre praising the great work our children. Thanks to Mrs Garside for supporting this, and well done to Ava, Jorja and Mia for being excellent ambassadors for our school:

Dear Mr Roundtree

I wanted to thank you for the excellent work that some of your Year 4 children exhibited at our Raspberry Jam and Maker Event on the 1st of November, 2014.

The National STEM Centre has been built to showcase exemplary practice in education across the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths curriculum and we were proud to host the good work that your children demonstrated on the day.

The girls were a credit to your school, presenting their work to members of the public and knowledgably answering questions put to them about how the computing equipment helped them to learn concepts in new ways.

The conduct and behaviour of the children from Moortown Primary School was exemplary and I would welcome your school to attend any events at our centre in the future.