Message from the Executive Headteacher
Welcome once more to our Federation newsletter! This edition celebrates the incredible achievements and hard work of our children as we pass the half-way point of this half-term. As we welcome more seasonally appropriate weather, I have enjoyed seeing children using the outdoor environment in their lessons this week. Outdoor learning and Forest School provide dynamic environments for primary school children to explore, learn, and thrive. The natural world becomes their classroom, stimulating curiosity and creativity. Children develop vital skills like problem-solving and teamwork while fostering a deep connection with the environment, promoting holistic development and a love for nature. We are hooked! We’re planning for some mixed sessions, in which Whittington and Morda children and staff work together to explore nature. This week saw the final Cross-country event of the school year. Each of our schools has been ever-present at the events and this was a fitting way to end the season. Cross-country running offers primary school children invaluable benefits and I adore watching it. It fosters good physical health, teaching endurance and strength. Mental resilience is developed as children tackle challenges and overcome obstacles and team spirit flourishes as children bond with peers. Most importantly, it instills a lifelong love for fitness and outdoor activities. Watching children make progress through the events and through the years is a joy. In an event of hundreds of children, we had some notable individual and team success. Well done, all. You’ve made us very proud. Enjoy the long weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher Morda Art has been a focus this half term and we are enjoying seeing lovely displays of artwork around the school. The Bluebells have been inspired by their Castles topic and are making collages by cutting and sticking in the style of the artist Paul Klee. In the Daffodils, the focus is painting, and children have been inspired by the work of Georgia O'Keeffe, an American artist who painted nature and is best known for her paintings of flowers and desert landscapes. The Roses class have studied the work of Fernand Leger, a forerunner of POP ART. They have created some funky, abstract paintings using geometric shapes to represent the key features of Oswestry Town. In the Shamrocks, children are working on their line drawing skills and have studied Maria Sibylla Merian they will be creating a final piece based on life-cycles and metamorphosis in the style of Merian. This term, we have been developing our computing curriculum. Teachers have been delivering weekly computing lessons, children are learning computer coding and are enjoying using the Scratch and Scratch Junior programs to develop this important IT skill. Pupils are really impressing us with their use of IT. Outdoor learning has featured significantly in Key stage 1 this week, with children doing lots of planting and Forest School learning in the spring sunshine. We continue to focus on Compassion in our worship, and we have all been thinking of ways in which we can show compassion by caring for our environment – starting with our own school. The cross-country team have competed again at the Marches this week, it was great to see some new enthusiastic runners on the team. Well done Morda! Have a lovely long weekend, Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School
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Message from the Executive Headteacher
Welcome to another vibrant edition of our weekly newsletter. With the spring sun gracing our schools this week, our children continue to shine even brighter with their dedication and hard work! It's been a week filled with joyful learning and positive energy, as our children develop their curriculum themes with enthusiasm and curiosity. Time spent in class has shown that children have made brilliant progress this year and this shows no sign of slowing in the summer term. From imaginative storytelling and brilliant writing, to mathematical speed and fluency, achievement and effort radiates from our school community. On Tuesday we held a Full Governing Body meeting at Whittington. Governors met to consider health and safety processes across the Federation, on which Ms Suzanne Warner takes the lead. It’s not one of the more glamourous aspects of school life but it’s a good example of an area in which governors challenge and support to ensure that school leaders are doing what is needed to keep children and staff safe in school. We also updated on our Federation Strategy plan to see that we are on track to achieve the goals that we set ourselves for the first year. We’re all delighted with how this first year of collaboration is going, with best practice in each school being shared to the advantage of all. I’ve been delighted to see some Forest School in action this week. With Whittington’s site now being ready for class use, Badgers and Otters will be getting stuck in next week. In the meantime, Ivy class have had the pleasure of using Morda’s brilliant Forest School to enrich their outdoor learning opportunities. Purposeful silence is being used really nicely in class, with children reporting positively on having time to reflect enjoy a little bit of quiet. Please continue to explore at home! Have a great weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher Morda It has been another busy week at Morda. Work on the School House is well underway now, so we can’t access the area for the moment. This means we have less space at lunch and break times, but as the weather is improving we hope to be able to get on the school field for lunchtime play very soon. Please make sure your child brings in their PE trainers every day so they can change into them if they are playing on the school field. The Shamrocks class are working hard on their reading, spelling, grammar and maths as we approach the KS2 assessment week. We try to keep this week as stress free as possible for children, and as part of this we will be offering our Year 6s a delicious, nutritious (and free) SATS breakfast during the test week, so that children start the day calm, fuelled and ready to do their best. Some of the classes have been thinking about what is ‘value for money’ in their PSHE and discussing whether the things we buy are what we really need or just what we want. Children had to make some hard decisions about what they would spend their money on if they were in control of a budget. We say goodbye and good luck to Ms Walker, a trainee teacher in the Roses Class, who has been working with us all term. We wish her well at the start of her teaching career. We are confident she will be a great teacher! In our assemblies this week, we have focused on Compassion and being kind to our ‘neighbours’, whether they were our family, friends in school, people in the local community or our neighbours across the world. We also talked about the importance of forgiveness, how Jesus forgives us and how we need to be forgiving of others. We thought about the importance of saying sorry and showing you mean it by not doing the same thing again, Have a lovely weekend Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
We’ve had a really productive week in our schools with our curriculum focuses picking up pace. We’re very fortunate to have such exciting opportunities for learning, though this is of course no accident. Each school was worked really hard to make sure that our curriculum themes are exciting, purposeful and engaging. This term’s history focuses are a great example of this. In each of our schools, a consistent approach to the management of behaviour, with an emphasis on good relationships and positive recognition are highly valued. Our three school rules are known by all of our children and help us to keep everyone safe and happy in their learning. This half term, our focus for behaviour is ‘purposeful silence.’ Each of our schools has a wonderful working buzz that we are very proud of. Throughout the school day children are chatty and noisy in a wholly positive way. We would never want to be the sort of schools that have silent corridors or unsmiling children who are frightened to speak to friends and adults that they meet. Whilst we value the atmosphere that we have worked hard to develop, we also know that times of quiet are really important and, children tell us, needed to support effective learning. In order to have a vibrant learning environment, we need to know that our children can be silent when we need them to be. To this end, we will be using purposeful silence to our advantage this half term. This means that all children will be using short periods of quiet to benefit us in our learning. For our youngest children this may just be a few moments, and for our oldest children this means that we will aim to use really quiet and focused times in class to support effective learning. This will of course be undertaken in our own ‘Pathway’ way, which means that it will be celebratory and in no way punitive. Please do try using short periods of quiet and home and see how you get on! Oh Thursday of this week I had the pleasure of joining both of our schools for the third cross-country event of the year. Everyone gave it their all and were rewarded with some excellent performances. Well done to all involved. Have a wonderful weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher Morda In this week of sunshine and showers, pupils have been working hard on their new topics and enjoying getting out in the sun whenever we have had a break in the weather. Our new lunchtime choir club started on Monday, led by Beatrice Floyer-Acland, a professional singer and music teacher from Shropshire Music Services. It was wonderful to hear the lovely singing coming from the STEAM room. We hope that the choir will be able to learn some songs to perform later in the term. Throughout school, children have been producing some wonderful writing inspired by our MoE drama and topics. The Bluebells class discovered a strange large egg in their classroom. Having realised this was a lost dragon egg, the children were desperate to make sure the egg was safe, so they wrote posters and letter to the dragon mother about the lost egg, so she could retrieve it . When the children came into class on Wed morning, it was clear that the dragon had visited! There was chaos– dragon slobber on the floor, chairs overturned etc. The dragon mother had visited and taken back her egg! We had wonderful engagement from children and parents in this dramatic adventure! In the Daffodils, children are working hard on fantastic presentation, and have begun to write about the Victorian Morda Workhouse. Children already know a huge amount about the conditions inside the workhouse, they have been working in role as children in the workhouse. The Roses Class are a team of historical programme writers, commissioned to make a video about the Anglo-Saxon in Britain. We have been transported to the Battle of Hastings on Senlac Ridge in October 1066. We used paintings of the battle, images from the Bayeux Tapestry and extracts from Tony Bradman’s book Anglo-Saxon Boy to help us recreate the battle. Children then wrote some wonderful in role descriptions of the event. Meanwhile, the Shamrocks class have been inspired by an animation to write character and setting descriptions as they work towards their end of key stage writing portfolio. In science, across the school, pupils are working on plant growth and living things and their habitats. Some children have been planting seeds, others have been observing the effect of different conditions on plant growth. On Thursday, our hardy Morda Cross Country Running Team competed in the mud and rain at the Marches School. Children ran really well and were a credit to the school. A great team effort for Team Morda! Our behaviour focus this term is ‘Purposeful Silence’. In our busy, happy, bustling school, it is important to have the opportunity to reflect or work in silence sometimes. We are working hard on having some silent reflective times in our worship and in class. Have a lovely weekend. Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
We have reached the end of a short but action-packed spring term. As we head into a well deserved two-week break, we can reflect upon all that has been achieved in our schools. There has been so much high quality learning this term, with a geographical focus in our curriculum, and I have been so impressed with the progress that children have made. Linked to our geography, look out for the letter sent today detailing our plans for our first ‘International Day’ on Thursday April 8! This week is the last week of our focus on the core value of ‘Courage’. To us courage means that we embrace new and challenging experiences. We have reminded ourselves of all that we have learned and, as is typical in the final week of a focus, we have encouraged the children to think about what the value means to them personally. Our school values are really important to us in daily life. These are the principles that drive our behaviour. We want our children to develop their own set of personal values as they decide what is most important to them in life. It has a been a week of performances, as we take time to remind ourselves of the importance of the Easter message. On Wednesday, I was privileged to see the Morda Primary performance in St. Oswald’s Church. In a play written and performed by the children, there was a mixture of poignance and joy, as it right at this time of year. As I write this, I am excited to see the children of Whittington perform at St. John’s Church this afternoon. On Thursday, we welcomed Cllr Martin Bennett to Whittington Primary School. Mr Bennett is a governor in our Federation of schools and as well as enjoying a tour of the school, Mr Bennett gave a short history lesson on the pre-decimal system to our Year 6 children. He even brought some coins for us to view! We’ll look forward to welcoming him to Morda soon. As ever, our thanks goes to our whole school community for their support and challenge this term. I hope that you are all able to enjoy a relaxing and fun-filled break as we get excited for the Summer term! Happy Easter Mr Carl Rogers ( Executive Headteacher) Morda We have had an extremely busy end to the term with everyone working at full tilt right up to the holiday. Last week children completed Spring Assessment Week at Morda to help inform teachers overall judgement of your child’s progress. We try to keep the testing as stress free as possible and use the tests as a guide to help teachers verify their ongoing everyday assessment of your child. Children have taken maths and reading tests was no test for writing, instead teachers look at four pieces of work your child had completed over the term and checked these against specific criteria to form their judgement. For Science and Geography this term, your child has completed a ‘post learning mind map’ showing the knowledge they have acquired over the term. Younger children tell their teachers what they remember and the teacher notes this down. Most children love doing their post learning mindmaps and they are very proud to show off what they have learned ! You may have heard in the news recently, that school meal provision in some schools has been found to be lacking. I strongly believe that children deserve a nourishing, healthy and tasty school lunch – and I think we provide that at Morda. Meals are made with care in the Whittington School kitchen using fresh, high-quality ingredients and the menu has good variety of meals and generous portions including fresh salads, fruit and vegetables every day. However, don’t take my word for it! I asked the children who have school dinner what they thought of their meals using and was very encouraged by the results. A large majority of children told me that they enjoy their school meals, think they get good portions and have sufficient choice. We will continue to try to make our school meals more enjoyable and healthier for all our children. Next term we will be focusing on encouraging everyone to have a ‘Healthy Summer Snack’ - please read the letter with details of this from Mr Rogers. This week Mrs Knight our lovely music/RE and computing PPA teacher left for her maternity leave. We wish her well for her forthcoming new arrival. Mrs Helen Jones our fantastic Reading Champion and Roses teaching assistant also finished her time in those roles at Morda, however we will still be seeing her at school in her role as Positive Leap Tutor and as a reading volunteer. We are determined to continue to develop the great curriculum work that these staff have started. The highlight of this week had to be the incredible Easter Service at St Oswald’s Church on Wednesday. The Year 6 children had written an innovative version of the Easter story themselves in the form of new reports. Well done to Mrs Holmes and the Shamrocks teaching team for helping children to create such a fantastic script! The church was packed, the children performed the Easter story so well and captivated the audience. The whole school sang and behaved beautifully. It was a wonderful ending to a vibrant Spring term. Wishing you all a wonderful, restful Easter holiday. Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
What a week! There has been fantastic learning in evidence with a noticeable literary theme across our schools. Creating a culture of reading for enjoyment is something that we are passionate about, and our children demonstrated their love of books in abundance this week. Dressing up for World Book Day was a lot of fun and there was clearly a lot of thought contributed to the ideas on show. Thanks to everyone for getting involved. We hope that this enabled you to have some interesting discussions about your favourite books at home. For us, in many ways, every day is World Book Day, and we are excited to use opportunities such as this week as an emblem of our love of books. To keep the momentum going, we encourage daily reading (to and with) children. Little and often is the best way! It’s been another week where we’ve been able to see our young athletes in action. Our Girls’ Football teams performed brilliantly on Wednesday at the Marches and then our Cross-Country teams were back again to enjoy running in the mud on Thursday. A very well done to all involved. All of the events of this week have been in keeping with our value of focus – Courage. Embracing new and challenging experiences is what we do! Have a great weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher Morda This has been a fantastic sport, space and reading filled week at Morda ! The week started with Roses (Years 4 and 5) visiting the Marches School for a fab morning of Science, Food Tech and Art activities. The children travelled to the far reaches of the galaxy in the amazing planetarium; they took part in the ‘Tea Cake Challenge‘ and designed, made and ate a scrumptious desert and did some beautiful mixed media art. Everyone enjoyed the session and a taste of life at secondary school. Tuesday was International Mars Day. Classes joined live steamed lessons from UK Space Education Office and the European and UK Space Agency. Children listened to interviews with Tim Peak, found out about Astronaut training and the on-going Mars mission. On Wednesday, a team of our Year 5/6 girls took part in an interschool football; tournament. They played really well and were a credit to the school! Go Girls! Thursday was a fabulous, fun-filled World Book Day. Children and staff looked amazing, dressed as favourite book characters and were able to talk about the books they loved and why. Cruella Deville (aka Mrs Helen Jones!) organised a great assembly where everyone had a chance to show off their costumes. Check out our Facebook pages for some fantastic photos. In class, children joined the BBC World Book Day online lesson and some classes also joined Scholastic author book events. At the end of the day, there was a brilliant used book sale organised by Mrs Jones and some Year 6 children. Children went away with literally armfuls of books and we raised some funds for the Shamrocks class ‘STARBOOKS Reading Challenge’. On Thursday, we also said a fond farewell to the lovely Mrs Ellis our Office Manager. We said goodbye in our special Morda fashion with a song and the famous ‘Morda Arch’. We wish Mrs Ellis all the very best in her new post. We will miss her! Have a super weekend, especially all the mums. We hope your children spoil you! Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
Another courageous week of learning in our schools! We’re all enjoying this shared value of ‘Courage’, which to us means we embrace new and challenging experiences. Discussions this week have been to encourage getting out of our comfort zones to do something new. Quite often, when we think of courageous acts, something physical comes to mind. Overcoming a fear of heights, for example. These acts clearly do take courage, but so do smaller acts that aren’t so clear and obvious. Having the courage to ask a new friend to play, or to admit that you are wrong, or to ask for help, are all things that we should value as part of an exploration of this value of focus. I hope that you’re able to find some time to discuss this at home this weekend. Elsewhere this week, I had the pleasure of joining Bluebells class, at Morda, on their visit to Xplore. Playing the role of bus driver, it was a pleasure to observe the conduct of our children and the excellent manners that they demonstrated. Being polite and having good manners are a focus for us in our schools this half term and it’s particularly noticeable that, when out in the community, our children consistently receive praise for their politeness and good manners. Well done everyone! Let’s keep up the good work! Next Thursday is World Book Day, with lots of reading-themed fun in our schools. We aim to make this manageable for parents and I’d like to remind that dressing up for the day is supposed to be fun, optional and inexpensive. Please don’t feel the need to go out and buy new costumes especially for the day. Enjoy the weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher Morda Understanding money in the real world is an important skill to learn at a young age. This week a team from Xplore Wrexham came in to help our children learn more about money and the importance of budgeting and saving. All classes took part in fun, interactive sessions: playing games to help them to recognise money, learn how to save money and understand how a building society and bank accounts work. They also talked about earning money - maybe by doing some chores at home!! On Tuesday, Bluebells Class visited Xplore, the scientific discovery centre in Wrexham. They had a lovely time learning how things worked and having lots of hands-on experiences. The class took part in a space workshop and fired rockets to space, looked at the materials needed for spacesuits and life in space. All of the children were very well behaved and had a great time. Thank you to the parent helpers who accompanied the children. All the classes have a geography focus this half term and children have been doing lots of map work in their geography lessons. It has been great to see how knowledge of mapping develops through the school, from using simple drawn local maps and plans, to using globes and atlases, to finding information from political, physical, topographic and climate maps to using detailed aerial photographs and Ordinance Survey maps. The Shamrocks class have been learning about the mountains of the world. In their Mantle of the Expert lesson, they became a Mountain Rescue Team and rushed to help a climber who had become injured on the mountainside. Check out the class blog for the full, exciting, dramatic story! The Shamrocks pupils have also produced excellent information texts about mountains. Our school council presidents have been busy thinking of ways to improve playtimes. They have ordered new play equipment from money raised on our Sleep Week Pyjama Day. They also plan to organise a ‘Morda’s Got Talent’ competition in the summer term. Watch out for more information! Have a great weekend. Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
In this first week of the half-term, as we enter the second half of the school year, we introduced our value of focus. For the next five weeks, in both schools, we will be exploring ‘Courage’ and what it means to us. At Pathway Primary Federation, ‘Courage’ means that ‘we embrace new and challenging experiences.’ Our challenge for this week has been linked to a timely reminder that being courageous does not mean that we are never afraid. F. D Roosevelt once said ‘courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something is more important than fear.’ I challenged the children to consider a time when they have overcome feelings of fear or nervousness to do something great. This week, we welcomed our School Improvement Adviser (SIA) from the Local Authority, Mr John Rowe, to both of our schools. I spent Tuesday morning (Morda) and Wednesday morning (Whittington) discussing our school development plans and sharing the wonderful work that is taking place in our schools. Mr Rowe was very impressed with what he saw and was especially complimentary about the conduct of our children when visiting lessons. The challenge and support that he provides is of great benefit to our schools. Elsewhere this week, a huge well done to our Year 6 Dodgeball team at Whittington who, after success in the local tournament, this week came 1st in the regional competition! I was very pleased to be able to meet with Liz Jermy (Foodbank Manager) on Friday to discuss our working relationship. I’m honoured to be a trustee at the Foodbank and appreciate the incredible work that they do in our community. They are very proactive and have even provided both of our schools with toothpaste and toothbrushes to give out to children! We’ll end the week with a flourish today, with #HotChocFriday and our end of week Celebration Worship. Deserved positive recognition for brilliant children. Enjoy the weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher MORDA We have launched full steam ahead into the half term’s learning. This half term our humanities focus is geography. The Bluebells class are looking at the world from above. Their topic ‘Out of this World’ teaches the children to use aerial views and simple maps to look the school, Morda village, the UK and the world continents and Oceans. In their Mantle of the Expert drama, children travelled to the moon at looked at the earth from space. In the Daffodils Class, the children are studying the city of Liverpool UK City study Liverpool looking at the settlement and land use. They are particularly focusing on the environmental issues around Liverpool’s waterways and tourism. The class have also been helping to protect local natural habitats in their Mantle of the Expert Drama. The Roses class have become a team of Eco Tourism planners. Their challenge is to plan an eco-friendly tour of Europe, visiting many of the beautiful natural environments, bustling cities and important landmarks on the way- but trying to make sure that tourists do this in a way that doesn’t damage the environment. Meanwhile, the Shamrocks class have begun to study how mountains are formed and look at mountains ranges around the world, exploring mountain biomes and the impact of humans on these areas. Several of the classes have enjoyed special Mantle of the Expert (MoE) sessions with Luke Abbott (international MoE trainer) this week. He has been very impressed by the children’s thoughtful dramatic learning. Our assembly core value this term is ‘Courage’ and we have all begun to think about what courage means to us at Morda. We decided that courage was not the absence of fear, but doing or trying something that is a bit scary because it is an important thing to do or learn. We decided that at Morda ‘We embrace new challenging experiences’. With this in mind, some of year 5 and 6 went for their first swimming lesson on Thursday. Everyone enjoyed their first swimming lesson everyone tried very hard regardless of their previous experience and any worries they may have had about the session. I’m sure they will make fantastic progress under the careful guidance of Mrs Jermaine-Jones, our expert swimming coach! Wishing you a very happy weekend Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
We’ve reached the end of a very focused half-term of learning in our schools. In each school, we have used our values to centre our learning and to explore complex themes together. I’m excited that next half-term we will be considering our mutual value of ‘Courage’. Look out for lots of courageous learning and the embracing of challenging opportunities! Children’s Mental Health Week has been prominent in both schools with our brilliant teams taking the lead. Mrs Vaughan and others have been promoting the value of good sleep and giving the children strategies for building resilience and managing their emotions. And the children have been able to wear pyjamas to school! It’s been wonderful to be a part of it and I’m very proud that our schools place the well-being of our children at the heart of what we do. On Thursday this week I attended the final Indoor Athletics competition at the Marches and again cheered on our teams. Morda and Whittington put in brilliant performances and their conduct and sporting attitudes were exemplary. Well done to Mrs Edwards, Mr Wright and the children. We have ended the half-term with a day of Positive Noticing. Our focus has been ‘Be Smart’ and we’ve been giving out special stickers to children modelling exemplary conduct, presentation and uniform. We are coming back to another short half-term but you can be assured it will be action-packed in the run up to Easter! Wishing you all a great weekend and an enjoyable half-term break. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher This Week at Morda This week has been full of drama and performances! On Monday the Roses class were treated to a seeing the Marches production of ‘Shrek the Musical’ The children loved the performance – and they certainly didn’t want to sleep through any part of this fab production. It was great to spot ex–Morda pupils performing so well in the musical. Back at school children were encouraged to keep a daily log of their sleep patterns in their sleep diary. All classes watched age-appropriate educational videos about the importance of getting a good night’s sleep. We learned that electronic screens in bedrooms, drinking caffeinated drinks and going to bed worried can all make for disturbed nights. We practised some mindfulness techniques to help us feel relaxed and ready for bed. We talked about good bedtime routines and how to best prepare for a restful sleep. A number of children helped Mrs Vaughan to create our very own Worry Monster – a friendly monster who will ‘eat’ the worries we post in his mouth. A worry shared is a worry halved! On Tuesday, the Shamrocks took part in a fantastic Tudor drama led by dramatic inquiry expert Tim Taylor. Classes also took part in the BBC Safer Internet Lesson and learned how to keep safe online by playing games on the www.thinkuknow.co.uk website. Mrs Vaughan, our Well Being lead and Learning Mentor, taught all the classes how to do some relaxing back massage and storytelling with her ‘Back stories’ session. Our worry monster collected children’s worry notes at lunch time and in the afternoon pupils enjoyed experiencing some relaxing herbal scents. The Shamrocks even made some herbal teas! After school Mrs Butler led a lovely afterschool bedtime story event. We had super feedback from parents and children. Twenty children from Years 2, 3 ,4 and 5 volunteered to take part in a live Dramatic Learning demonstration lesson with Tim Taylor. Around thirty teachers from other local schools watched the children take part in a fantastic drama lesson about an adventure on a mysterious craggy island. The children were fantastic, and the visiting teachers were very complementary about their amazing imaginations and the super work on display. On Thursday, the Roses, Bluebells and Daffodils classes had exciting drama sessions with Tim Taylor. The Roses tackled some online bullying, the Bluebells class voyaged the moon and the Daffodils class discovered a previously unheard recording of the Beatles! Our year 6 pupil ‘Worship Group’ led a super thoughtful Sleep Week assembly, dramatizing the story of Jesus calming the storm. In PE sessions children learned some relaxing yoga moves. By Friday, we were also so relaxed and sleepy we came in our PJs! Parents enjoyed a coffee, cake and helpful chat about improving children’s mental wellbeing and encouraging good sleep routines. Despite the casual dress, the children kept up the great learning and being ‘smart’ in the way they moved around school and got on with their work. Staff children moving smartly around school – and awarded children with stickers as part of a second ‘Positive Noticing Day’ In the afternoon, every child planted a spring bulb which they will take home and hopefully watch grow! After such a busy, but enjoyable end to the half term we are more than ready for a well-deserved rest! Have a lovely restful half term. Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
As we move into February, and the end of this first half term of the year, I’m delighted with the amount of progress in learning that is being made in our schools. Curriculum topics are developing a depth of learning and it’s wonderful to hear children recalling previous knowledge and building upon it. An example of this was Roses class (Morda) and their wonderful recall of knowledge about local Roman landmarks. This week has seen the second ‘Be Smart’ week of the half term, this time at Whittington. This has been a really useful opportunity to reset expectation about school uniform after some drift over time. I would hope that parents, in both schools, would agree that we get the balance right with uniform. We want children to take pride in their appearance and being part of a team and we also want parents to feel supported with a practical and positive approach. That said, feedback about how we can improve is always welcome. It was a pleasure to attend the second round of the Indoor Athletics competition at Marches this week. Morda and Whittington children competing side by side is a thing of beauty! The children performed brilliantly and we look forward to next week’s final. Next week is national Children’s Mental Health Week. There are lots of exciting activities taking place in our schools with a focus upon sleep hygiene. We will look forward to promoting the importance of good routines and habits and getting in some early nights! Have a great weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher Morda The weeks are rushing by. It is hard to believe that we only have one week to left to half term! There has been a ‘Space’ theme in the Bluebells and Roses this week. The Bluebells have been travelling to the moon and finding out about the first moon landing and exploring moon rock (check out their class blog pages). Roses class are becoming ‘star gazers’ and finding out all about the Hubble Telescope. They have been learning about the rotation of the earth and how we have night and day. The children have had fun exploring this phenomenon using torches and a globe. Roses artists have been busy creating Roman style mosaics of sea creatures. The Daffodils had a lovely Forest School bird watching session and are learning to identify the birds that frequent our school. They are taking part in the RSPB's Big School's Garden Birdwatch (check out some great photos on the Daffodils blog). The Shamrocks class have been researching Tudor Shrewsbury in preparation for their forthcoming trip to this historic town. On Thursday, the presidents of the school council presented their fundraising ideas to the whole school. They intend to raise money for more playtime equipment by holding a cake stall and having a sporty non-uniform day next half term (details to follow). There were lots of great suggestions for playtime equipment from the whole school. The school council have set up a suggestion box in the school hall for children to put their ideas about how to improve the school. We are very much looking forward to ‘Sleep/Mental Health Week’ next week and we have lots of restful, mindful activities planned. Please see the ‘Sleep Week’ information for more details. Wishing you a lovely weekend Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
We’ve had another great week in our schools. We started the week by reminding ourselves of our core Christian Values and the children were challenged to use a value of focus to direct them in their efforts this week. Children who made a special effort and went ‘Above and Beyond’ in their learning were rewarded throughout the week and in our Friday Celebration Worships. Our ‘Be Smart’ focus has gathered pace with children taking pride in their appearance and presentation and making a special effort to move around the school sites with care and consideration. After a very successful week raising the profile of looking smart at Morda, it’s Whittington’s turn next week! Our Local Governing committees, one for Whittington and one for Morda, have met in the last two weeks to discuss Special Educational Needs provision. We are so proud of our inclusive schools and the great work that takes place to support children with additional needs. We’ve navigated some windy weather this week and are hoping it settles for weekend. Many thanks for your continued support. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher The week at Morda It has been another packed week! As part of our focus on the value of ‘Fairness’, we have been thinking about ‘Treating others as you would like to be treated yourself’. We thought about what this might mean in practise and how we could by following this golden rule in our actions make other people’s lives happier. We also learned the story bible story of the ‘Talents’ and about the festival of Candlemass in our worship. We thought about how we can use out talents for the benefit of others and how we can let our inner light shine. The Morda Local Governing Body Committee met on Wednesday to discuss how we support children with specific needs in school. Mrs Kavanagh our SENDCO presented a report to governors which showed the great work all staff are doing to ensure all our children get the help they need to achieve their best. There has been some great cross curricular writing going on this week, with the Shamrocks writing diaries in role as King Henry IV in hiding in Shrewsbury on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth; the Roses exploring letters written by Roman Wall soldiers from a rainy Hadrian’s wall around 2000 years ago, and the Daffodils writing in role as the ’Fab Four’ at the height of the Beatles fame. On Friday Year 5 and 6 are taking part in a careers and computing session led by RAF STEM Ambassador Andy Cooksley. They will be finding out about the most up-to-date military computer technology. Wishing you a lovely weekend Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School |
AuthorMr R and Mrs C give you all the news. Archives
May 2024
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