School meals are tasty, nutritious, sustainable and delicious
Posted on 14 January 2025 by Mrs Quirk
Our school meals are cooked on site and freshly prepared using high quality ingredients.
Why not encourage your child to try the meat free option to help save our planet 🌎
To find out more, visit: https://bit.ly/41SqJ8t
Free school meals - are you entitled?
Posted on 13 January 2025 by Mrs Quirk
In January 2024, 8,435 pupils entitled to a free school meal missed out on a free hot, nutritious lunch.
Children are in school for 190 days every year, so think of the savings you could make by making sure they are signed up.
Contact the school office to find out if you’re entitled to free school meals or apply online by visiting: https://bit.ly/41SqJ8t
Our weekly message: Friday 10 January 2025
Posted on 10 January 2025 by Mr Roundtree
A belated happy and healthy new year to you all.
What a tricky start to the new term! Despite this, children came back to school on Tuesday cool, calm and collected, all ready for lots more learning! Thank you again for your understanding and support when we had to make the difficult decision to close on Monday.
New year, new contact details?
Let’s start with a short request: If you’ve got any new contact details for you or other contacts, please remember to let us know. We need up-to-date details for the people on our lists in case of emergencies. (The people on our lists are the ones you gave us when your child started school – in most cases, we should have details for three different people.)
Attendance matters
Our school attendance in the Autumn term was 95.9%.
This is a bit lower than for the same term last year (96.9%). However, it still means…
- we rank 70th out of 223 Leeds schools
- we’re in third highest band of schools nationally (decile 3: the top 20-30% of schools)
Thank you for continuing to make sure your child gets to school as much as possible. (And well done to Year 5 – their attendance is a whopping 97.5%!)
As always, if you’re unsure, please check the NHS app: Is my child too ill for school?
Money matters
This time of year can be difficult for many families dealing with additional costs and pressure on their household budgets. The Money Information Centre offers access to free, confidential, and impartial help and advice on a range of money-related matters, with a range of useful information about employment support, energy, fuel and food support and the healthy holidays programme.
Watch Us While We Work: you said, we listened
Our Watch Us While We Work and Topic Review sessions are really popular – lots of you attend these. However, some parents have told us being able to visit just one class is frustrating. We’ve listened.
The next Watch Us While We Work session is coming up – it’s first thing on Thursday 23 January.
This time, we’ve asked teachers to plan for two parts within the half hour session. This means after the first 10-15 minutes or so, you’ll get a chance to switch classrooms without disrupting the learning going on.
We realise this doesn’t help if you’d prefer to visit three classes or more because you’ve more children, but we think these 10-15 minutes parts are as short as they can be while making sure you still get the most out of them.
Enjoy your weekend – stay warm!
Weather update for Wednesday 08 January
Posted on 07 January 2025 by Mr Roundtree
Just like today, we aim to open as normal tomorrow.
Registers will be open for longer. Your child won’t be marked in as late if they arrive later than usual.
This is to make sure you can get to school safely despite the freezing weather.
Weather update (Tuesday 07 January)
Posted on 07 January 2025 by Mr Roundtree
We’re open today (Tuesday 07 January).
Registers are open for longer so your child won’t be marked in as late if they arrive later than usual.
Please travel safely.
Snowy weather: update for Tuesday
Posted on 06 January 2025 by Mr Roundtree
We’re happy to confirm school will be open tomorrow as normal (assuming there’s not a drastic change in the weather conditions!).
When we’re faced with the question of whether to open or close, we have to factor in travel conditions for families and for staff (some of whom live quite far away); the availability of site staff to clear paths and make them safe; the condition of the rooms (and whether there have been leaks caused by snow)…
Thank you for your understanding today.
Snowy weather: school is closed
Posted on 06 January 2025 by Mr Roundtree
School is closed today.
The weather situation hasn’t improved enough overnight so we’ve taken the decision to close school today.
This is due to current unsafe travel conditions and the safety of roads and paths.
We also need to assess the situation at school due to a number of leaks.
We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
Snowy weather
Posted on 05 January 2025 by Mr Roundtree
The weather conditions at the moment mean that any sort of travel is tricky. However, the forecast is an improving one. As it stands right now, please expect that that school will be open tomorrow. We’ll keep the registers open for longer so you can travel safely.
We’ll keep you updated online if there’s any further updates.
Finally… Happy new year! We hope you enjoyed a lovely break.
Our last weekly message of 2024: Friday 20 December
Posted on 20 December 2024 by Mr Roundtree
If you came to one of our Christmas performances, or Thursday’s carol singing, we hope you enjoyed it and thank you for your donation. We raised £233.08 for our school charity: Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Highlights
It’s our last message of 2024! We thought it would be nice to share some of our highlights…
- Miss Birch: ‘Nearly every single child in Year 3 has made progress with their times tables check scores since the beginning of the year!’
- Mr Wilks: ‘A highlight this term has been visiting different classes to watch pupils’ Science learning. It was brilliant to see children really engaged in their learning, using technical vocabulary and working together collaboratively.’
- Miss Newman: ‘As it’s been my first term at Moortown, I’ve a long list of highlights! However, if I had to choose one, it would be our first class trip to Lotherton Hall. It was great fun seeing all the wildlife and it was amazing to watch the children showcase their Science knowledge in the workshop!’
- Mrs Weekes: ‘I’ve got two highlights. A recent one was when a child approached me in the playground to ask for help – it summed up our job as teachers. Another was getting to know our new Reception friends as they come to school with a smile and a lovely greeting each day.’
- Mrs Taylor and Mrs Lake: ‘Year 2 have impressed us with their learning at home. For example, 97 Numbots certificates have been achieved this term!’
- Miss Lowry: ‘Our highlight of the year in reception so far has been watching the children beginning their reading journey. It is truly magical to watch this journey and see them develop into confident readers.’
…and my highlight is simply standing at the school gate at the start of the school day and being greeted by happy and healthy children as they arrive at school – it’s such a positive way to start the day!
Leeds at Christmas
The ultimate guide to Christmas in Leeds includes a whole host of information about what’s happening over the Christmas and New Year period, such as visiting the Christmas markets across the city centre, family attractions including Northern lights at Temple Newsham and where to see Santa.
Finally, all that needs to be said is have a happy Christmas or holiday period. We’ll see you all again on Monday 06 January.
Our weekly message: Friday 13 December
Posted on 13 December 2024 by Mr Roundtree
Next week’s the last week before we break up for Christmas. It’s a busy week, so please check our school calendar. We’ve noticed a few children appear more tired than usual so make sure your child gets plenty of sleep so they can enjoy the last week.
At Moortown Primary, we’ve a schedule of visits for each class in school. This week, it was the turn of the Y5 and Y6 children to go on a visit – they went to the Leeds Discovery Centre and the Royal Armouries:
- ‘The workshops were great and we saw some real artefacts that were about Ancient Egypt.’
- ‘We even held a piece of rock that was used in one of the Egyptian pyramids.’
- ‘When we went into the Armouries, we saw lots of things to do with war and this will be a topic later in the year so that was really interesting.’
- ‘There was a bit of time where we could go in the store room and we saw a real ‘mummy’ – not sure if it was real but it looked it!’
Keep reading!
Even during all the excitement in the run up to the Christmas holidays, we continue to teach Phonics lessons and maintain as many reading practice sessions as we can in Early Years and Key Stage 1. You can help at home by reading to or with your child during the Christmas holidays. It’s a wonderful way for children to relax, explore their imagination and continue learning. Stories about winter adventures, festive traditions, or magical journeys can spark creativity and deepen their love for books. Reading also strengthens vocabulary, comprehension, and critical thinking, keeping young minds active while school is out. It’s a great opportunity to bond over shared stories or bedtime tales. Encourage your child to pick a book they’ll love – whether it’s about reindeer, snowmen, or elves – and make reading a cosy, fun holiday tradition this Christmas!
Staying healthy in the winter months
The UK Health Security Agency has published advice on how to reduce the spread of winter illnesses.
Please remember to follow NHS guidance to know when a child is too ill for school. Pupils should not miss school ‘just in case’ – they can normally attend school with a cough or cold, but not with a fever or diarrhoea and vomiting.
Talk to your child about staying safe online
Most of us tend to think of our online and offline lives as separate, but children today are growing up with technology and the internet as a natural part of their lives. To them there isn’t a separation. It’s all just life. The internet is now part of the real world.
Talking to your child about what they do online is just as important as asking where they are going when they go out with their friends. It can be difficult starting the conversation with your child about their online activities. Technology keeps changing and you might find it overwhelming trying to keep up with it all, but you don’t need to. You just need to take an interest in what apps and games your child is using. That’s the best place to start. Your child might not want to share anything with you at first, but keep trying.
Having honest and open conversations with your child and speaking to them regularly about what they’re doing online could be crucial in giving your child the confidence to tell you if they’ve seen something that makes them feel uncomfortable or may highlight someone who is wanting to cause harm.
Further guidance is available on the LSCP website as well as information on how to set up parental control on all the devices that your child uses.
We’ll end on a highlight of Mrs Weekes’ week…
‘Having my Christmas lunch with Year 5. I found out what they were up to over the Christmas holidays, which family they were meeting up with, and chatting about what other families do if they don’t celebrate Christmas. It was a lovely conversation and a lovely way to spend my lunchtime!’