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
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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 |
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May 2024
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