23 March 2012
This week, we’re learning spellings where the c in the word sounds like an s.
Learn the words and find four more that fit the rule. Spellings will be tested on Friday 30 March.
- ceased
- celebrity
- ceiling
- exciting
- excellent
- circumnavigate
- cyberspace
- certificate
- scissors
- celebrate
23 March 2012
The homework this week is talk time and is linked to our current SEAL topic.
I can talk about a time when I have felt proud.
The homework is due in on Wednesday 28 March.
23 March 2012
We’re learning to spell words with the ‘igh’ letter pattern.
These words will be tested on Friday 30 March.
| high |
| light |
| night |
| right |
| bright |
| fight |
23 March 2012
The homework this week is talk time and is due on Wednesday 28 March.
I can talk about what I have learnt in our topic ‘Heroes’.
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!
23 March 2012
This week’s homework is Practice makes Perfect: the children have a text to read and then answer the questions to show their understanding.
It’s due in on Wednesday 28 March 2012.
23 March 2012
This week’s spellings are compound words (two words that make up one word). Your child will be tested on Friday 30 March 2012.
- · bedroom
- · football
- · goodnight
- · handbag
- · outside
- · paintbrush
- · playground
- · weekend
- · cupboard
- · blackbird
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.
Dynamic Dancers
Look out for Year 1 in the future as they are certainly “dynamic dancers“. On Tuesday, we all went down to Allerton Grange to work with some Year 10 pupils. There was an hour long workshop where we learnt different moves and had lots of fun putting together a dance sequence. Thanks to all the Year 10 pupils and to the adults who worked with us.
16 March 2012
This week’s spellings are words with the ‘ow’ letter pattern. Your child will be tested on Friday 23 March 2012.
| cow |
| how |
| now |
| down |
| brown |
| clown |
| town |
| flower |
