An awesome author in Year 6
We’ve got some great writers at Moortown Primary. It’s brilliant to read about one of them, Thomas in Y6, being recognised for this. The writing below was done at home. Thomas was inspired by listening to an audio book of a Sherlock Holmes story read by Stephen Fry – and what great results just from listening to the story and soaking up the language!
The writing was shared on Twitter and a top literacy advisor, Pie Corbett, was impressed.
In some tweets to Thomas’s mum, Pie Corbett comments that it’s a good example of how children imitate their reading: ‘It’s a marvellous example of a child capturing the right tone through listening carefully to the book being read.’ It just shows that audio books – not just written books – can inspire impressive vocabulary and description! Pie Corbett goes on: ‘It’s interesting that he ‘heard’ it which also makes the point about the value of being read to…’
Well done, Thomas – we’re all very proud of you!
Follow Pie Corbett on Twitter.
Living and Learning: Parent/carer workshops Staying Safe themed week
Thank you to all the parents/carers who have signed up to the workshops on offer next week during our Staying Safe themed week.
There are a few places left if you would like to come along.
Benchball
Some of our KS2 children took part in a come and try benchball event at Roundhay School tonight.
Competing against other local schools, they showed great teamwork and PE skills.
Benchball uses a lot of the same skills as netball and we hope that some of the players come and join the netball after-school club on a Monday – we have a few places left!
Training days 2019-20
For those already planning their trips away and days out, we’ve now agreed our 2019-2020 training days:
- Monday 02 September 2019
- Tuesday 03 September 2019 (this means children are back on Wednesday 04 September, although there’s a transition period for those starting in Reception)
- Friday 25 October 2019 (this is the day before the October holidays)
- Thursday 07 May 2020 (this is provisional – it depends on whether we must close for polling day)
- Monday 20 July 2020 (the last day of the school term, meaning children break up on Friday 17 July 2020)
The dates are all published on our school calendar.
(We tell you our training days well in advance, and we’ve tried to schedule many close to existing school holidays. This means you’ve got more chance to plan and book any holidays abroad. We don’t authorise term-time absences for holidays.)
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.
Quick Sticks hockey
Last week, some of our Year 5 and 6 children took part in the Leeds North East Quick Sticks hockey qualifying festival at Allerton High. Well done to all the children involved and thank you to staff and parents who supported the event.
Staying Safe themed week 04 February
Our next whole school themed week, based around Staying Safe, will be taking place from Monday 04 February 2019. The key message is how to be safe in a range of situations – at home, at school, online and in the environment.
A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education including road and scooter safety (Leeds City Council); water safety (Canal and River Trust and RNLI); bike maintenance (Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative); staying safe around dogs (Dogs Trust) and e-safety (One Day Creative and d:side). Some of the events require parental permission and these letters have been sent out separately. There are also some opportunities for parents and carers, from all year groups, to get involved in the week. Please contact the office to reserve places.
*THIS WEEK* Thursday 24 January 2:30pm – 3:15pm d:side drug education information session
A representative from d:side, a health education provider, will be running an information session about drug education.
Monday 04 February 2:30-3.15pm One Day Creative, creative education provider, e-safety workshop
Wednesday 06 February Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative Dr Bike event
Bring your bike for a free bike safety check, from 8:30am – no need to book.
Thursday 07 February 2:30-3.15pm First aid workshop
A representative from Leeds Beckett University, will be running a first aid workshop for parents and carers.
The themed week is a good opportunity to continue to think about healthy, active ways to travel to school. Children are encouraged to travel to school in a sustainable way, keeping safe along the way.
Finally, can you help? Does your job involve an aspect of safety? If you are able to support our Staying Safe themed week by coming into school, please contact Mrs Taylor via the school office.
We will keep you up to date about events during the week through Twitter and the class news pages on our website.
Thank you for your support to keep Moortown a happy, healthy and safe school.
After-school club availability
There’s still time to sign up to our Spring term after-school clubs starting next week.
Please contact the office if you would like to book a place on any of the following clubs which currently have spaces available.
Monday
| Love of reading club
Do you enjoy stories? Join Mrs Charlesworth and delve into books, get into the characters and listen to stories. Share your own favourite stories too. This club finishes at 4.15pm. There are no sessions on Monday 28 January 2019 or Monday 11 February 2019. |
Y1, Y2, Y3 | £12 |
| Netball
Come and learn the skills and techniques of netball in this fun club. Organised by Mrs Taylor and Miss Rushbrooke. This club finishes at 4.15pm. There are no sessions on Monday 11 February 2019 or Monday 04 March 2019. |
Y3, Y4,
Y5, Y6 |
£6 |
Tuesday
| Dance
Join Miss Marsden to learn fun dance routines to perform at a dance festival in April 2019. This club finishes at 4.15pm and continues until Tuesday 23 April 2019. There is no session on Tuesday 12 February 2019. |
Y1, Y2,
Y3 |
£9 |
| Basketball
Come and learn the skills and techniques of basketball in this fun club. Organised by City of Leeds Basketball Club. This club finishes at 4.15pm. There is no session on Tuesday 12 February 2019. |
Y3, Y4, Y5,Y6 | £7 |
Wednesday
| Gymnastics
A fun way to keep fit while learning new skills. Organised by Leeds Gymnastics Club. This club finishes at 4.15pm. |
Y1, Y2,
Y3, Y4, Y5 |
£8 |
Thursday
| Mindfulness
Join Miss Marsden and try a range of mindfulness techniques, both creative and physical. This club finishes at 4.15pm. |
Y1, Y2, Y3 | £8 |
What is a drug?
In Living and Learning, as taken from our long term plan, we will be focusing on drug education for the next two weeks.
Our first statement for this learning is, I know what a drug is.
Our definition of a drug refers to a substance people take to change the way they feel, think or behave. The word ‘drug’ includes:
- All legal drugs, including tobacco, alcohol, solvents and volatile substances, misused medicines and legal highs
- All illegal drugs
- Prescribed and over-the-counter medicines
On Thursday and Friday of this week, we welcome d:side, a health education provider, to school to deliver drug education workshops to each class as part of this learning.
Parents and carers are invited to come to an information session, led by d:side, on Thursday 24 January from 2:45-3:15pm. Please inform the office if you would like to attend.
More marvellous comments about Moortown
On Tuesday, a Local Authority advisor (who happens to also be an Ofsted inspector) visited Moortown. We invited him in because we’re always keen to get a second opinion on our practice and to be offered any suggestions to keep getting more and more effective. The visit involved visiting four classes in school (Y1, Y2, Y3 and Y5) and looking at Writing and Maths books in Y2, Y4 and Y6. The advisor’s report is really positive. Here are some comments from it.
The lesson observations evidence that without exception, teachers have high expectations of the children in their care. They each demonstrated good subject knowledge and an age appropriate awareness. Subsequently, children across the four observed year groups behave well and were attentive and responsive to the teacher.
Teacher pupil relationships in this classroom are secure. Children responded to the ‘3,2,1 stop’ command with immediacy and it is clear that the children are happy and comfortable in the teacher’s care.
…the… teacher’s enthusiasm was infectious… The [reading] lesson, led from the hall… was managed well… All pupils engaged with the activity well and competent questioning from the teacher enabled pupils to demonstrate their understanding. At a later visit to the classroom where children were completing a summary paragraph about a web page, the same teacher zest was evident. The children were entirely focused on the learning and when challenged could explain the purpose of the exercise and the learning. The use of an ‘erm’ game engendered a great deal of controlled exuberance from the children who are clearly enjoying this style of teaching.
Outcomes had been clearly modelled and when asked, the children were able to explain their learning. The use of mood photographs had been neatly aligned with the school’s current Living and Learning statement and was effective in providing the children with a purpose to write.
Looking at books from alternate years clearly evidenced the impact of teaching on progress with work becoming more sophisticated as they advance through the school. Without exception and in both English and maths books, the work is aligned to the age related requirements of the national curriculum.
In each year group, high demands in productivity and neatness are evident in English books. Opportunities to write at length are particularly impressive in Y4 and Y6. In Y4 for example, pupils are given the freedom to change characters or settings based on their reading, researching and planning from high quality texts. These opportunities allow the most able to demonstrate their flair for language whilst even the lowest ability perform well in advance of what would have been expected… Such challenge is ensuring this group in particular are making excellent progress. The same can be echoed in Y6 where exercises are planned to add value to learning. The complexity of sentence structure and use of evocative vocabulary for the middle and higher ability Y6 pupils is extremely impressive. Meanwhile, through the demand and expectation to keep up with their peers, the progress of the lower ability pupil was equally impressive.
Without being overly demanding of teacher’s time, marking and feedback is of the highest quality. The use of symbols to indicate where pupils should edit or improve their work is met with purple pen action that clearly has an impact on learning over time.
In Maths, the pace of teaching is effective in embedding learning. Positively, the demand for even the least able to access the same body of learning as their more able peers is having a definite impact on their progress over time.
…there is evidence to show that even the most able are challenged to their limits. And without exception, the requirement for pupils to correct errors or respond via same day intervention is another positive driver for accelerating the progress of the many rather than the few.
The report also contains three useful, but quite specific, recommendations which we’ll work on.
