News

Ofsted data

This week, Ofsted published short data reports based on end of Key Stage assessments for 2012. The data for any school in England can be accessed on the Ofsted website – this includes the Moortown Primary data.

I’m delighted to draw your attention to our excellent Key Stage 2 results. For Reading, Writing and Maths, we are in the top 20% of similar schools. Progress is a little lower – this is due to being in a relatively small school where just one pupil can make a difference. What the tables don’t show is the stories behind the data. We’re proud of our results, but they are a little lower than 2010 and 2011. One child missed out on a Level 4 by a couple of marks in Maths but achieved Level 4 in English this is shame, especially since Ms Hazell reports that the pupil was working quite securely at Level 4 for much of the year (perhaps SAT nerves or test technique let this pupil down on the day ?). Another much-loved child has very specific special needs meaning he could not do the tests at all, but is included in our school results parents and carers are often surprised to hear even pupils with quite extreme special needs are included in Ofsted data.

Our results for Key Stage 1 are nearly always above national levels in 2010, 2011 and 2012. This is good, but we want it to be better. I’m happy to report that our forecasts for the current Year 2 and Year 1 classes are looking very promising. We’re confident that our continuing aim for excellence is having a good effect on learning in Reception, Year 1 and 2, and this will show in the 2013 data.

Finally, it’s great to see that attendance is in the top 20% of all schools in the country.

As always, please contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

School Council elections 2013

Today, during our whole class assembly, we launched our annual school council elections.

Our current school council feel these qualities are very important in a school councillor:

• Good listener
• Confident speaker who is prepared to contribute in school council meetings and feedback to their class
• Has lots of realistic ideas and suggestions to improve the school
• Good decision-maker
• Works co-operatively with others

Other key points about the election include:

• Two members of each class, including Reception, make up the school council.
• Current and previous school councillors are welcome to stand again in the elections.
• Children can vote once for one person.
• Children can vote for themselves – just like in a UK election.
• Vote for the candidate with the best qualities to make a good councillor – don’t just vote for a friend.
• Good school councillors represent the class well – always!

If your child is interested in representing their class on the school council, they need to prepare a speech to present to their class.  This will be the homework for this week.

Here are the key dates for the election process:

Friday 01 March

Homework to prepare a speech for those children interested in becoming a school councillor.

Wednesday 06 March / Thursday 07 March

Speeches from all the candidates to their class.

Thursday 07 March

Children vote for their chosen candidate.  Results counted.

Friday 08 March

New school councillors announced.

Good luck to all children who choose to stand as candidates and thank you to the current school council for their valuable contributions and decision-making over the last year.

New SEAL theme - Relationships

Our new SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme for this half-term explores feelings within the context of our important relationships including family and friends. The key areas of learning are 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.

‘I know how I feel and how others make me feel‘ is the first SEAL statement to launch the theme of Relationships.

WEEE!

Earlier this year, we had a recycling unit installed at the front of our school to collect waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).  So far, we’ve collected 38kg of WEEE – not bad going for a school our size when you compare this to the average, but we can do better, please!

For the autumn term, a total of 2.25 tonnes of WEEE was collected across the 30 schools that host a WEEE bank.  That’s an average of 75 kg per school.  Without WEEE banks, it’s likely that the items would have been disposed of to landfill and all the various metals, plastic etc from which they are made would have been lost and not recycled. So it’s excellent news for the environment. Thank you all for your support with this.

Seven schools did particularly well and managed to collect over 100kg of WEEE. The three schools that collected the most WEEE will be receiving rewards of £500, £300 and £200 to spend on environmental projects of their choice as directed by School Council and/or the Green team.

In this period after Christmas, it’s likely that you will have extra bits of WEEE to dispose of as games consoles, phones, computers etc are upgraded, and broken toys and electrical items are uncovered as spring cleaning starts. The £500, £300 and £200 cash rewards are available again this term for schools that collect the most WEEE!

Incidentally, I’ve suggested the rewards actor in the size of school in future, so fingers crossed and start WEEEing wisely!

Reception class

About a year and a half ago, Ofsted inspectors visited school.  We were very happy with the school’s overall judgement of ‘outstanding’ but we were disappointed that our Reception class was singled out as an area to improve.  Parents tell us (and told the inspectors) that they are happy with their child’s progress in the first year at Moortown Primary, but inspectors were less enthusiastic.

Since the inspection, we have been working on a year-long project with a private, Early Years specialist, Early Excellence.

Part of the project involves visits from an Early Years specialist.  We’re delighted with the feedback so far; here are a couple of extracts from her second report:

The indoor space has undergone significant development since my last visit. There are now well organized wet sand and dough areas and a miniature water area – this makes provision for materials exploration much wider-ranging.  I observed the children using these three key areas of provision very well and in the case of the wet sand, two boys spent extended time on a project of their choosing, really concentrating and negotiating each step of their investigations. There was a high level of involvement, language use and reasoning.

I was impressed with the amount of writing that children freely engage in and the ways they confidently use writing as part of their play. Within the areas, they are offered opportunities for writing for real purposes as well as a range of literate materials which stimulate this.

As well as this project, we’ve invested a lot in new furniture and resources and on staff professional development.  We’ll continue to invest to ensure the best provision and the best outcomes.  We already have plans in place for another long-term project in 2013-14.

More Moortown magic!

We subscribe to the Basic Skills Quality Mark programme – for a very small fee, we receive a ‘health-check’ on how we’re doing.  It’s a useful opportunity to reflect on our practice with someone from outside school; the assessors are supportive but constructively critical in their approach.  This week, we had an interim review visit from an assessor (incidentally, also a trained Ofsted inspector).  The feedback below is in its entirety – if there are any aspects of the report you’d like some clarification or explanation, please contact school:

• The impact of Moortown’s excellent self-evaluation, which gives rise to the accurate identification of priorities for development, and the good or outstanding teaching and use of assessment within an exciting curriculum, is high attainment and achievement for pupils in English and mathematics. Pupils enter school with levels of attainment typical of children of their age, but leave Year 6 with attainment which is high when compared with pupils of that age nationally. This has been the case for many years.

• Almost every aspect of the school was judged to be outstanding in the November 2011 section 5 inspection. An exception to this was progress and attainment in the Foundation Stage (FS) which was judged to be satisfactory. This is despite standards in literacy and numeracy skills (and other areas) by the end of the FS being above that of the Local Authority (LA) average and also that of the school’s statistical neighbours. Over their time in the school from FS to Year 6 pupils make outstanding progress. Nevertheless, the school has extensive plans in place to address the aspects of the FS which gave rise to the inspectors’ judgements. The school has taken advice on this from the LA and has invested in lengthy training for FS staff.

• The headteacher’s management of the “home-grown” pupil progress tracking system has ensured that staff access it with ease and use it to ensure that no pupils remain at risk of failing to make progress for any significant length of time. He has investigated commercially produced tracking systems, but will not consider investing in one unless it proves to be more effective than the current system (which is highly effective).

• Leaders have recently re-assessed the tracker, streamlined it, and investigated the possibility of using it for monitoring pupils in receipt of intervention strategies and other support or provision. In the discussion during this visit, the headteacher spoke of the need to monitor the progress and attainment of pupils in receipt of provision which is not designed to directly affect standards in basic skills in the short term. Examples of this are pupils who receive free fruit, or who enjoyed a visit to a pantomime for the first time. The discussion concluded that the monitoring of this type of provision may not fit into the pupil tracker and may have to be done in a different way, and may have qualitative rather than quantitative outcomes.

• The school’s current priorities for the improvement of basic skills are based on excellent self-evaluation or in considered response to national requirements.

Literacy

• The teaching of grammar is being enhanced through ensuring that staff understand the latest requirements and technical terms. After undertaking sample tests as a staff, they are confident in their subject knowledge.

• Key Stage 1 teachers are confident with the teaching of phonics and leaders have ensured that this is extended to Key Stage 2 staff.

Mathematics

• The school decided to abandon “Using & Applying Lessons” in favour of planning in opportunities to use and apply mathematical skills, knowledge and processes in daily mathematics lessons, or within lessons in other subjects. Teachers are also expected to apply knowledge of the programmes of study for Using and Applying mathematics to offer challenge to more able pupils during lessons, rather than simply expecting them to complete more examples at a lower level, or complete examples using larger numbers than pupils who are less able.

Support

• The school employs a number of intervention strategies which it monitors to ensure appropriate impact on learning and progress. In addition, the school administers a “Short, Sharp Shift” to pupils who have missed essential components of learning in basic skills during lessons. These are based on specific, focused learning objectives. Measuring the impact of this has been problematic to leaders in the school as it may not result in a large “shift” for pupils. However, it is highly likely to bring about clearer understanding of concepts and build a firm basis for future learning and (as discussed) the school should consider recording the impact of this aside from the pupil progress tracker and in a different (non-numerical) way.

• In the near future, the school will investigate “Catch-up Maths” as “Catch-up Reading” has been so successful. Also, the mathematics subject leader will be investigating aspects of mathematics learning through holding “Learning Conversations” with pupils which involve getting them to do some mathematics and then probing their understanding of what they are doing to gain insight into what they understand – and what they do not. This will inform teaching.

• Keeping teachers and teaching assistants up to speed with the requirements for the good teaching of basic skills is accomplished through external input bought from a variety of sources (including the LA) or through regular staff meetings – described as Professional Development Meetings (PDMs).

• Parents and carers are kept well informed about everything about the school including the teaching of basic skills through its excellent website. The school has recently completed videos of pupils doing calculations which will be posted on the website soon. In addition, in an effort to involve parents in supporting their children with mathematics (not as easy as for literacy), the mathematics subject leader will hold a “surgery” on the same day as an ICT workshop.

• Governors are well informed and fully involved in monitoring basic skills through (for example) book scrutiny and enquiry walks.

• A brief tour of the school was undertaken during today’s visit. Everywhere in this attractive, well-organised, well-equipped, vibrant learning environment, pupils are highly engaged with and very evidently enjoying their learning.

Moortown is a very welcoming place and everyone – administrators, staff and pupils contribute to this. I thank Mr David Roundtree for his personal welcome and a very interesting discussion.

The Finnish conclusion on outstanding schools in Leeds

This week, we’ve welcomed nine teachers from Finland.  It’s the first visit of a project we’ve named DEVOS – DEVeloping Outstanding Schools.  The project is all about exploring what makes a school or an education system outstanding.  Finland’s education is regarded as being one of the best in the world, so it’s going to be interesting to explore why this might be the case.  Five outstanding schools in Leeds, including Moortown Primary, are taking part.  The project involves four visits (two each way) and lots of on-line discussion and learning.  This evening, we met for some opinion-sharing at the end of the first visit.

The Finns described many differences and surprises.  There were three big differences overall:

Our Finnish colleagues repeatedly talked about how positive our teachers are, constantly praising the strengths and good work a child demonstrates, so children want to keep doing well.

Second, they were surprised at the level of noise in the classroom – noise from pupils talking with each other about their learning (they were also surprised at how quickly children stopped to listen to the teacher). Headteachers in Leeds explained the noise by stressing the importance of talk for learning, which develops pupils’ confidence, understanding and engagement, and makes them more likely to be active learners, which in turn they hope will lead to life-long learners.

Finally, they remarked about how stuffy our classrooms are, commenting with some incredulity about our carpets and our closed windows (this from a nation of people who happily allow their babies to take naps outside in sub-zero temperatures!).

Speaking specifically about Moortown Primary, our visitors were especially impressed with the Year 1 class assembly, which parents attended. They praised the sense of community which this develops.

Here are some of the concluding remarks from our Finnish counterparts:

• Such a lot of energy, passion…I admire your work very much.
• We saw so many hard-working teachers who cooperate very well.
• There’s so much positive, encouraging feedback to pupils, which pupils learn to give to each other.
• I noticed you had very good leadership and staff. All heads are interested and enthusiastic, willing to develop their schools. 
• Common rules so children know what they do, and teacher is the boss in a good way. 
• You use technology much more than in Finland – perhaps you are more creative. 
• For me it was noisy in the classrooms when children were working but they stopped so quickly when teacher said stop.
• I noticed there was so much cooperation between teachers – we should do more. 
• Your children are so active – not at all passive.
• The headteachers are excellent – we’re very jealous about that. Staff are lost without good headteachers. 
• Reinforcement is fantastic – it’s something we really need to learn from you.
• There were lots of ‘yes’ messages – positive messages to do the right thing, not negative messages to correct the wrong thing.
• Classes are bigger.  There are much more adults in school.  The average class in Finland is twenty, and classes are bigger. 
• The leadership in your schools is excellent. 

Next month, Mr Wilks and I will accompany eight teachers from the other Leeds schools involved in the project to Harjavalta, Finland.  Next school year, two more teachers from Moortown will visit to continue the research.

Try a school dinner

Over this term, we’re offering the chance for you to have a school dinner with your child(ren).

This is open to all children: those who currently have a school dinner and those who’d like to try them.

The dates for these sessions are:

• Years 5 and 6: Friday 01 March, 12.20pm
• Years 1 and 2:Friday 08 March, 12 noon
• Reception: Friday 15 March, 12 noon
• Years 3 and 4: Friday 22 March, 12.20pm

The cost is £2.65 for an adult meal and £1.90 for children in Reception to Year 4 and £1.95 for children in Years 5 and 6.  There is obviously no extra charge if they already have a school dinner.

If you would like to sample a school dinner please ask at the office to secure your place as they will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

New payment option for Key Stage 2 fruit and veg tuck shop

From next half term, you’ll be able to pay in advance for your child to have a portion of fruit each week from the tuck shop for the rest of this school year.

If your child prefers to bring their money on the day (20p per item), that’s fine.  We shall still continue to operate this system.

To pay in advance please bring £3.60 for one portion or £7.20 for two portions to the office.  This will start from 26 February until 16 July.

Thank you for your support for our healthy tuck shop.

The Rs for learning

The 7Rs for learning is an additional theme to our SEAL (social and emotional aspects of learning) coverage across the year.  Throughout this theme children will explore seven key aspects of learning behaviour:

• Responsibility – know that you are in charge of your learning
• Risk – taking – having a go
• Resilience – keep trying, stay positive and persevere
• Resourcefulness – try a different way and find and use resources independently
• Responsive – respond in the right way to peers and adults
• Remembering – apply your learning in other lessons
• Reflection – think about what and how you’ve learnt and learn from your mistakes

Each of these aspects that help us to learn will be explored over this half term.