Join in!
Join in the 7th Roundhay Primary Schools Family Run for Fun at Roundhay Park, 10am on Saturday 16 June 2012.
At the event, there’ll be a choice of 1km and 5km runs.
Application forms are available at the office and have been sent out by Parentmail. Take your completed application forms with you to the event and pay on on the day. You can also pick an application form up on the day.
Prices
- 1km: adult £4.00, child £2.00
- 5km: adult £5.00 child £2.50
- dual entry: adult £7.00 child £4.00
All profits from the race will be divided equally between the schools that have helped to organise this event. Any sponsorship monies collected go straight back to your school’s PTA/PSA.
All children running who are aged 14 and under must be accompanied by a responsible, participating adult.
And more…
- David Lloyd will also be running two competitions on the day with the chance to win a 3 month family membership and a free birthday party for up to 10 children.
- This year there will be some great sports activities for the children to try out – these free taster sessions are a great way to continue the fun and perhaps try out a new sport at the same time!
Can you help out?
We also always need lots of helpers on the day to marshal the course and make sure everyone knows where they are going. Can you help? If you, or someone you know, is able to help, please fill in your contact details on the application form. A volunteer could be an older brother or sister (over 18), a grandmother or grandfather, a neighbour or a mum or dad who isn’t running. Volunteering is easy and you can still support the competitors.
Planet Leeds is coming...
Here’s a few words from Sarah Napier, who’s a volunteer helper for a forthcoming event in Leeds…
Planet Leeds multicultural street festival returns to Leeds city centre on Saturday 16 June 2012, 11am-4pm.
It’s a free annual street festival, featuring performers from diverse cultures and communities across the city.
And everyone’s invited!
The festivals have previous featured: Iranian guitarists, homeless theatre groups, belly-dance, Congolese drummers, Chapeltown poets and hip-hop artists, Irish and Indian dance, Eastern European klezmer music, folk, and much more. And Planet Leeds 2012 promises to be even bigger and better!
How did it start? What’s it about?
Planet Leeds started life in 2007 as a positive response to unease and disconnection between the diverse communities of the city: showcasing the high-quality talents of people from a range of backgrounds, and especially those who are typically marginalised, unseen or under-valued. Instead of focusing on the negatives, Planet Leeds provides a positive platform for a range of performers – new and established, young and old, mainstream and niche. And by hosting it in the city centre, it’s an event for all; we live in a fantastically culturally rich city, and have much to celebrate! Indeed, Leeds is the most culturally plural UK city (that is, we have more cultures and ethnicities living alongside one another here) outside of London. Yet too often, we don’t get the opportunity to see, enjoy and appreciate that diversity! Together, we can make a more mixed, connected and vibrant city.
There’s nothing to do but shop…
As well as celebrating Leeds’ diversity, the free festival also aims to help ‘reclaim’ the city centre. Many people are frustrated that the city centre isn’t family-friendly, isn’t a civic space – and is only good for shopping.
So, by taking place in the very heart of the city (Briggate), Planet Leeds seeks to revitalise the city centre: bringing different people together to enjoy themselves at a vibrant, community-led event – without needing to spend a penny!
And we’re looking to work with others over the coming years to develop a summer-long programme of similar events that bring life, colour and community spirit back into the heart of Leeds.
Planet Leeds is an increasingly established event on the Leeds calendar, bringing together some of the city’s most diverse performers.
It’s community-led, run on a shoestring budget by volunteers.
It’s an event for everyone.
Oui, bien sûr!
An exciting new French project for Year 4 children will be starting this week.
A teacher of English from a school in the Champagne region of northern France contacted Moortown Primary to see if we could write back to the 30 children in one of their classes so they could practise their English writing skills.
We replied, “Oui, bien sûr!”
We have received 30 wonderful postcards from the children from their village school in Grauves, and Year 4 will be individually responding to each child. We’ll reply first of all to their questions in English and then, to put our skills to the test, we’ll be replying with one or two of our own.
As-tu des frères ou des soeurs? par exemple.
It’s a great way to bring our French learning to life and the teacher, Monsieur Jérôme Eyffred, has sent us some pictures of their beautiful setting, library, classroom and even classwork so we can compare notes! Already we know the school has 130 pupils, five classes (Year 2 to Year 6) and only one interactive whiteboard – it’s a relatively new concept in France, says Jérôme.
We’ll keep up the correspondence until the end of this term and provide any further updates on this new partnership between Moortown and Grauves.
Testing times
At the end of every term, teachers make an assessment in Reading, Writing and Maths so that we can make sure all our children are making good progress. Teachers do this through continual assessment: they observe who’s able to do things in whole-class teaching, in groups, when marking etc.
The end-of-year teacher assessments are even more important – we analyse the data in even greater detail. To help get an accurate picture, teachers in Year 2 to Year 5 use some tests. The tests don’t replace the teachers’ assessment; they inform it. Teachers are aware that a test represents just a snapshot, whilst their continual assessment shows what a child can really attain.
The teacher assessments at the end of each Key Stage are most important – they represent where a child has reached before moving into the next Key Stage. Year 6 children are coming to the end of Key Stage 2. As they are about to move to secondary school – an important transition point – the children will be given levels derived from both a teacher assessment and a test (the SATs). The SATs are happening this week for the Year 6 pupils. Some children will be invited to have a go at Level 6 tests in Reading and Maths – these happen next week. Level 6 represents a level three or four years ahead of national expectations.
In Key Stage One, Year 2 teachers must submit assessments to the local authority and the Department for Education. (Ofsted use these assessments to measure how well a school is doing based on Year 2 to Year 6 progress, for example.) Miss Hewson makes the assessment based partly on some tests, partly on continual assessment (just like in Year 3 – 5). Last week, we had a visitor from Leeds Children’s Services. He came to evaluate whether our end of Key Stage One teacher assessments are accurate and fair. The meeting was a challenging three hours in length – the local authority assessor was very knowledgeable, very thorough, very rigorous but also very fair. I’m delighted to report that this moderation process went extremely well. Here’s an extract from the report:
[Miss Hewson] is confident in applying accurate and consistent judgements and did not overly rely on test results. The specific writing pieces seen were in line with national standards and correctly levelled. She talks about the children with good knowledge of their learning and an appreciation of their prior learning and circumstances. Her preparation was thorough and thoughtful, with a balanced range of evidence prepared diligently. The iPad evidence for reading was a great resource. It was a pleasure to work with you.
Well done, Miss Hewson, and well done to all our pupils trying their best in their tests just now.
Training days
The training days for next year have been provisionally set for the following dates:
- Monday 03 September (this is the first day after the summer holiday; school would be open to children in Y1 – Y6 from Tuesday)
- Thursday 15 November (this date is fixed; it is to elect police commissioners)
- Monday 25 February (the first day after February half-term holiday)
- Thursday 02 May (polling day is usually the first Thursday in May, so it is likely we will have to close on this day)
- Monday 22 July (this is the last day of the school year – families tell us they would prefer not to attend for just one day in a week; instead of a training day on this date, teachers will stay for three after-school ‘twilights’ during the year, which is as well as the regular weekly professional development meetings held on Mondays)
Last week, teachers spent the training day in school working on our School Development Plan and action plans for 2012-13. Nearly all schools in England should have a School Development (or Improvement) Plan and accompanying action plans. They outline across a period of time how a school can make changes and keep up to date on educational trends.
This year, our teachers have begun to plan using Google Docs rather than Word. This is a step towards greater use of ‘the cloud’ to prepare, save and share / collaborate. Google Docs (and Google Drive) is a move away from saving things on a PC towards sharing things in a more ‘virtual’ way, which allows greater collaboration. The next steps will be for teachers to work in this way for more and more projects, and to get our governors using and sharing as well.
Our new SEAL theme...
…starts next week.
This week, we think about our manners: we encourage children to make way for others. We’ve talked about stepping to one side or holding the door open for others, and especially for people who might have difficulty walking, or those who might be carrying heavy bags, or generally those to whom we want to show respect.
The SEAL theme beginning next week and lasting for the rest of the half-term is Relationships. This theme 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 therefore ask you 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
Attendance data has been released by the government. Statistics show a small rise in the number of pupils skipping school without permission, but a drop in overall absence rates. This trend is similar at Moortown. We’re working closely with parents to make sure their children will not be deemed ‘persistent absentees’ – missing frequent days really does affect learning – but we also know that the children in question have ongoing medical issues. In contrast, like the national data, we’re pleased to see absence rates continue to fall, although we need to keep getting better at this, especially when we compare our attendance figures with other local schools.
Nationally, there has been a small increase in the numbers of children missing school for family holidays. The government wants to reduce this figure. Again, it’s the same for our governing body: whilst we have seen a fall in the number of families who take a term-time holiday, we need to reduce this further. This term, the governors have agreed a new criteria before we consider whether we authorise a term-time absence: we will not authorise a holiday if a holiday has been taken the previous year.
Attendance matters. Help us to make 2011-12 our best year ever for attendance.
Fantastic feedback
It’s always nice – and useful – to receive feedback about our school, whether from bodies that present awards to more casual comments. Here’s some feedback from West Sussex…
“I think your website and content is excellent: very considered and incredibly useful for parents to be able to check and get a quick overview of what their children have been learning. Very powerful stuff!…excellent Social Media Policy…Would it be possible to slightly change your policy and be able to use it ourselves…I came across your website via Twitter as we have also set up a Twitter account and think your Tweets are excellent. I also think your Walk to School video is amazing.”
Having a website as good as ours is important to us – we want you to feel like you know as much about the school and all the great teaching and learning that goes on. For our pupils, there is a chance to celebrate successes and, for Y6 pupils, share opinions on the forum. It helps new parents who can find out basic information about the school, such as uniform, school times etc, and can also attract new parents – we’ve had a family join our community who selected Moortown Primary as their preferred schools…whilst still living in Australia!
Ofsted proposals
It’s hard to miss all the talk of Ofsted and its proposals: almost on a weekly basis, we hear of Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector, and his ambitions to raise standards in schools. There’s currently a consultation process which sets out seven proposals for changes to the way schools are inspected. From September 2012, it is proposed that:
- Schools cannot be judged ‘outstanding’ unless their teaching is ‘outstanding’.
- Schools will only be deemed to be providing an acceptable standard of education where they are judged to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.
- A single judgement of ‘requires improvement’ will replace the current ‘satisfactory’ judgement and ‘notice to improve’ category.
- Schools judged as ‘requires improvement’ will be subject to a full re-inspection earlier than is currently the case.
- A school can only be judged as ‘requires improvement’ on two consecutive inspections before it is deemed to require special measures.
- Inspections will be undertaken without notice.
- Inspectors should undertake an analysis of an anonymised summary, provided by the school, of the outcomes of the most recent performance management of all teachers within the school, as part of the evidence for a judgement on leadership and management.
I don’t often comment on affairs beyond the great things happening at Moortown Primary. However, in this case, please allow me to present my own response to two of the proposals:
Point one
When we were inspected in November, teaching at Moortown Primary was judged to be ‘good’. Some lessons were deemed to be ‘satisfactory’, some lessons ‘outstanding’. This proposal means that Moortown Primary may be inspected again sooner than anticipated. A re-inspection might lead to a ‘good’ judgement for the school as a whole, assuming the quality of teaching was the same as in November. There are two issues with this:
- First, I believe teachers at Moortown Primary are not prepared to play the ‘Ofsted game’ of pulling out of the bag amazing, all singing, all dancing lessons that are likely to lead to a judgement of ‘outstanding’. Instead, I know from my frequent visits to classrooms that teachers deliver quality lessons consistently – all the time, not just for an inspector. My point is that good teaching and learning all the time is surely better than mediocre lessons except if there’s someone in the classroom watching.
- Second, the consistently high quality of teaching at Moortown must play a large part in the exceptionally high standards that our children reach when they leave the school, as noted just this week by Nick Gibb, Minister of State for Schools. In the last few years, Key Stage 2 test results have improved so much that they are now amongst the best in England. Surely this outcome – learning over time – should inform an Ofsted judgement more than a snapshot of teaching on a particular day, by an inspection team who may or may not be able to deliver consistent judgements.
Point three
Despite the high standards we achieve, I believe we still need to improve. I believe all schools must keep on getting better and better. The proposal that the ‘satisfactory’ and ‘notice to improve’ judgements should be replaced by ‘requires improvement’ suggests that ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ schools don’t actually need to improve, or worse, they can rest on their laurels. This is certainly not the culture at Moortown Primary, where we continually evaluate and reflect on what, why and how we do things, and make improvements to suit our learners, not ourselves.
Put forward your views of the proposals here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ofsted-gefa-sch (Click the ‘next’ link to start expressing your views, not the link back ti the consultation paper itself.) Consultations remain open until Thursday 03 May 2012.
Changes in Free School Meal Entitlement
Changes in Free School Meal Entitlement
As of April 2012 there are changes to the qualifying criteria for Working Tax Credit and in turn how families will be entitled to Free School Meals.
There will be new benefit rules applied to Working Tax Credit claimants that could mean that some people will lose their Free School Meals entitlement, but, could possibly then be entitled through their receipt of Child Tax Credit.
At the moment, couples responsible for at least one child and working at least 16 hours a week between them can get Working Tax Credit. From 6 April 2012, in most cases, to qualify for Working Tax Credit their joint working hours will need to be at least 24 hours a week. This will mean if both parents work their joint weekly hours must be at least 24, with one of them working at least 16 hours a week, or if only one parent works, that person must be working at least 24 hours a week. If neither of these applies, Working Tax Credit will stop from 6 April 2012. Some of those coming out of entitlement may well qualify for Free School Meals if they still receive Child Tax Credit and their Annual Taxable Income, as assessed by HMRC, is below £16,190.
The key thing to note is that if any parents lose their Working Tax Credit entitlement from April, it may be worth them contacting the Benefits Helpline (tel 0113 2224404) and asking for their eligibility to Education Benefits, Free School Meals and School Clothing Allowance to be reconsidered.