News

The 8 Rs for Learning

This half-term, we’re thinking about the ‘8 Rs for learning’. This theme is about promoting good learning behaviour for your child. Each week, we’ll focus on two ‘Rs’ (and in the week beginning 08 December, we’ll review all eight). We use an animal to symbolise each ‘R’, which might help your child remember all eight – can your child remember which animal matches the correct ‘R’?

You can support your child at home – we’ve listed a few ideas to help you below. Ask us if you’ve any questions or comments.

Download top tips for promoting the 8Rs for good learning behaviour.

I can show I am ready to learn.

• Make sure your child is at school for a prompt start of 08:50.
• Make sure your child has had plenty of sleep so they are alert and ready to learn at all times.
• Encourage your child to ask lots of questions – that shows they want to learn!

I take responsibility for my own learning.

• Provide time and space at home so your child is able to organise themselves: their PE kit, reading book, homework, spellings and tables… Don’t organise everything for them!
• Make a link between rights and responsibilities: your child has the right to a great education, but needs to be responsible for their own learning.

I take a safe risk.

• Talk about the difference between a safe and unsafe risk. At school, we want your child to take a safe risk by having a go at answering, even if unsure; trying something new and attempting harder learning.

I am resilient.

• Encourage your child to keep going! Set a tricky challenge or puzzle for your child to do.
• Encourage your child to think of different ways of doing things.
• Don’t let your child win when they play a game – they need to experience losing, too!
• Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn – be happy that your child found some learning hard and encourage them to ‘bounce back’ and learn from the experience.

I respond to feedback.

• Ask your child if they remember their ‘stars’ and ‘steps’ in English and Maths.

I am resourceful.

• Encourage your child to be organised so they can play with a range of different toys.
• Encourage your child to try new ways to solve a tricky problem.

I remember.

• Make sure they have time to learn spellings, number bonds and times tables – a little practice daily is best.

Play memory games:

• Kim’s game: show them objects for 30 seconds… can they remember all the objects?
• Can they build up the sequence, ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple and a bike.’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple, a bike and a cucumber.’ etc … Take turns!

I reflect about my learning.

Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about:

• how they learnt
• why they learnt it
• when they’ll use their learning
• how they would teach this to someone else
• what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today
• etc

Warning!

In the annual survey of parents / carers, someone requested more information about what happens with a warning. Since then, we’ve displayed more notices around school to explain – you’ll be able to read one on the Parents’ Noticeboard.

Summarised from our Relationships Management Policy, here’s some more information about warnings – and rewards, too!

Warnings

We have just three school rules:

• We keep hands, feet and objects to ourselves.
• We follow instructions.
• We respect everyone and everything.

Staff at Moortown Primary employ consistently and clearly a hierarchy of negative consequences (our ‘warnings’) if a child breaks a school rule. This is to ensure a safe and effective learning environment in which positive, happy, healthy relationships flourish. Warnings are recorded and monitored. (These whole-school consequences vary slightly at lunchtimes to allow lunchtime staff to operate independently, although lunchtime consequences are communicated to class teachers.)

Low-level, on-going disruptive or unco-operative behaviour (eg not following instructions straight away, talking in class, interrupting) are small issues but over time may stop a child and others from learning or feeling settled. We aim to keep this to a minimum and aim to spot patterns when warnings occur. The following stages are followed to reduce such behaviour:

1. a letter to parents to inform of high number of warnings caused by low-level disruptive / unco-operative behaviour incidents
2. a letter to parents to advise this has continued and therefore we need to see an improvement within a fixed period of time; a behaviour chart at school to track incidents will be used (in addition to any other support)
3. a meeting between parent, pupil, learning mentor and teacher

For children who regularly have to stay in at lunchtimes and who don’t seem to be making progress towards improved learning behaviour, we may set them additional English / Maths at playtimes to make up for the missed learning in a class.

Serious misbehaviour (eg disrespect to staff, property or cultures, swearing, fighting) is very rare at Moortown. Such behaviour would mean warnings are automatically by-passed to four or usually five warnings. Similarly, any pattern in warnings or consistent warnings means parents are contacted. We contact parents to keep them in the picture and to discuss ways to respond and gain a consistent message between home and school. A serious incident report is completed in such cases.

We do recognise that there are occasionally overriding factors or circumstances, but these are rare and so variation from the warnings system is rare. This is to maintain their effect and impersonal nature ie we aim to remove the personal judgement so children understand and accept the school rules. We allow for differentiation of sanctions where appropriate. This is to reflect different levels of culpability (or fault) while maintaining consistency and fairness of the treatment of pupils. We expect children to try their best in all activities. If they do not do so, we may ask them to redo or complete a task. We expect children to make good choices and older children to set a good example to younger ones. We expect children to not support the misbehaviour of their peers. We expect and encourage children to tell an adult of misbehaviour.

The class teacher discusses the school rules with each class, and also creates a Classroom Charter as part of their New Beginnings SEAL work. This is agreed by the children and displayed on the wall of the classroom. In this way, every child in the school knows the standard of behaviour that we expect in our school.

Rewards

Each teacher and their class develops their own systems of reward and praise, based on the overall school principles set out in this policy. This will include at least individual and class rewards and typically, especially with older children, group rewards to promote inter-personal relationships.

Some of the positive consequences for the good learning, good choices and good behaviour that children show are:

• regular verbal feedback to reinforce positive behaviour
• children are congratulated
• stickers or other small prizes / treats
• certificates: usually at least one based on learning and at least one based on a Social and Emotional Aspect of Learning
• postcard mailed from the headteacher to a pupil at their home address
• Golden Time if a class has achieved a class target

Cool Class Tokens are given to children for good choices, good relationships, politeness, co-operation or acts of kindness in school – the class with the most Cool Class Tokens are awarded the Cool Class Cup in Friday Assemblies.

Assemblies, especially our Friday Assemblies, are an opportunity to publicly celebrate the good choices children have made in school and to share some of the good work they have been producing. Also important is to celebrate achievements out of school in order to promote a wider range of interests and a broad outlook.

Attendance is also rewarded. We give termly certificates for good attendance and at the end of the year there is a raffle for all children who have attained outstanding attendance.

Sweets are rarely used as rewards; as a healthy school, we prefer to reward in other ways. Where they are used, it would be by an external party and would meet standards set out here.

Moortown Festive Lights Switch-On

Moortown Community Group invite you to join in the Moortown Festive Lights Switch-On at 6.45pm (for 7.00pm start) on Wednesday 19 November.

The Community Group will gather outside the ‘Transform’ premises, opposite Marks & Spencer, where mulled wine and mince pies, fruit juice and decorated biscuits will be served – all kindly donated by Marks and Spencer and Cooplands.

For more information please see the Moortown Community Group website or their Facebook page.

Governor vacancy

Becky Lawrence, our Chair of Governors, writes:

The governing body has a strategic leadership role in school. For example, governors are a source of challenge and support to the headteacher, and they ensure that money is well spent in school.

This term there have been some changes to the Governing Body at Moortown Primary School. The new chair of governors is Becky Lawrence, who is a co-opted governor, and the new vice-chair is Rachel Greenhalgh, who is a parent governor. Co-opted governors are people who are appointed by the governing body based on the skills required to contribute to the success of the school. There is currently an opportunity for another parent to join the governing body as a co-opted governor.

Governors use skills from other areas of their lives to help the school. We would be particularly interested to hear from anyone with experience of premises management, strategic or financial planning, or data analysis. Most of all, however, governors need to be committed to helping improve the learning experience for all pupils at Moortown Primary and have an ability to ask questions.

If you are interested in becoming a co-opted governor, please email Becky Lawrence: beckylawrence@moortown.leeds.sch.uk

You might also want to discuss the role informally with Rachel Greenhalgh, who’s around school at the start and end of most days – ask Mr Roundtree to put you in touch if you’re unsure of who she is.

Working for Catering Leeds

Looking for work to fit in with school hours? School holidays hard to cover?

Leeds City Council’s School Meals Service is recruiting kitchen assistants to help provide and serve meals to the children of Leeds.

• Local jobs
• Term-time only contracts
• Working hours between 11.30am and 1.30pm
• £6.54 per hour
• No experience necessary as training and support will be provided
• Equality of opportunity – applications are welcome from all, irrespective of sex, race, marital status, age, disability or whether lesbian or gay

You will need to:

• Be enthusiastic and a good team player
• Be reliable and hard working
• Enjoy working with children

Appointments are subject to a satisfactory enhanced DBS (Criminal Records) check.

For more information or to apply, phone Catering Leeds on 0113 37 82323, email helen.collins@leeds.gov.uk or apply online.

Starting school in September 2015?

Information about applying for primary places to start September 2015

The application process (including the on-line system) opened on 01 November 2014 and runs until the deadline of 15 January 2015. If you have a child due to start school in September 2015, you should have received a letter and ‘quick guide’ from Leeds Admissions team inviting you to apply. The letter and guide includes information about important dates, how to apply, types of schools, our admissions policy and waiting lists etc.

If you haven’t received this letter from the Admissions team, please feel free to contact us or contact the Admissions team directly on 0113 2224414 to confirm that we have your correct address details.

Remember: even if you have a child in school or attending early years provision, you must still apply for a place.

Train to teach

Train to Teach Roadshow Event

When? Saturday, November 29, 10.00am-1.00pm

Where? DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, Leeds City Centre, Granary Wharf, LS1 4BR

Train to Teach Roadshows are designed to provide you with information on pursuing a career in teaching and how to apply for training in your region. There will be a 45-minute presentation to provide general guidance on the routes into teaching and information on writing a great application. After attending a presentation, you can find out more by:

• Speaking to our teaching experts in the advice zone; they can give you one-to-one advice on your training options
• Meeting teacher training providers from your region, who can tell you about the courses they offer and their entry requirements
• Meeting School Direct schools within your region, who can tell you more about the places they have on the School Direct training programme
• Talking to current teachers in the ‘Meet the Teachers’ area

Get into Teaching has lots of information about how to get into teaching and the various training options available.

Maths workshop

Thanks to all of you who visited us this afternoon for another learning workshop so that you can support your child’s learning at home – this week, the theme was maths.

• “Another useful session, particularly for practical ideas on how to explain maths concepts at home.”
• “Very beneficial – the right amount of information squeezed into the right amount of time.”
• “Great to have some fresh ideas on how to help at home.”
• “Well explained in parent-friendly language – it’s always useful to have a re-cap on what is being taught.”

If you didn’t manage to make it, or if you have any more questions, comments or concerns, please do speak with your child’s teacher or come and see Mrs Weekes or Mr Roundtree.

Finally: many of you wanted calculation methods explained in more detail.  Look out for our Moortown Methods video, coming soon!

Phonics visits

Thanks to all parents / carers who have visited the Reception classroom to watch and learn more about phonics. These open-sessions have taken place on Wednesday and Thursday, with one more tomorrow.  We’ll repeat the open-sessions when we move to a new stage in phonics teaching and learning – look out for when. Parents’ comments have been extremely positive; feedback includes:

• “These sessions are amazing. They allow us to fully support our children, working together with school. Team work!”
• “Fantastic! Amazing to see how engaged the children were and how you teach them, making it easier to support learning at home.”

Half-term coming up...

The museums and galleries of Leeds have got plenty to keep families entertained this October.

Leeds Discovery Museum

• Investigating Masks, Wednesday 29 October, 10am – 12pm
• Investigate real Asian masks from the World Cultures collection. Discover the history and stories behind them and design your own.

Lotherton Hall

• Spooky Scarecrow Trail, Friday 24 October – Sunday 2 November, 11am – 3pm
• Back and better than ever… beware: we aim to scare! Follow the clues around Lotherton Hall and see the spooky scarecrows on display. Don’t forget to visit the Witches’ Cottage! Plus five Days of Spooky Fun from Mon 27 – Fri 31 Oct, 11am – 3pm.

Abbey House Museum

• Spooky Murder Mystery, Thursday 30 October, 10am – 12pm & 2pm – 4pm, Saturday 1 & Sunday 2 November, 2pm – 4pm
• There has been another murder in our Victorian Streets. Follow the clues and see if you can discover the murderer. Suitable for families with older children.

Leeds Industrial Museum

• Halloween Family Fun Day, Sunday 26 October, 1pm – 4pm
• Join us for storytelling and face painting and see the amazing camera obscura bringing the outside to life.

Leeds City Museum

• Sparkly, Clay Diwali Lamps! Tuesday 28 & Wednesday 29 October, 10am – 12pm & 2pm – 4pm
• Mould, squidge and shape a lamp from clay, then adorn it with sparkles and colours. Join us to light up the museum with colours for Diwali.

Kirkstall Abbey

• Fairy Creatures Scarecrow Hunt, Tuesday 28 October – Sunday 1 November, 10am – 3pm
• Hunt around the abbey for our scarecrows inspired by fairy creatures. There will be good fairies and bad fairies, goblins and elves.

Temple Newsam

• Spooky Spooktacular, Friday 31 October, 5pm – 8pm, Adult £7, Child £4, Family £20, booking essential
• Bring your little ghosts and ghouls to trick or treat through the darkened house and farm. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

Leeds Art Gallery

• Creatures of a New World in Artspace, Monday 27, Tuesday 28, Thursday 30, Friday 31 October, 11am – 4pm
• Taking inspiration from the latest exhibition, Shezad Dawood’s ‘Towards the Possible Film’, sci-fi creatures appear in Artspace, will they need to live happily in our land?Join our artist-in-resident Karen Babayan to find out.

Thwaite Mills

• Scary Skeletons, Thursday 30 October, 11am – 3pm
• Make your own scary skeleton Halloween decoration complete with flashing eyes.