Always reaching for the top

Another great sporting achievement from one of our Y6 friends.

During half term, Jake, an aspiring climber, competed in the Scottish National Lead Climbing Championships in Edinburgh; he only made it to the final after coming 4th in the qualifying round! Wow!

He coped really well with the pressure and nerves and we are very proud of his performance. He came 5th overall  – his best performance to date.

Watch this space; I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this young man.

This week’s message (Friday 26 May 2023)

We’ve reached the end of the Summer 1 term…

It’s felt a strange one because of all the short weeks in May. The first three Mondays in May have seen school closed – two for bank holidays and one for a training day. Thank you to everyone for working with us – we know disrupted school weeks like this can be tricky for you.

We’ve had an increase in requests for some term-time absences. Many of these are linked to the Summer half-term. We don’t authorise term-time absences (see our Attendance Policy). To help next year, we’ve changed the training day to Friday 24 June – this means that you’ve an extra day to use to plan for any holidays.

We’ve all appreciated the warmer, sunnier weather this week. Please remember to make sure your child is summer-ready next half-term. Make sure they’re wearing suncream, have a sun hat, and a water bottle to stay hydrated.

A big well done to all our Year 6 pupils for coping so well with the end of Key Stage 2 SATs tests – they all did so admirably, despite how difficult they might have been this year. Our Year 6 pupils have got a residential to look forward to, as well as lots of end-of-primary activities as they prepare to move on. This year, the residential (07 – 09 June) will be with all three Sphere Federation schools. (This will help us to make sure we can release enough staff to supervise on the trip.)

Next half term is a busy one, not just for our Year 6 pupils. Teachers are starting to write their end-of-year reports. Amongst other things, pupils have transition morning (05 July) and Sports Day (13 July) to look forward to.

Finally, a quick reminder to complete our annual survey. You’ve got until Friday 16 June to let us know your views. Thanks to those people who’ve already completed it.

Have a great half-term!

Do they have feet or flippers?

Some very exciting news this morning – two of our KS2 children have been selected to represent the City of Leeds in the National Junior Swimming League.

The first round will be 3rd June so watch this space. An amazing achievement and opportunity for them both. By the way, I have checked and they do have feet and not flippers.

This week’s message (Friday 19 May 2023)

This week’s message is a repeat of an email that we sent earlier in the week…

Coming up in the weeks commencing 05 June, 12 June and 19 June, children from Year 1 to Year 6 will take part in Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) lessons, part of our Personal, Social and Health Education curriculum (PSHE, or ‘Living and Learning’, as we call it).

We want you to feel assured that RSE is delivered at a level appropriate to both the age and development of pupils, and to feel safe to voice opinions and concerns relating to the provision.

The lessons are led by children’s class teacher. They take place in a safe learning environment and are underpinned by our school ethos and values.

Nationally, all primary schools are required by law to teach Relationships Education and Health Education. In Sphere Federation schools, we’ve provided RSE lessons successfully as part of Living and Learning for many years.

Check out our RSE Policy.

• Section 9 provides a list of the vocabulary that will be used (pages 7 and 8)
• Section 11 includes an overview of the topics that will be covered (page 11 includes a table to show the learning across each year group)

We know that you may have some issues / concerns. If you’d like to find out more, discuss any concerns, or speak to someone in more detail about the teaching and learning planned for this important aspect of your child’s education, please contact Mrs Weekes.

Similarly, you’ve the right to request that your child be withdrawn from some or all of the lessons that can be regarded as ‘sex education’. For our school, this comprises lessons in Year 6 on what human reproduction is and how babies grow. Please see the government’s factual guide to RSE for parents: Understanding Relationships and Health Education in your child’s primary school: a guide for parents. If you’d like to withdraw your Year 6 child from RSE, please contact Mrs Weekes to discuss the matter. See page 6 of the RSE policy for more information about your right to withdraw your child.

We’re committed to working in partnership with parents. Recent parental feedback has indicated that the overwhelming majority of parents are highly supportive of our Relationships and Sex Education programme.

This week’s message (Friday 12 May 2023)

A short message from us this week…

Well done to all our Year 6 pupils this week – they’ve been doing their SATs, the end of Key Stage 2 assessments. They’ve coped really well, despite some of the papers being reported as challenging.

A particular well done to one pupil in the federation who’s shown great determination and resilience by doing the tests whilst in hospital – impressive determination, we’re sure you’ll agree.

Our annual survey

Every year, we invite you to complete a short survey. Your views matter. They help to shape what we do in the forthcoming year(s).

Like last year, this year’s survey features a series of questions closely related to what Ofsted might ask parents during an inspection.

Complete the Moortown Primary survey here. We’ll send a few reminders before the closing date, which is Friday 16 June.

It’s worth bearing in mind that if you raise in the survey something very specific that needs to be addressed, we can’t easily act on this without your child’s name. In fact, the survey isn’t the best place to raise individual, specific concerns – hopefully, you’re comfortable to speak with Mrs Weekes or a class teacher about these instead.

Finally, a quick reminder that Monday is a training day so school is closed. See you all on Tuesday.

This week’s message (Friday 05 May 2023)

May’s always a busy time in school with statutory assessments beginning. Today, we’ve also had activities linked to the coronation.

We’re a beacon

We’re very proud to have been recognised as going far beyond the national criteria to achieve Healthy School status: due to our long-standing commitment to the Healthy Schools framework and the excellent work that we do to promote being happy and healthy, we’ve been awarded the status of Health and Wellbeing Beacon School.

Stress-free SATs

Next week, Year 6 pupils have their end-of-key stage assessments – their SATs. Check out these seven top tips to support your child doing the SATs. (They’re useful for lots of children, lots of the time, too!)

Dates

Because of the coronation, all the Year 6 tests are one day later than normal. This means that our original training day, originally scheduled for Friday 12 May, is now Monday 15 May. We’re closed on this day.

Neurodiversity

‘Neurodiversity’ describes the different ways that people’s brains develop. Everyone’s brain is unique but the majority of us have similar brains to others. Our brains affect how we experience the world around us and how we react to it. Neurodiversity includes neurotypical and neurodivergent people. Neurodivergence describes people whose brains have developed differently, including autistic people and those with ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, developmental language disorder and Tourette syndrome. The list of neurodivergent brain types is ever changing as we learn more.

NHS MindMate has recently launched a great website with loads of really helpful information, tips and advice – check it out.

Whatever you get up to this weekend, enjoy a happy and healthy – and longer – weekend!

Fit for a King!

When Manning Stainton, the estate agent, launched a competition to design bunting for the King’s coronation, lots of our children entered. This young man, one of our friends from Reception, entered with a fabulous design and he is one of the children who won!

His design has been put on to some bunting and will be displayed on the big day – he also won a prize for himself and £100 for the school.

Thanks to Manning Stainton for organising the competition and well done to all those who entered – massive well done to our winner!

This week’s message (Friday 28 April 2023)

This week’s message is about this half-term’s topic…

Topics are the vehicle for delivering much of the learning in the foundation subjects (eg Art, History, Geography). Each half-termly topic has a driving subject – the main focus for teaching pupils knowledge and skills.

Read more about the intent, implementation and impact of our topics.

This half-term, we’re historians. We’ll develop our understanding of people and events in Britain and the wider world.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary. (See pages 29 and 30 of our Curriculum Statement.)

Each phase also has key historical concepts which will feature within most lessons. These historical concepts are themes that are revisited, strengthened and deepened during your child’s journey through the history curriculum. (See page 24 of the Curriculum Statement.)

Years 1 and 2

In this topic, children will learn about two significant individuals who stood up for something they believed in. Nelson Mandela is famous across the world for his devotion to equal rights for black people in South Africa.  Leonora Cohen was a suffragette from Leeds who fought passionately for the right to vote for women. Children will learn about what they believed in, what they did and the impact that they had. They’ll also consider what they believe strongly about and how they can make a change.

The key concept that children will learn about in this history topic is inequality.

Years 3 and 4

In this topic, children learn about the Leeds West Indian Carnival. They’ll learn about the carnival’s founder, Arthur France, and how he came to Leeds from the West Indies. They’ll learn about how Arthur and friends started the carnival. They’ll then use a range of historical sources to study how the carnival has changed and how it has stayed the same. Children will finally learn about the origins of West Indian carnivals by learning about slavery and the slave trade.

The key concepts for this topic are trade, inequality and power.

Years 5 and 6

In this topic, children learn about what life was like in Britain during World War II. Children will begin by learning about how the war began. They’ll then learn about the mass evacuation of Jewish children from Germany to Britain. Next, they’ll learn about the Blitz and the evacuation of British children from towns and cities to the countryside. They’ll then learn about the role of women. Finally, they’ll investigate life after the war. They’ll learn about how the opportunities for women narrowed again and also the important role that immigration from Commonwealth countries played in helping Britain to rebuild after the war.

The key concepts for this topic are invasion, inequality and power.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they have been learning in class. The class news pages of the school website are a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

Find some books from the library which match what your child is learning.

Visit Abbey House Museum as they have some artefacts relating to suffragettes and Leonora Cohen – it’s also a great visit, regardless of which period children are learning about. Leeds residents also get free access to nearby Kirkstall Abbey which is great to explore on a sunny day.

Leonora Cohen also has a blue plaque on a house she lived in on Clarendon Road in Woodhouse. Your teacher would love to see a selfie of you with her plaque!

Nelson Mandela Gardens in Millennium Square commemorates Mandela’s visit to Leeds when he has presented with the Freedom of the City. It’s a small, calm space well worth visiting if you’re in the city centre.

On Monday 01 May, you can book tickets to an illustration workshop at Harewood House with Kate Pankhurst, the author of the Fantastically Great Women books.

For World War II, Eden Camp is a great visit. Also in North Yorkshire is Yorkshire Air Museum which will be of particular interest to anyone wanting to learn more about the planes used during the war.  A bit closer is the Royal Armouries museum which has weapons and armour from a wide variety of time periods and places around the world.

Finally, it’s a little while away but a visit to the Leeds West Indian Carnival in August will give children the opportunity to experience the event in real life.

Super skippers

Here are the final results from the Year 4 skipping festival this week.

The Skipping School programme (for Year 2 and Year 4) is one of the ways we invest our PE Premium so we always like to check if the investment was worthwhile for the children.

Pupil feedback

I learnt lots of new skips. Now I can do fancy footwork and at first I had no clue what to do!

I enjoyed the skipping festival because we got to have a little bit of competition and skipping is great exercise.

I couldn’t do side straddle and now I have learnt how to do it.

I learnt different skips and I had a really good time at the festival.

I really enjoyed it because of all the new things I learnt.

It was good to do skipping in PE as well as other sports.

I learnt to have fun whilst exercising and winning doesn’t matter. Taking part was important.

Parent feedback

My son thoroughly enjoyed this event. He doesn’t normally do PE competitions so it was really good for the whole class to go. He was so proud of his two certificates.

Organiser feedback

Your Year 4s did an amazing job at the festival this morning.

This week’s message (Friday 21 April 2023)

We hope you had a happy and healthy Spring break.

Industrial action

First, in case you missed an earlier message this week, is some advance warning about the forthcoming industrial action by members of the National Education Union (NEU).

The next two days of strikes are Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 02 May. Moortown Primary will be closed to pupils in all classes except Year 6 and Year 2 on these days.

We apologise for the inconvenience that this may cause. We know you understand that this is a difficult situation.

Walk or wheel to school?

After the two week Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge, we now have the final results.

In our category of small primary schools, we finished in 24th place out of 514 schools with an average of 91.14% of our journeys to school being active. We achieved the highest national (24th) and Northern England (5th) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.

This is a great achievement – a big thank you for supporting the challenge.

We hope these active journeys continue. By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you’re helping us make a positive change to the school run. With fewer cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.

Class trips

Thank you very much for your responses to the recent survey about class trips. The feedback has been really helpful. The key message we’ve received is that you’re very keen for school trips to happen more regularly and that you see a lot of value in them:

• ‘I think they are an important part of the curriculum to enhance learning and make connections with the real world. They also form a memorable part of school. In summary, an invaluable experience.’
• ‘Great that these are coming back following the pandemic.  Thank you for putting time and energy into making these a possibility again. In terms of the regularity of class trips, the vast majority of people would like there to be more than one trip per year. We’ll aim to offer two class visits per year, but this does depend on receiving enough voluntary contributions from all parents/carers.

You also gave us a variety of other feedback and suggestions which we’ll consider. Examples of useful points raised include scheduling trips on a Monday or Friday if classes need parent helpers; a memorable visit doesn’t have to be something new or expensive or a long distance away; and weekly direct debits to build up contributions – we’ll ponder over your suggestions as well as start putting in place a schedule of trips across all year groups.

Attendance matters

For the year so far, up to the Easter holiday, the whole-school attendance rate is 95.8% – thank you for making sure your child attends school as much as they can.

Here’s how each class has helped contribute to the 95.5% figure:

• Reception: 94.3%
• Year 1: 95.7%
• Year 2: 96.3%
• Year 3: 95.7%
• Year 4: 96.8%
• Year 5: 96.0%
• Year 6: 95.8%

Enjoy the weekend.

If you’re celebrating, happy Eid!