Message from the Executive Headteacher
It's the end of the first half term of Morda and Whittington primary schools working together as a federation. We have had eight weeks of action-packed and fun-filled learning in our schools and we can all be really proud of the efforts that have been made in our school communities in ensuring that this has been such a successful start to the school year. This has been a new challenge for me, as I split my time across these two wonderful schools, and I’ve been getting used to a new way of working. I feel that I have gotten to know Morda a lot better in this time and I have continued to be involved in exciting school development at Whittington. The similarities between our schools are clear and obvious and confirm that it is a good match for a formal collaboration. There have been enticing glimpses into the benefits of working as a family of schools in the past eight weeks, with our schools working together in sports, community events, and some shared curriculum development. I'm excited that this is just the beginning and there are sure to be additional opportunities for our school communities to work together to provide even better learning opportunities for our children. We’re continuing this collaboration today with some shared professional development for staff focusing on Relational Practice and how to positively manage behaviour in our schools. Eight weeks is as long as a half term gets in the school calendar, and I am very appreciative of all of the efforts of staff in making the end to this half term as successful as the beginning. I think everyone has earned a rest and a recharge before coming back energised to get involved with the run up to Christmas! Thank you to everyone for all of your support and challenge this half term. Wishing you a wonderful break. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher This Week at Morda What a wonderful end to the half term this week was been! Our ‘Eat Well’ Week has been full of 'Dare Devil Taste challenges'. Everyday children have tried a different bread and topping from around the world. Our taste challenges included: French baguettes and garlic bread, Polish crisp breads and sauerkraut, Indian chapattis and mango chutney and Persian flatbreads and hummus. Many children tried foods and enjoyed they had not eaten before. All classes did some work on health eating and the Eat Well plate and children were encouraged to think about their own diet and to keep a food diary for the week. Every class enjoyed cooking up and tasting their own breads as part of their history topics: a harvest loaf in the Bluebells; Ships biscuits in the Daffodils; Stone Age bread in the Roses and Islamic Bread in the Shamrocks. There were some 'interesting' flavours! The highlight of our week was our 'Harvest Celebration' at Morda Village Hall. Children from all classes helped to lead the service; they spoke confidently and sang beautifully. The harvest table looked spectacular, with a colourful array of fruits and vegetables, alongside the children's home cooked breads. We were delighted that so many families from the Morda community joined us for this act of worship. We were so proud of the children's fantastic performances and excellent behaviour. On Thursday the Roses class visited Woodlands Care Home and sang their harvest songs to the residents. It was lovely to see the joy on faces young and old. We will return in December to sing Christmas carols. Later that afternoon, the Roses class also enjoyed a fun afternoon of shelter building in our Forest School area, inspired by our class book 'Stig of the Dump' I wish all our families and staff a very happy half term holiday. Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School
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Message from the Executive Headteacher
This week has flown by as we reach new heights of learning in our school this half term. I’m really enjoy talking to children about what they have been learning in class and I’ve learned so much about Ernest Shackleton, The Great Fire of London, The Stone Age, The Romans and more. We have such exciting and deep curriculums in our schools and I hope that you’re able to find some time at home this week to quiz the children on their learning. We hosted another round of Open Day sessions in both schools this week and, again, it was a pleasure to show families around schools. I was overwhelmed with wonderful feedback about the conduct of our children and the learning environment that we provide. Last weekend’s ‘Oswestry 10k’ was a huge success and I’ve enjoyed seeing the photos that have been shared of our children cheering on the runners. We’ll look forward to being involved in other wonderful community events in the future. On Thursday I had a rare morning in PE kit as I supported our teams at the Tag-Rugby tournament at Oswestry Rugby Club. I was delighted with the children’s sporting conduct and I was thankful that the teams avoided each other and I didn’t have to cheer for a draw! Finally, it was Whittington’s turn this week to host a Local Governing Body meeting, in the form of the Teaching and Learning committee. These local groups, led by Heads of School, support individual school matters with a perfect balance of challenge and support. One more week to go! Have a great weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher. This week at Morda We have been pleased that so many parents have taken up the opportunity to speak to their child's class teacher at Parents’ Evenings and prospective parents enjoyed a lovely Open Day on Tuesday, including a visit to our Forest School, where a hedgehog hunt and wildlife lesson was taking place with the Daffodils group. On the subject of hedgehogs, the local Wildlife Trust group (for whom Mrs Kavanah volunteers) have donated a wonderful willow hedgehog for our garden school. Look out for a lovely picture on the Daffodils blog. As part of our push on reading, Mrs Helen Jones (our Reading Champion) has organised a library scavenger hunt. The Roses class enjoyed taking, looking for books from different genres, a range of authors and topics as well as newspapers and comics. They were introduced to the Dewey Decimal Classification system and were able to locate non-fiction books using alphabetical order to find the relevant number for the topic. Pupils were excited to find books that interested them, and have gained greater confidence in independently choosing books from the library. Daffodils and Shamrocks are looking forward to taking part in the library scavenger hunt soon! Throughout the school, everyone is busy completing this half term's topics and that includes a review of what the children have learned and remembered. We call this our 'Post Topic Mind Map' This is a chance for children to recap what they have learned over the past seven weeks and make a note of the key knowledge. We use our topic 'Knowledge Organisers' to quiz the children on what they have learned. We call this type of revision 'Retrieval Practice'. It is amazing to see how much information the children have absorbed. The 'Knowledge Organisers' for history, science, RE and art are on the website - so you can quiz your child at home. I am sure you will be impressed with what they can tell you. We are busy preparing for our Harvest Festival next week as part of our Eatwell week and we hope lots of parents will join us for the service in the village hall on Wednesday 25th October at 2.30pm. Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School Message from the Executive Headteacher
Writing this message at the end of the week is becoming one of my favourite ways to reflect upon all of the wonderful things that are going on in our schools. It is very easy, in the vibrancy of the school day, to overlook just how many brilliant opportunities for learning we provide and how ordinary they feel. This ordinariness is worth thinking about. One of my favourite ways of describing what an excellent education should look like, is that it should be strikingly ordinary yet quite extraordinary. This is certainly the approach that is in evidence in our federation of schools. Providing high-quality learning opportunities and memorable and enjoyable experiences for our children is just the norm. This week we have hosted Open Day sessions in both schools to allow prospective parents the opportunity to see learning in action. I really enjoy giving tours of our schools and parents have been entirely positive in the feedback that they have given. This weekend sees the return of the Oswestry 10k. Alan Lewis, the event organiser, is a friend of our school and we are delighted that he has thought of our federation in planning this brilliant community event. Children from Whittington will be at the finish line and we're hoping to see lots of Morda children lining the streets as the race runs through our village. To anyone in our school community taking part, we wish you the very best of luck and we will look forward to cheering you on! Have a wonderful weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher MESSAGE FROM HEAD OF SCHOOL MORDA 13/10/23 Morda Antarctic adventurers, Islamic storytellers and writing to the not so scary Funnybones Skeleton were some of the highlights at Morda this week! The Roses and Daffodils classes were treated to a wonderful talk and slideshow by Mr Mike Davies - who visited Antarctica last year. The children compared the historic voyages of Ernest Shackleton to a modern expedition. Both classes asked lots of great questions and impressed Mr Davies with their in-depth knowledge of Shackleton's historic journey (the Daffodils showing great learning this term and the Roses remembering the work they did on this two years ago!) The Shamrocks began exploring the classic Islamic story of 'Scheherazade and the Arabian Nights' through an exciting Mantle of the Expert drama. Meanwhile, in the Bluebellls, strange happening were afoot! The skeleton from the book Funnybones was leaving messages for the Bluebells class... and the Bluebells were incredibly busy writing back ! Alongside all this excitement, we had our first Morda ‘Teaching and Learning Committee’ Meeting and Morda Governors were able to monitor progress on our key school development plans. It has been lovely to see so many parents at our parent teacher consultation meetings. These meetings are a great opportunity to discuss pupils’ progress and work together with parents so children can achieve their best this academic year. There are more meetings scheduled next week. If you haven’t already, please book a meeting with your child’s teacher. On Thursday, we welcomed prospective parents and children on the first of two Reception Class open days. Mrs Lunt and Ms Butler organised a lovely introduction to the school and an opportunity to see our industrious Bluebells Class hard at work and enjoying their learning. Have a great weekend Mrs H Chapman (Head of School) Our new School Council Presidents were voted in on Friday 29th September.
Presidents: Adele Simonova and Fletcher Dawson Vice Presidents : Alexa Rockley and AJ Jones Well done to our new leaders. : ) Special certificates were awarded to the children below last week for going over and above in their work. Well done : )
Message from the Executive Headteacher
Another brilliant week completed! I’m finding it very hard to believe that we are already four weeks into this term. We’ve had an action-packed start to life as a Federation and we look forward to the abundance of fun that is yet to come this year. Year 6s from both of our schools attended Lifelines at Park Hall this week, and it was wonderful to hear the children in each school speaking about our collaboration, recognising our sibling-like status as schools! Working together at community events allows us to share our way of working and to celebrate the ethos of our schools. The conduct of the children was exemplary. Opportunities such as Lifelines leave me excited to explore the ways that we can work together to enhance the children’s experience and quality of learning. We’ve got dates in the diary for our first Federation Test Match (regular sports fixtures contested between our schools), are sharing meal provision (with Whittington providing meals at Morda), are working together on an exciting IT project and have exciting plans for a community carol service at Christmas! We are just getting started. Have a wonderful weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher Mr Carl Rogers Morda Week Teamwork, safety and democracy has dominated this week at Morda. On Tuesday the Shamrocks class attended the Rotary Club's Lifeline event at Park Hall. This annual event for local schools focuses on teaching children to keep themselves and others safe. The children had to work in teams through a range of interactive safety scenarios the Rotary Club's Lifeline event at Park Hall. It was also a chance for children from Morda and Whittington to work at an event together. We were very proud of the fantastic teamwork shown by all children - and it was great that a team from Morda and Whittington were presented with medals as joint winners! (See Shamrocks website blog for more info and photos) During the past couple of weeks, the campaign for our school presidential elections have been gaining pace. Campaign posters have been appearing around school and on Wednesday and Thursday, the presidential candidates presented their manifesto speeches at our assembly hustings to the whole school. Everyone spoke really well and had great ideas about how they would help to improve school as the leaders of our Year 6 School Council. Friday was voting day and after a very close election we are delighted to announce our new Morda School Council leaders: School Council Presidents: Adele Simonova and Fletcher Dawson Vice Presidents : Alexa Rockley and AJ Jones Congratulations to those pupils and well done to everyone who put themselves forward for election. Mrs Helen Chapman Head of School |
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