Living and Learning: Staying Safe with the police
Some of our local PCSOs came to visit school today. They talked about their role helping people in the community and keeping them safe. The class had some interesting questions to ask them.
‘I learnt what police community support officers do. They don’t have handcuffs as they don’t arrest people.’
‘I learnt that they work in different parts of Leeds.’
‘We saw the different parts of their uniform and we heard someone talking on the walkie talkie. On the top of the walkie talkie, there is a panic button so they can get help from other police officers.’
At Moortown Primary, we regularly seek the views of others. Last month, we let you know about feedback from a Leeds Health and Safety Advisor (news article on 31 January 2019, deriving from a Health and Safety inspection) and a Leeds Early Years Advisor (news article on 15 January 2019, deriving from a visit to the Early Years class).
In January, we also collected the views of staff for the second time in recent years. We asked staff to complete a survey very much like the one we ask parents and carers to complete in the Summer term. The survey was completed by 20 staff (in any role – premises staff, lunchtime supervisors, teachers, teaching assistants…).
The results were really positive: 95% or 100% agreed with all the statements which directly derived from Ofsted staff survey sample statements. These include ‘Pupils are safe at this school’ and ‘This school is well led and managed’. Comments include:
- ‘I feel motivated and respected by my head of school and head of federation.’
- ‘Unnecessary workload has been a focus in recent years and it has had a positive impact on my teaching workload.’
- ‘Mrs Weekes is approachable and very supportive.’
- ‘I feel that the school is well managed with children and staff supported effectively by senior management and parents.’
- ‘The school is a happy, healthy work place to be, always working towards improving its teaching and student well-being.’
- ‘I enjoy my job and the increased variety of work since we have federated.’
- ‘Moortown is a great school to be part of. Teachers in other schools regularly complain about leaders and staff, but everyone works well together here.’
We also asked for any strengths and areas for further improvement.
Strengths
We asked staff to comment in an open-ended question about the strengths of our school. Very many comments here referred to the staff themselves. but are so true – we’re really proud that Moortown Primary is a happy and healthy place to work!
- ‘All staff are very supportive and helpful.’
- ‘The staff, especially their willingness to try new things and reflect on them.’
- ‘Staff work as team.’
- ‘Staff are friendly and supportive.’
‘The staff morale. It’s a great place to work as everyone is friendly and is willing to offer support when it’s needed. I joined the school last year and was made to feel very welcome. From the beginning, I felt comfortable in asking leaders/middle leaders for support when I needed it.’ - ‘Dedicated staff who are willing to ‘go the extra mile’’
Some of the other strengths mentioned in the survey are:
- ‘Friendly atmosphere as soon as you enter the school.’
- ‘Lots of opportunities for development.’
- ‘Children are well behaved and happy at school.’
- ‘Leaders know all the children.’
‘A team of dedicated staff who are ambitious and open minded. A centralised and consistent approach.’
‘There is an understanding of the high levels of excellence expected by both staff and pupils which is evident in every area of the school day.’
‘Team work and presentation! As I have walked around other primary schools, I always get the need to tidy up and improve their display boards. First appearances count!’
‘Its ethos which is upheld by the vast majority of staff, pupils and parents.’
‘Consistency across school and the teachers’ willingness to try new things and be open to change.’
‘The reward and warning systems being the same throughout the whole school.’
‘Children are happy and feel safe.’
Next steps
We’re always wanting to keep getting better and better. Some aspects of school were mentioned that are out of our control (such as the size of classrooms). Based on the survey, the areas to develop are to support teaching assistants more with performance management and professional development. Like so many schools across the country, we also want to be even more mindful of teachers’ work-life balance to ensure their wellbeing.
Thank you to all staff who support our school, with special thanks to those who completed the survey.
Living Streets new badge design competition
We are proud to work with Living Streets to support our aim for active and safe travel to and from school.
WOW is Living Streets’ year-round walk to school challenge and every day our pupils log their daily journeys to school on the WOW Travel Tracker. Those that make an active (walk, bike, scoot or park and stride) journey to school at least once a week for a month earn a WOW badge. There are 11 to collect across the year all of which have been designed by pupils in their annual badge design competition.
Living Streets are now asking for our pupil’s help to design a new badge. Details will be sent home shortly but take a look for some more information. Return your badge designs to your class teacher or the office.
Stay and play
Thank you for attending our ‘stay and play’ session this morning.
We hope you enjoyed looking at your child’s learning journeys. The children really enjoyed sharing them with you.
Allerton Grange visit
Yesterday, Year 2 walked to Allerton Grange for a sports session led by some of their sports leaders.
For the Level 1 sports leaders, this was their first session working with other children and we felt they did a great job encouraging and motivating the children and teaching and organising the session. The class were particularly excited to find out the session was based around football skills – football is definitely a class favourite!
These sessions, where we work in partnership with Allerton Grange, support the leadership skills of the sports leaders and also give our children the chance to visit a local high school and take part in an active PE session in a different setting.
PE kit in school
On Tuesday morning, we will be visiting Allerton Grange for a PE lesson led by their sports leaders.
The children will be walking to Allerton Grange so please ensure they have tracksuit bottoms or leggings, PE t-shirt and some trainers or pumps in their PE kit to wear.
Living and Learning: What’s the matter?
As well as a science focus for the What’s the matter? topic, we’ve also been thinking about What’s the matter? from an emotional point of view.
Hopefully you got chance to find out more about this in our recent class assembly.
A focus for our writing, as we start this new term, is using conjunctions. We’ve used different pictures as a stimulus to ask What’s the matter? and in our responses we’ve been using a variety of conjunctions.
Ask your child if they can spot the conjunction that has not been highlighted.
Materials and their properties
As part of our What’s the matter? mini science topic, we been identifying and also describing the properties of materials. There’s been lots of new words to learn. Ask your child if they can name something that might be rigid, opaque, transparency or stretchy.
In this learning, we combined science with maths to sort objects according to their properties using a venn diagram.
Ask your child what might go in the centre of the venn diagram and what might go outside the venn diagram.
Living and Learning – solving problems
This week’s Living and Learning theme is I can make things better. Year 5 had a very in depth and beneficial circle time to discuss how we can solve problems and improve any tricky situations we are experiencing. We covered some important topics: sleep, resolving arguments and online behaviour.
We first “opened up the floor” to ask if anyone was having difficulty with anything and I would like to thank Year 5 for being very mature, open and honest.
Our first topic was sleep; lots of us said we were finding it hard (or harder) to sleep since returning to school. This included Miss Wilson! Here are our top tips, if you’re having trouble:
Key points:
- Reduce / stop screen time in the hours leading up to bed.
- Write down any worries you have and scrunch them up.
- Listen to calming music or do something relaxing.
Next up – resolving arguments:
Key points:
- Treat people how you would like to be treated.
- Walk away and give yourself time to calm down if you need to.
- Be a good role model for siblings.
Finally, something that was very important for lots of people in the class and seems to have been causing a couple of issues outside of school. Here are our top tips:
Lots of children were sharing their experiences of online behaviour that made them feel upset or uncomfortable. This is a great start. To make things better, often the first step should be to talk to someone.
Key points:
- Do not – DO NOT – ever share your password with someone under any circumstances! This is your personal information and should be kept a secret. Would you give anybody a key to your house or car? It’s the same thing.
- Change your password if you suspect anybody knows it. And make it as complex as you can whilst it still being memorable.
- Act online how you would in real life. Hiding behind a keyboard does not make you brave. Make sensible, kind choices online – just like when you’re face to face.
Thanks to Year 5 for our mature and beneficial talk this week.
If any parents or children are still having issues or have concerns, please come in to speak to me or to Mrs Weekes to discuss this further. Thanks!
Learning updates
Going home with your child (Year 1 to Year 6 only) today are the end-of-term Learning Updates. These ‘mini-reports’ aren’t new – we’ve used these before during parent-teacher meetings.
This year, we’ve listened to what you said in the annual surveys: you asked for more frequent updates on your child’s learning. As a result, we’ve tweaked when we do things a little so you now get an update at the end of most half terms:
- Autumn 1 (the parent-teacher meeting)
- Autumn 2 (the Learning Update)
- Spring 1 (the parent-teacher meeting)
- Spring 2 (the Learning Update)
- Summer 2 (the end of year report)
If you’ve any questions, comments or concerns about the report, please contact your child’s class teacher.
