Living and Learning
As part of Living and Learning, some older children were involved in some learning around discrimination and that respect should be shown to everyone. They worked in groups to plan how they would present their thoughts and views to the rest of the class. One group decided to write a poem which they then performed. It encompasses how we want children at Moortown to think:
People that are gay should not delay;
We all have feelings no matter what the meaning;
Girl or boy,
Emotions are not a toy;
Some people have a mum and a mum,
Or a dad and a dad;
That’s no reason to be sad;
Nothing matters as long as you’re happy;
No need for people to be snappy;
We’re all the same,
It’s not a game.
Living and Learning - body image guide for parents and carers
Our focus in Living and Learning, for the rest of this half term, is body image.
What is body image?
Body image describes our idea of how our body looks and how we think it is perceived by others. This can include our thoughts and feelings about our height, weight, shape, skin colour, and our appearance and attractiveness more broadly.
This parent and carer guide has been designed to give practical ideas to support your child in building their emotional resilience in this area.
Great competitors
Well done to pupils who have represented school recently in sporting competitions.
Congratulations to our Year 3 qualifier in the West Yorkshire cross country final. She ran a fantastic race at the event at Temple Newsam.
In wet conditions last Friday, our Year 5/6 hockey team competed in the Leeds Quick Sticks competition. Well done to all the children involved.
Thank you to parents and carers who supported these events by transporting the children.
Why is travelling actively to school important?
Sustrans have recently published this article about the importance of travelling actively to school.
With just two weeks to go, Sustrans Big Pedal, is one way we will be encouraging active journeys this term alongside our year round Living Streets WOW sustainable travel initiative where the children record how they travel to school on our daily travel tracker.
Sustrans Big Pedal is the UK’s largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge, that inspires pupils, staff and parents to choose two (or three) wheels for their journey to school. We would love everyone to be involved. For the first time, walking (and park and stride) will be counted alongside cycling and scooting.
This year’s Big Pedal will run for five days, from 25th March to 29th March.
You might also be interested in a current bike promotion from our local Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative branch.
PE and Sport Premium - how this is invested at Moortown Primary
We are required to publish details of how we invest our PE and Sport Premium funding.
What is the Primary PE and Sport Premium?
The government provides funding to improve provision of physical education and sport in primary schools. This funding is ring-fenced and therefore can only be spent on provision of PE and sport in school.
For 2018/19, our grant allocation is £17,800.
How will we invest this at Moortown Primary School?
At Moortown we have developed a provision plan to ensure this funding is invested (rather than ‘spent’) to maximise the long term impact of our PE provision for pupils and staff. The funding is invested in various ways and the impact of these initiatives is closely monitored through assessment of children’s skills, staff and pupil feedback, uptake of clubs etc. At Moortown Primary, we pride ourselves on being a happy and healthy place to learn.
Our 2017/18 PE provision plan is now fully evaluated with impact from last year’s investment.
Our 2018/19 PE provision plan detailing proposed investment is also published.
Active travel update
Here’s an update on our latest active travel initiatives for this half term.
Living Streets WOW Travel Tracker
Meltem from Living Streets visited school for an assembly today to launch a new challenge for our WOW active travel tracker.
Currently, children record how they get to school on the WOW daily online travel tracker and those who complete at least one active journey per week to school (bike, scoot, walk or park and stride) are rewarded with a themed monthly badge.
As this has been a big success, with increased active journeys and less journeys by car, from March, we will be challenging children to make at least three active journeys per week to earn their monthly badge.
There were some queries that were raised at the assembly.
Can your three active journeys be different?
Yes – active journeys include walking, biking, scooting and park and stride so as long as your journeys are any of these three in a week you would qualify for a badge.
What can be included as park and stride?
Ideally park and stride is where you park away from school and walk the final 5-10 minutes to school. This ensures that areas close to school are free from traffic. Marks and Spencer has many spaces available for families to park and walk the final part of the journey to school.
Sustrans Big Pedal 2019
Get set… the Big Pedal is back! We’re taking part in Sustrans Big Pedal 2019, the UK’s largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge, that inspires pupils, staff and parents to choose two (or three) wheels for their journey to school. We would love everyone to be involved. For the first time, walking (and park and stride) will be counted alongside cycling and scooting.
This year’s Big Pedal will run for five days, from 25th March to 29th March.
On each day, schools compete to see who can get as many of their pupils, staff and parents cycling or scooting to school then our results will determine our final position in the national league table.
If you need the car to bring your child to school, perhaps you could park and stride the last part (our suggested park and stride site is Marks and Spencer car park).
The Big Pedal will run alongside our year round Living Streets WOW sustainable travel initiative where the children record how they travel to school on our daily travel tracker.
Why we’re taking part
It’s a great way to get more of our pupils travelling to school in an active way. Also, schools will be entered into a daily prize draw for rewards including equipment and accessories if over 15% of our school community cycle, walk or scoot on that day of the challenge.
What do you need to do?
All you need to do is encourage your child(ren) to cycle, scoot, walk or park and stride to school every day during the event, and join them on their way.
Living and Learning: Being me
- I cover my mouth (when I yawn, cough, sneeze). Get your child to demonstrate the ‘vampire’ method to family members at home.
- I can say something good about myself. It’s important that your child can confidently talk about themselves in a positive way.
- I pay and receive compliments in a sensible way. Try paying compliments each day to each other! Some children struggle to hear positive words about themselves, but this is important for self-esteem. Try paying (and listening) to praise and compliments.
- I recognise my talents. Talk to your child about talents, whether academic, physical, social or emotional. Some of us may have a natural talent, but most have talents that derive from lots of practice.
- I know the difference between being proud and showing off. We encourage compliments to be paid – but encourage your children to know the balance between being having self-esteem and showing off.
Living Streets (Moortown group) update
An update and a call for support (by Friday 15 March) from our local Living Streets group.
WE HAVE GOOD NEWS!
Back in autumn we submitted a response to the ‘Connecting Leeds’ consultation for improvements in Moortown. The feedback you provided in our survey helped us to share a number of ideas with Leeds City Council to help make the routes to school safer and more pleasant for all members of the community.
It’s very pleasing to see that a number of suggested improvements have been incorporated into the revised proposals, including:
• Priority for pedestrians at both the entrance and exit of the parade car parks (kerbs to run through with visual priority for people on foot so drivers know to give way).
• Replacing the badly positioned concrete bollards on the northern parade with a continuous low-level fence (to match the south parade) to prevent vehicles blocking the footpath.
• Low-level fencing at Manning Stainton to allow access only via the official dropped kerb and not across the full length of the footway.
• Planters adjacent to the road outside Manning Stainton to enhance the area and prevent HGVs and other vehicles driving and parking on the footway.
• Improved crossing times for pedestrians at the main M&S lights.
• A widening of the public footpath/reduction in road space adjacent to the south parade to allow for the future introduction of a pavement at the shops (not in the scope of this project).
Existing proposed designs for this future work can be found in Moortown Community Group’s Neighbourhood Design Statement (available at moortowncommunitygroup.org.uk).
BUT IT’S NOT A DONE DEAL YET. HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP…
Although the public consultation for Moortown is now complete, there will still be some local targeted consultation with residents and business owners directly affected by the proposals. They will hopefully support the revised proposals too, but there’s also a chance some won’t, particularly if it affects current parking arrangements.
We want to ensure that the improvements for pedestrians many of us have been campaigning for are delivered and a great way to demonstrate your support is to post a comment about the revised plans on Twitter, tagging both Connecting Leeds and Moortown Living Streets Group, or email Connecting Leeds directly if you don’t use Twitter:
Twitter: @ConnectingLeeds + @MoortownLSG
Email: connectingleeds@leeds.gov.uk
Follow this link to see the updated Moortown plans as well as a number of other local schemes which are now open for public comment (including Alwoodley, Scott Hall Road and Chapel Allerton).
Many thanks once again for your continued support!
Dom Jacques
E: moortowngroup@livingstreets.org.uk T: @moortownlsg
A happy and healthy - and safe - place to learn
We hear so many scare stories and myths about health and safety that it’s easy to pour scorn on anything remotely related to the topic. However, as a school, we need to know that our buildings and our practices are safe and secure for your child and his/her teachers.
Just like we’re happy to invite a fresh pair of eyes into school to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning, we do the same – invite an expert from Leeds City Council – to check on health and safety aspects of our school.
We’re delighted that our school was judged to be outstanding in terms of health and safety, following a recent inspection (o4 February 2019).
The inspection was really thorough, covering 166 checks and giving ratings of high, medium; low/no priority. The school was rated 99% (a rating of over 90% ranks as ‘outstanding’.)
Moortown Primary is a happy, healthy and safe place to learn!
Moortown Park - volunteers for litter picking
On Saturday 09 March at 10:00am, a litter-picking session at Moortown Park will take place, organised by the Friends of Moortown Park Committee.
The Chair, Pat Ingle, writes:
Your help is needed please. We are running a Litter Picking event on Moortown Park starting 10.00am on Saturday 9th March and it would be great to see a small army of helpers to make light work of it. Volunteers should please meet at the entrance to the Park from the Parklands Estate (end of Lime Tree Avenue), at the opposite end of the main path from the Shadwell Lane entrance. Children accompanied by parents will be a welcome addition to the team on the day. We will be joined by our Ward Councillors.
Please wear footwear, gloves and clothing suitable to the conditions, bearing in mind that quite a bit of rubbish is caught in undergrowth. I have some rubbish bags and we will be arranging with the Council for the collected rubbish to be removed promptly the next week. I have just a few pairs of gardening gloves for those without, as well as a small number of litter picker arms.
Please note there are no refreshment or toilet facilities onsite.
Moortown Park has now been open for approaching 2 months and I think we can all agree on how wonderful this new green space is for the community, clearly evidenced by the substantial number of people using the park. I would like to thank the Council and some wonderful individual litter pickers who have already done some of the cleaning up of past rubbish from before and during the development of the park, but it would be fantastic to see the initial clean up completed and the park looking ready apart from the final seeding in the Spring.
I look forward to seeing you at this first community event.
