Living and learning this half term
- Drug, alcohol and tobacco education (DATE)
- Keeping safe and managing risk
Here are the weekly Living and Learning statements, for this half term, to support this learning. There will also be some whole school homeworks on these themes.
- I don’t interrupt (with my mouth or my hand).
- I can make things better.
- I know what a drug is.
- I know how to seek help.
- I make safe choices, including online.
- I can assess my own risks.
Packed lunches
At Moortown Primary, our packed lunch guidance includes:
- information about the different food groups
- how to put together a healthy, balanced packed lunch
- links to recipes and ideas for healthy packed lunches
This week, our packed lunch guidance will be emailed to parents and carers and sent home to children who have a packed lunch in school.
Packed lunches should be in a secure named container. No sweets are allowed – instead, we encourage lots of fruit or vegetables. Water is available on all tables for children who choose a packed lunch. However, your child can bring their own drink in a non-breakable container – please avoid fizzy drinks.
Change4life provides lots of ideas for healthy packed lunches including suggested swaps.
As an alternative to packed lunches, school meals, including a vegetarian option, are a great choice and are prepared daily in our kitchen. Children are offered a choice of main courses and desserts and they select their main meal choice at the start of the day. Catering Leeds provides food which meets national Food Standards criteria. School meals can be combined with packed lunches.
Free school meals are available to all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. They are also available to some older children according to family income. It’s important to register for entitlement to free school meals, even if your child has a packed lunch or is in a younger class – this is so we can receive additional funding (called the pupil premium) which we can use to help your child. Please check if this is something you might be entitled to.
New annual report format
At Moortown Primary, we seek your thoughts on lots of things, whether this is straight after an open-session in school like our Watch us while we work sessions, or in the annual surveys in the summer term.
Just before the summer term last year, we also asked for your views on the annual reports. We wanted to make sure we kept the reports as informative for you as possible, and we also wanted to relieve some of the workload for teachers when they write them.
You told us that the aspects of the reports you found most helpful were the teachers’ overall comments and the grades for progress, attitude and attainment – we’ll be keeping these aspects in the new reports (we’re going to make the grades even clearer and use them for attendance, behaviour and effort, too).
Some of the sections will be made smaller or not included. This is based on your feedback, too.
Thank you to all the parents/carers who helped us with this. Do speak with me if you’ve any questions, comments or concerns.
Living and Learning: Takeover Challenge Day
Takeover Challenge is a fun engagement project which sees schools and organisations across England opening their doors to children and young people to take over adult roles.
It puts children and young people in decision making positions and encourages schools and organisations to hear and act upon their views and ideas. Children and young people gain an insight into the adult world and schools and organisations benefit from a fresh perspective about their work.
School Savings Club
The next School Savings Club paying in date is 09 December 2019 at 3.15-3.45pm.
The account is open to all children and it is free to set up. As there is not minimum deposit requirement, it is a great way for your child/children to begin to manage their own money and understand the importance of saving. We offer paying in sessions every half term where you can bring along any savings to be paid into your child’s account.
As an extra incentive, Year 3 pupils who open an account, or who currently have an account, will be credited with £10.
If you’re unable to attend in person, please hand in any money to be deposited to the office in a sealed envelope addressed to Mrs Tiffany.
Here are the remaining paying in dates for this year (the penultimate Monday of each half term).
- 03 February
- 23 March
- 11 May
- 06 July
To find out more about the accounts or if your child would like to open account, please enquire at the office.
Taking pics at our productions
As we approach the time of year when many of you will be visiting school to enjoy our Christmas production, we thought it would be useful to send an extract of our Online Safety Policy (even though this new version is still in its draft format):
Staff and parents are reminded at least annually (eg during an assembly or performance) about the importance of not sharing digital images and video without permission, due to reasons of child protection, data protection, religious or cultural reasons, or simply for reasons of personal privacy.
We appreciate that families will treasure photographic/video memories, and the general rule is that parents and carers may take photos and videos of the children in their care, for personal use only. There may be rare exceptions to this, and parents / carers will be made aware in advance of particular events where no filming etc is possible.
When parents capture footage or still images of their children, there is a strong possibility that other children will also be visible or audible. For this reason, no such content should be shared publicly.
Live streaming, whether public or private, cannot be permitted on streaming platforms or ‘live’ features (e.g. Facebook Live) to stream events/circumstances as they occur. Parents / carers may be asked to leave the premises or event if this takes place.
Parents will be provided with clear direction by a senior member of staff in order to comply with this policy around public performances.
You can read more about this in an article written by a barrister specialising in education law.
Supporting good causes
We’ve been hearing about lots of charitable causes this week; it was great to hear how passionate the children were. Children have been finding out about different causes and speaking about why they should be supported. Each class then voted and then there was a final vote today and the School Council decided to support the fundraising campaign for the Verro family:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/hsct-to-stop-ms
Consent
We recommend two videos which talk about the issue of consent.
We do suggest you watch them first. You might not feel they’re appropriate to show your child, but they should help you to feel better prepared to talk to your child about the notion of consent, and they might also be useful for an older child.
Tea and consent comes from Thames Valley Police – it likens sexual consent to agreeing to a cup of tea, or not agreeing, or changing your mind.
Consent for kids is an American clip – it gets across the message in a very matter-of-fact way (as long as you can cope with the very American accent of the narrator!).
Living and Learning: My Community week so far
This week, we are enjoying our ‘My Community’ themed week based around these themes.
- Who am I? (identity)
- Who are we? (diversity)
- Where do I live? (community)
- How do we all live together? (equality)
There have been lots of events, visits and visitors so far.
- School community coffee morning and Wake Up Shake Up on Monday
- Bulb planting with Friends of Moortown Park
- Visiting Allerton Grange drama department for a community themed drama session led by Year 12 pupils
- A visit from Linda Gledhill from the deaf and hearing impairment team
- A visit from the RNIB to raise awareness of visually impaired members of our community
- JustDifferent disability workshops
- Litter picking in the local area
- Hate Crime workshops led by West Yorkshire Police
- Visiting Donisthorpe Hall
- A visit from Moortown fire service
- A visit from our PCSOs
- Learning carousels across different classes
Still to come is a visit to a group run by Moor Allerton Elderly Care; Greek language sessions led by a parent; a visit to St Gemma’s Hospice and choosing our new school charity.
The week will culminate with Identity Day on Friday 29 November.
Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend, a team they are part of or support or traditional dress to represent their heritage. We invite a donation for the PTA Christmas fair.
Thank you for all the entries we have received for the active travel in the community competition.
We encourage families to get out in the community in an active way on the way to and from school. Email (moortownoffice@spherefederation.org) a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark on the route to school, for the chance to win one of five £10 vouchers. The winners will be drawn in the assembly tomorrow afternoon so please ensure your entries are sent by 12 o’clock tomorrow.
Thank you for supporting the themed week and please discuss the week with your child to reinforce this important learning.
Community week feedback
We’re all enjoying a community themed week at Moortown Primary this week. We’re learning all about identity and community.
As part of the week, Year 2 pupils visited Donisthorpe Hall, just down the road from us. After our visit, we received this lovely email:
Dear Mr Roundtree, Mrs Weekes and all the staff and year 2 pupils involved in the outing to Donisthorpe Hall earlier today.
What a fantastic afternoon which the older residents at Donisthorpe clearly enjoyed. Their joy at seeing and meeting the year 2 children was lovely and the children fully engaged with them. The residents and children had a lovely time. Thank you for organising such a worthwhile community activity.