News

SEAL New beginnings

As we start the new school year, our SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme focuses on New Beginnings.

We have three new members of staff making a new beginning at Moortown, Mrs Wells, Mr McKeon and Mr Lawton, alongside new children joining our school and our new Reception class.

‘I make someone feel welcome‘ is the first SEAL statement to launch the theme.

New beginnings allows children the opportunity to discuss and reflect on how they or others may feel in a new situation or setting. This SEAL theme offers children the opportunity to see themselves as valued individuals within a community, and to contribute to shaping a welcoming, safe and fair learning community for all.

During the theme, the key areas of learning are empathy, self-awareness, social skills and motivation.

Through discrete SEAL lessons, circle times and across the curriculum, children will explore feelings of happiness and excitement, sadness, anxiety and fearfulness, while learning (and putting into practice) shared models for calming down and problem-solving.

New Beginnings supports the development of a learning community in each classroom where all members feel that they belong. Class contracts, produced at the start of the year, allow children to contribute to how they feel they can achieve a safe and fair learning community.

Reading

Just as the summer started, the papers were full of articles about ideal holiday reading for adults and children alike. (I think ideal holiday reading is any reading you want to, whether it’s in the holidays or not!)

How many books has your child read this holiday? More importantly, what sort of discussions have you had with your child about what books you’ve been reading, and of course what they’ve been reading. (I’ve already had chats with Mrs Weekes and Miss Valentine about my summer reading. including a great children’s book, ‘Grace‘ by one of my favourite authors, Morris Gleitzman.)

As we approach the end of the holidays, it’s an ideal time to reflect on what we’ve read – and start the new school year off taking a positive, encouraging approach to your child’s reading.

Encourage your child to read anything and everything: a story, leaflet, brochure, comic, flyer, advert… It could be for pure entertainment, or with a different purpose: to use a recipe, make a shopping list, read street signs, or any kind of text!  The more varied reading your child does, the less likely they are to be put off reading a text.  Don’t be too pushy either – texts which are too difficult can put children off (harder books might be best left to bedtime reading); all children should be able to read their reading book 90-95% accurately and fluently in order to enjoy and gradually progress in their reading.

• Build reading accuracy – as your child reads aloud, point out words they miss and help them sound out and read them correctly.
• Build reading comprehension – talk with your child about what they’re reading, asking about new words and what new information they’ve learned.
• Read together every day – don’t forget reading aloud to your child at bedtime reading can count, too!
• Don’t overlook non-fiction texts – spend time talking about pictures and diagrams.
• Visit the library regularly – did your child take part in the local libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge (see News article on 13 July 2015)?
• Use the Internet – find out more about the books your child has read or would like to read next, and just enjoy surfing the internet for facts and figures about whatever interests your child.

Enjoyable, regular and short practice is the best way for your child to progress and learn through reading.  Make sure your child spends 10-15 minutes reading each day and use the guidance below to ensure (s)he is getting the most from every book they read.  The questions will need to be varied according to the book and your child.  The book may lend will to developing knowledge, phonic, punctuation, writing or comprehension skills.

Don’t attempt to try to cover all the bullet points! It might be a good idea to focus on just one of these areas every few days or so, or just choose a question from two or three sections.

Comprehension

• Did you enjoy the story – why?
• What happened at the start / in the middle / at the end?
• Was there a problem?  How was it resolved?
• How would you have resolved the problem?  Can you think of another way?
• What would you do if …
• What was the main idea of the story?
• Can you summarise the story in a couple of sentenced?
• Try to predict what will happen before the story ends.
• Write about a memory or experience of your own that is similar to something you’ve read in your book.
• Write a letter to someone telling them about the book and your opinion of the book.
• Construct a time line to fit the story.  Include all the main events

Characters

• Who are the characters?
• What do they look like?
• What kind of clothes do they wear?
• How did the character feel when …?
• What kind of mood was the character in?
• What kind of personality do they have? Kind, caring, nasty, bully, liar, friendly, quiet, noisy …?
• What does it say in the text that makes you think this?
• What do other characters think or say about this character?  Why do they feel this way?
• How does your character treat other people in the book?  How does the character change throughout the story?  Explain and give support for your answers.
• Can you re-write the story and include your own character?
• Write a description of the main character – their looks, the way they dress, the way they talk and their personality.
• Draw and label a character or a setting from a description in the book.

Story setting

• Where is the story set?
• Imagine you are in the story …
• What can you see?  What can you hear?  What can you small?  What can you feel?
• Can you write a description of the story setting using adjectives?  eg I found myself standing in the middle of …
• What is the weather like?

Non-Fiction

• Research the subject further using the internet or local library.
• Write down in your own sentences some facts you have learnt from the book.
• Can you think of anywhere we might be able to find additional information about this?
• What do the pictures or diagrams in this piece of information add to the text?
• How are these different to the pictures you might find in a story?
• Can you point out: a heading, sub-heading, caption, diagram, introduction, contents page etc?
• Why has the author organised the information in this way? (You could refer to sections and sub-sections, bullet points etc)
• How do you feel about …?  Can you explain why?

Reading really matters

We’re loving the new website to support parents and carers with reading: Read on. Get on.

It contains lots of great advice and help, including story starters and lots of hints and tips. There are links to other useful websites and there is a way for you to check your child’s progress.

Here are some top tips listed on the website. Although it’s all about supporting reading, it’s interesting to see that these tips are ways to support your child’s speaking and listening skills (so they should really help with Talk Time homework tasks, too!).

• When talking with your child or looking at books together, help them to focus on what you are saying: Turn off the TV, the radio or the mobile. Removing distractions helps your child
• Get down to the child’s level or bring them up to yours. This helps get their attention. Young children find it difficult to listen while they are doing something else.
• Say their name first to help them stop and listen. Make sure your child can see your face when you are talking together. The gestures and facial expressions help give clues about what you’re saying. For example, a smile, a ‘thumbs up’.
• It’s important to talk at the right level for your child. If your child is mainly using one word sentences, use one or two words sentences with them. An example is ‘Find shoes’ when looking at a story page with a picture of shoes.
• If your child uses longer sentences to talk, use longer sentences with them. Ask ‘Find the man with the black hair’‘, or ‘Where is the rabbit jumping?’
• Conversations are more than questions and answers. When you talk to your child, try to comment on what they say and do. In the park, say something like “I love going down slides”. Then wait to hear what your child says next.
• When sharing stories together, comment on what your child shows an interest in. Repeat back to your child what you know they meant, even if they didn’t say it quite right. This helps encourage them to keep trying.
• Children need time to plan what they are going to say. Say something to your child then wait for them to put their thoughts together before answering. Always show your child that you are listening. This shows them that you are interested and like talking with them.

2015 Key Stage 2 data

Now that we’ve reached the end of the school year, we’d like to share with you some facts and figures about how well the Year 6 class have performed over the course of their time at Moortown Primary. To help make sense of the data, please bear in mind the following points:

• We’ve included the equivalent data for all schools in England for last year
• Level 4 is the expected level; more precisely, a Level 4b
• All figures relate to percentages
• ‘W’ refers to ‘working towards’ – where a child’s attainment falls below Level 1
• As a school, we had no pupils who were absent or not included in the tests / assessments; this matches the national average where so few are absent or not included that the average is 0%, so we’ve not included this data in the tables

Teacher assessments

The proportions reaching Level 4 or higher based on teacher assessments are:

• Reading: 93.5%
• Writing: 93.5%
• Maths: 96.8%

Tests

The proportions reaching Level 4 or higher in the tests are:

• Reading: 96.8%
• Grammar, punctuation and spelling: 96.8%
• Maths: 96.8%
• (There is no Writing test)

Disadvantaged pupils

In the cohort are three pupils who are entitled to pupil premium funding. Here’s how they got on in the tests:

• Reading: one pupil attained Level 4, the other two reached Level 5; all three pupils made three levels of progress since Year 2 (whilst the national standard is two)
• Writing (teacher assessment – there is no Writing test): one pupil attained Level 3, one at Level 4 and one at Level 5; two pupils made two levels of progress and one progressed by three levels since Year 2
• Grammar, punctuation and spelling: one pupil attained Level 3 in the test (and was one mark away from reaching Level 4!) whilst the other two reached Level 5; there is no Key Stage 1 data so we can’t measure progress for this aspect of learning
• Maths: all three pupils reached Level 4; one made three levels of progress since Year 2 whilst the other two made two levels

As a summary, the pupils’ attainment averages out at a Level 4a – a high Level 4.

Incidentally, this is the last year that schools are required to assess according to levels. Only Year 2 and Year 6 have continued to use levels as a way to assess children’s attainment. It’s not clear yet how the Department for Education will publish from 2016 assessment data for children at the end of Key Stages 1 and 2.

2015 Key Stage 1 data

Now that we’ve reached the end of the school year, we’d like to share with you some facts and figures about how well the Year 2 class have performed over the course of Key Stage 1. To help make sense of the data, please bear in mind the following points:

• We’ve included the equivalent data for all schools in England for last year
• Level 2 is the expected level; more precisely, a Level 2b
• All figures relate to percentages
• ‘W’ refers to ‘working towards’ – where a child’s attainment falls below Level 1
• ‘Disapplied’ refers to children who are not counted for some reason
• The subjects listed below are the core subjects’

Speaking and listening

Reading

Writing

Mathematics

Science

Disadvantaged pupils

In the cohort are three pupils who are entitled to pupil premium funding. Here’s how they got on:

• Reading: all three pupils attained Level 2b
• Writing: one pupil attained Level 2c and two pupils reached Level 2a
• Maths: two pupils attained Level 2b and the third attained Level 2a
• Speaking and listening: two pupils attained Level 2 and the third attained Level 1
• Science: similarly, two pupils attained Level 2 and the third attained Level 1

As a summary, the pupils’ attainment averages out at a Level 2b.

This year is the last that schools are required to assess according to levels. Only Year 2 and Year 6 have continued to use levels as a way to assess children’s attainment. It’s not clear yet how the Department for Education will publish from 2016 assessment data for children at the end of Key Stages 1 and 2.

Summer Reading Challenge 2015

This year, the Summer Reading Challenge returns with the challenge of breaking records!

It’s really simple to join in and complete the challenge. All you have to do is

1. Join any Leeds library (including mobile libraries).
2. Borrow three books and read them. (You could write a short book review on them too.)
3. You can borrow any book: stories, joke books, information books or even audio books.
4. Return these (to any Leeds library) and borrow another three books.
5. That means you need only borrow six books altogether – or more, of course!
6. Once you’ve returned your second lot of three books, your challenge is complete!

We’re hoping to get lots more children taking on the challenge this year and enjoying their reading over the summer. Try not to borrow thick books that you’re never going to finish and make sure you pick books you’re going to be interested in, or, try something new. For any more information, take a look at the leaflet below.

 

Healthy Schools award

Following our School Health check earlier this year, to maintain our Healthy Schools status, we were proud to attend the Healthy Schools celebration event to receive our award.  Held in the debating chamber at Leeds Civic Hall, we enjoyed presentations from councillors and other schools around the 4 areas of Healthy Schools – physical activity, PSHE (personal, social and health education), healthy eating and emotional health.

Two of our sports leaders were invited to lead a practical session in the break for other pupils who were attending.  They did this with great confidence and encouragement.

As part of the event we also had the opportunity to use the voting system in the debating chamber to vote on key areas across health and wellbeing for councillors to consider on a city-wide strategic level.  Based on data from the 2014 My Health My School survey, our current Year 5 and 6 classes will be completing this survey for 2015.  The top priorities identified were levels of physical activity and eating 5 a day.

Unclaimed raffle prizes

Following Saturday’s super, sensational Summer Fair, there are a few unclaimed raffle prizes…

• £151.40 prize for the Half ‘n’ Half jar: orange 193
• Oranaise restaurant voucher: orange border 62
• Tumble Tots annual membership and one free term of lessons: orange border 98
• two free studio fees for Jack Rabbit’s pottery studio in Oakwood: pink border 469
• free holiday camp session for Leeds Gymnastics Club and free parent and child class: orange border 179
• Nichols Vegetarian Deli in Chapel Allerton voucher: pink 382
• one Guisley football family match pass: white 526
• one Guisley football family match pass: orange border 45
• White Rose Marshall Arts vouchers: pink 400, pink border 379
• five swimming lessons with Neptunes swimming: orange border 121
• voucher for Explore learning: pink border 467
• water bottles from Edinburgh Bicycle Shop (all of the following): white 396, pink 386, orange border 158, orange border 184, orange border 79

What have governors done this year?

Our Governing Body Chair, Mrs Becky Lawrence, writes:

Work the Governing Body has undertaken this year includes:

The Chair of our Resources Committee, Andy Miller, has been leading the discussions with Leeds City Council in planning how the school will make use of the land that has been acquired as part of the new housing development behind the school site.

Rachel Greenhalgh has been reviewing how the school makes use of Pupil Premium funding (money that is received from central Government to support learning for disadvantaged pupils) and monitoring the impact of how this money is spent.

Jackie Sykes is our Link Governor with the School Council. Jackie has been attending School Council meetings to ensure that the Governing Body hears issues that are concerning children in school, and to help school councillors understand the Governing Body’s role in leadership and management of the school.

The Governing Body as a whole has reviewed our working practices and identified some areas where we could be more effective. We have drawn up plans to improve our approach to succession planning; to create more consistent induction processes for new governors; to better define the responsibilities of each distinct governor role; and to undertake a skills audit to inform our training needs.

Vivienne Gaskin has picked up the role of link governor for the Early Years and has observed lessons and met with our school improvement adviser. Vivienne has enjoyed seeing the fantastic learning taking place in Reception.

This year governors have also been involved in:

• recruiting new teachers;
• seeing that end of key stage tests are administered in line with the Department for Education’s rules;
• setting a budget for the next three years and monitoring the in-year budget position;
• monitoring attendance levels and agreeing strategies for improving attendance;
• ensuring the school fulfils its health and safety and child safeguarding requirements;
• monitoring the educational attainment and progress of pupils across the school; and
• setting and measuring performance objectives for Mr Roundtree.

Much of our work over the next year will be around developing our newer governors and enabling existing governors to share their skills so that we are building up a knowledgeable and effective team.

Are you getting our tweets by text?

Many of you don’t use Twitter but still receive our tweets in a different way: as a text message on your mobile phone.  If you don’t yet receive our tweets by text, here’s how:

send follow moortownprimary to 86444

If you have signed up for this, please do bear in mind there can sometimes be a delay (that’s the reason why some of you think I send tweets at some crazy hour in the night!).

This message on the Twitter Help Centre might be useful for some of you who have said sometimes they don’t get the tweets:

Missing Twitter SMS updates? This does happen occasionally. If the Twitter SMS queue is too overloaded with text updates, some may be dropped. This means you may experience occasional missing updates from certain people at busy times. If you’re missing updates from the same or all account(s) consistently, this may be a different problem.

Things to check:

• Make sure your phone number is added to your account. You can check this under the Mobile tab in your Settings page on the web.
• Make sure your time zone and your online sleep settings are correct.
• Verify that your Twitter mobile update preferences are set to ON; text ON to Twitter to get a confirmation message that updates are ON.
• Make sure you’re following the person whose updates you’re missing and updates for that specific person are turned on. The default phone setting is OFF until you visit the person’s profile page and turn text updates ON, or text FOLLOW username from your phone, like this: FOLLOW Oprah

If all of the above are correct, then:

• Try unfollowing and refollowing the person whose updates you’re missing. Text OFF [username], then ON [username] to your Twitter code to do this, or visit their profile on the web and turn SMS updates on.
• Try resetting your mobile preferences by texting the word OFF to your Twitter code. Wait a few minutes, then text the word ON to your Twitter code.

If you’re still not getting updates from that person:

• Submit a support request with the details about what’s happening. Don’t forget to include the following info:

1.  Your username and the username of the person you’re missing updates from.
2. The URL of the missing update, e.g. http://twitter.com/coates/status/1114430687
3. Your mobile phone number and mobile service provider.