News

Staying safe themed week

Next week, we have another themed week in school.  Your child will be learning all about staying safe in lots of different situations, such as…

• Monday: water safety, e-safety
• Tuesday: safety whilst taking part in sports such as skateboarding and trampolining
• Wednesday: bike safety checks, first aid, safety at sea
• Thursday: school is closed due to industrial action
• Friday: road safety, drug education, how engineering can make buildings safe

(Not all children will participate in all the sessions – we can’t fit it all in!)

A few things for you to bear in mind:

On Monday, Y5 and Y6 parents are invited in to watch an e-safety performance.

Every day, we want children to be walking, cyycling and scooting to school – your chance to encourage good road safety skills as they do so.  Each day, a golden lock will be placed on a random bike or scooter.  The winner will get a £20 voucher to be spent at the Edinburgh Bicycle shop in Chapel Allerton.

On Friday at 2.30pm, it’s the PTA Summer Fair.  At the Summer Fair, there will be a stand run by the police about road safety.

And your challenge?  Make sure you encourage your child to stay safe, but in ways which mean they can still have freedom to be adventurous and independent!

Are you a recycling hero?

To celebrate Recycling Week and Le Grand Depart, Leeds City Council is giving away a fantastic prize to one of Leeds’ recycling, reducing and reusing heroes.

Sharing a recycling ‘selfie’ could win tickets for two of the best seats in Leeds to watch Le Grand Depart, and inspire the rest of the city to recycle for Leeds, too. Just take a quick picture of any way you reduce, reuse and recycle to save waste from landfill and cash for our city’s services, then post it on facebook.com/leedswastedocs or tweet them to us at @LeedsWasteDocs.

It could be a photograph of your child recycling waste electrical equipment through our WEEE Bank or using the schools recycling bins… anything that keeps waste from going to landfill sites. Whether you’re doing this for the first time, or you’re a committed recycler – we want to see and share your efforts.

Closing date is early next week so get snapping and sharing.

Important dates

Important dates for the rest of this term:

• Fri 13 June: school photographer takes end-of-year class photos
• Wed 18 – Fri 20 June: 24 of the 30 Y6 children go on their residential
• Wed 25 June: Y1 and Y2 are off to the seaside!
• Thurs 26 June, 3.15pm: presentation to Y5 parents about next year’s residential
• From Mon 30 June to Fri 11 July: new Reception children visit school
• Fri 04 July: non-uniform day…PTA ask that you make a donation for the Summer Fair
• From Mon 07 July: themed week about taking safe risks
• Tues 08 July: end-of-year reports are sent home
• Wed 09 July, 2.00pm, and Thurs 10 July, 6.00pm: Y5 and Y6 summer production of Oliver Twist
• Fri 11 July, 2.30pm: PTA Summer Fair
• Mon 14 July: transition afternoon, when children visit their new teacher (this year, we invite new Reception children into school for a third visit)
• Wed 16 July: Sports Day (location to be confirmed – I’m trying to sort this out with the Leeds Children’s Services)
• Thurs 17 July: Y6 Bowling evening
• Fri 18 July, 2.40pm: Y6 Leavers’ Assembly
• Mon 21 July: Reserve Sports Day
• Tues 22 July: Attendance Assembly, when certificates and prizes for good attendance will be awarded

The last day of term is Tuesday 22 July.

…and for next year:

We start the school year on Tuesday 02 September following a training day on the Monday.

The other training days are:

• Friday 24 October
• Thursday 07 May
• Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 July (meaning you’ve an extra-long holiday in 2015!)

New Reception children start school in the week commencing Monday 15 September.

Governing body news

Mrs Janice Rush, our Chair of Governors, writes this review of the school year and the activities of the governing body…

At the start of this academic year, the governing body decided to reconstitute under new government guidelines. We kept the same number of governors overall but made some changes to how we select governors. There are still five elected parent governor positions but the majority of governors are now appointed on the basis of the skills they can bring to the school, the most important of these being the ability to ask questions to make sure they challenge and support – this ensures the school is providing the best it can for all our children.

In January of this year, as Chair of the Governing Body, I was designated as a National Leader for Governance which means I will spend some time working with other governing bodies in the area and can bring back ideas to ensure Moortown Governing Body keeps working at a high standard

Parent governor elections were also held in January. Mrs Deyes was re-elected and Mr Millar elected, both for a term of four years. Our local authority governor (Councillor Charlwood) stepped down in February prior to the birth of her second child and the position has yet to be filled.

As most of you will already know, the Governing Body has spent much of this year working with various groups to try to secure some playing field space for the school. At the time of writing nothing has yet been finalised.

Teaching, learning and curriculum sub-committee

The Teaching, Learning and Curriculum committee is made up of six governors, Mr Roundtree and members of the school’s Senior Leadership Team as required. The main purpose of the committee is to discuss and monitor all aspects of the school’s work around pupil attainment and progress, but this year it has also been ensuring that a new curriculum has been designed and is ready to be fully implemented in September in line with new government regulations.

The committee has met every term and link governors for Curriculum Enrichment, Standards and Achievement (Maths and English), and Early Years have held regular meetings with relevant staff to monitor how all areas of the school are performing.

Pupil support sub-committee

The Pupil Support committee is made up of four governors, Mr Roundtree and members of the Senior Leadership Team as required. The main purpose of the committee is to discuss and monitor all aspects of the school’s pastoral work which includes areas such as attendance, behaviour, safeguarding, SMSC (spiritual, moral, social and cultural provision) and health.

The committee has met every term and link governors for Child Protection, Heath and Inclusion, have held regular meetings with relevant staff. These meeting are to cover such areas as ensuring all Child Protection policies are fully understood and are correctly implemented by all staff, and to monitor how the government PE grant is being spent to improve provision.

Resources sub-committee

The Resources committee is made up of six governors, Mr Roundtree and Mrs O’Malley. The main purpose of the committee is to ensure that the school spending remains within budget and that all funds are spent wisely to best meet the needs of the pupils. From September, this committee will also have to ensure that the performance management process for staff is being correctly implemented and any pay decisions made are in line with our policy.

The committee has met every term but quarterly reviews have also been held with the local authority finance officer and a governor attends the monthly budget meetings.

A governor has also accompanied Mrs O’Malley on regular premises inspections.

Assessing pupils' progress and attainment

Teachers are busy finalising their end-of-year assessment data for reading, writing and maths. They do this at the end of every term, but the end-of-year data is especially important. This is definitely true for Mrs Burke, Miss Rushbrooke and Mr Owen because this data is sent to the local authority, the Department for Education (DfE) and Ofsted.

The attainment levels teachers give your child are based on lots of on-going assessment (marking, asking questions in class etc) and occasional tests. A few weeks ago, children from Y2 to Y6 all did some tests. The end of Key Stage 2 SAT tests done by Y6 are most well-known – these must be sent away to be marked. End of Key Stage 1 tests are done by Y2 pupils. Miss Rushbrooke marks these and uses the test scores and her own teacher assessment to come up with a final level (the test score ‘informs’ the final teacher assessment).

‘Moderation’ is a way to check and compare assessments with other schools. This year, a representative from the local authority visited to oversee the assessment process carried out in Reception. This helps to identify strengths and areas where we can improve (we only received minor suggestions to improve already strong practice). It’s really helpful in that it allows Mrs Burke to discuss her own assessments of Reception children with another Early Years expert. Because we’re a single form entry school so teachers don’t have a ‘partner teacher’ in the same year group, this is useful as a way to ‘check’.

This year, we’ve bought in the services of someone to do this each term for Reception, so we knew Mrs Burke’s judgements were accurate.  We’ve also bought in the services of someone to do something similar for Y2 and Y6 writing, to make sure levels given for writing are accurate – they are!

Also to check or ‘moderate’, this year, governors have decided to use an external organisation to mark the reading, writing and maths of Y3, Y4 and Y5 pupils following their tests and writing tasks.  This will mean we can analyse how our children are doing compared with others nationally (which we already do with the Y2 and Y6 data), and we’ll even get reports on which questions our children did well and less well in – this might help us to work out areas where we can make our teaching even better.

The chart below indicates the minimum level range which is expected for a typical child by the end of the year.  However, please note that over half of our Year 6 pupils attain Level 5 or even Level 6 – much higher than these minimum expectations.

Children in Reception have their development described differently: their attainment will be indicated as ‘emerging’, ‘expected’ and ‘exceeding’ – ‘exceeding’ means they may be working at 1c or higher in the chart above.

End-of-year reports

Teachers are busily writing the end-of-year report for your child, and the 29 other children in the class. It takes quite a while (hence no Class Newsletter this half-term). Once they write the reports, I read them (another task which takes a while!).

We’ll send final reports home for you on Tuesday 08 July this year – this is a little earlier than other schools so that you have the chance to meet with teachers to discuss the report.

For parents / carers of children in Reception, there is a third parents’ evening (Monday 14 July); for others, we encourage you to make an appointment with your child’s teacher (or someone else in school who can help) – especially important if you see that your child is working below expectations or has made only a little progress this year.

Summer Reading Challenge 2014 - win a visit from a fabulous author!

A message from Michelle Ackroyd, Moor Allerton Library, West Area Librarian:

Summer Reading Challenge 2014- win a visit from a fabulous author!

I am writing regarding this year’s Summer Reading Challenge. Held in libraries across the country, every year we encourage children to continue reading over the summer and to try lots of new reading material. The challenge is designed to ensure children keep practising their reading skills and develop a life-long love of reading.

The Summer Reading Challenge can help to widen pupils’ reading repertoire and motivate them to read through the long summer holiday. Studies have shown that 80% of children taking part feel they are better readers as a result (Product Perceptions, 2003 and 2006).

How the Summer Reading Challenge works:

• Children sign up at their local library and receive a Mythical Maze poster.
• Children read six books of their choice collecting stickers and incentives along the way.
• Library staff will be on hand to advise and run family-friendly activities.
• Children who complete the challenge are presented with a certificate and medal.

This year, we’re offering children who join the opportunity to win a visit from a fabulous author/illustrator for their school – the highest number of school completers wins a visit!

We are currently offering assembly visits to local schools. I hope we can arrange a visit soon.

Our new SEAL theme for this half-term is...

…’Changes’.

We begin the half term with a focus on manners: I use good table manners.  Adults in school, including lunchtime supervisors, will be looking out for children who show good table manners – not talking with their mouth full and using their cutlery correctly.  What other table manners can you think of?  Ask your child to add their suggestion to their class SEAL box.

Following this, the Changes theme aims to equip children with an understanding of different types of change, positive and negative, and common responses to change.

It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of living and learning: motivation, managing feelings and social skills.

The key ideas and concepts behind this theme are:

• Change can be uncomfortable, because it can threaten our basic needs to feel safe and to belong
• Change can also be stimulating and welcome
• Both adults and children can experience a range of powerful and conflicting emotions as a result of change – for example, excitement, anxiety, uncertainty, loss, anger, resentment
• Worries about change can be made worse by uncertainty, lack of information, or misinformation and lack of support from others
• People’s responses to and ability to cope with change are very variable, and might be influenced by individual temperament, previous experience of change, and the nature of the change – chosen or imposed, expected or unexpected, within our control or out of our control

Some children may welcome most forms of change and dislike routine and predictability. Other children may find even small changes very difficult.

Within school, children, who are coping with or have undergone significant change, are supported in a variety of ways:

• Our positive ethos within school
• Support systems, from staff and peers, for children who have undergone change or who maybe new to the school
• SEAL and circle time sessions where children feel safe to talk about their feelings
• Class SEAL boxes for children to record any concerns
• Preparing children wherever possible for planned changes for example, a change of class teacher, Key Stage or even school

Catering Leeds recruitment

The following comes from Catering Leeds, who provide our school dinners:

The Government has announced that free lunches will be available from September for all children in Reception, Years 1 and 2. This is a fantastic opportunity for children, parents and schools. This development also means that Catering Leeds are recruiting catering staff across the city to fill Kitchen Assistant vacancies.

These posts are 10 hours per week, 11.30am – 1.30pm, Term Time Only.

We are looking for staff who are enthusiastic about good food and strong customer service; any catering experience is desirable but not essential.

Catering Leeds have set up a number of recruitment information sessions. These will be held every week at the Civic Hall in Leeds, starting on Tuesday 20th May, from 9am-4pm.

If you would like to book an appointment, or for more information please contact Helen Collins on: 0113 3782323, or Helen.Collins@leeds.gov.uk .

Free school meals for younger children

You will have heard in the news that the current government is introducing free school meals for younger children.  The following text is from Catering Leeds, who supply our school dinners:

Children are able to concentrate and learn better when they have eaten a healthy, balanced lunch – school meals can be the simple solution.

From September 2014, school meals for all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are completely free! This will provide a saving to families of £430 per year for each child.

At Moortown Primary, there is a choice of three meals each day: a meat option, a meat-free option and a jacket potato option. Each meal includes a main course, vegetables and salad, pudding of the day or fruit or yoghurt and water.

Meals are freshly made every day using great quality produce:

• fresh vegetables and potatoes, locally when in season
• UK farm-assured chicken, beef and lamb
• free range eggs from East Yorkshire
• 100% salmon and white fish fillet from sustainable sources
• dolphin-friendly tuna
• UK cheddar

The menus are designed to provide healthy, balanced meals which will be enjoyed by children. They meet the Government guidelines for school meals. All medical and religious diets can be catered for.

View our current menu.

For more information, please speak to Paula or Nicky in the office.