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North Leeds: Focus on Moor Allerton Hall Primary
School council members with deputy head Joanne Metcalf.
From an alien invasion to dressing up as book characters, learning is fun for pupils at Moor Allerton Hall Primary School.
The school in Roundhay – where more than half of pupils don’t speak English as a first language – specialises in bringing academic lessons to life in weird and wonderful ways.
The Lidgett Lane school’s 344 pupils held a special Book Week last week, where youngsters dressed as their favourite fictional characters and compiled lists of their favourite books.
In recent weeks, pupils have also taken part in a Second World War ‘evacuation’, while younger children have played host to a friendly ‘alien’.
Pupils on the school council are involved in organising events like Book Week – and new head Lesley McKay, who was grilled by council members during her interviews, believes the youngsters have a key role to play in shaping school life.
“We think children’s opinions are important,” she said. “The school council takes on a lot of responsibility and is involved in the day-to-day running of the school.
“Lots of schools are trying to make their curriculum much more creative now. It’s about raising standards and basic skills through making learning much more active and exciting.”
The different ways of learning at the school are reflected in its after-school clubs, which range from boxercise and cooking to recorder and ocarina groups.
Ongoing classroom projects include Year 1 and Year 2’s look at food, with pupils planning to run their own cafe for parents and staff by the end of term.
“The pupils in Years 1 and 2 will be getting parents to come along, taking orders, working out change and doing the baking beforehand,” Ms McKay said. “It’s basic skills but it’s an exciting way to do it.
“The foundation stage has an egg which has hatched as an alien and they’ve been learning more about the alien by sending him little messages.
“Through active ways of learning, we’re trying to improve those basic skills. We know we have to get those skills right but these are excellent ways of creative learning.”
The school council, run by deputy headteacher Joanne Metcalfe, is made up of two pupils from each class who are elected each year by their classmates.
Ms McKay, who joined the school from Brudenell Primary School in Hyde Park last February and officially started as headteacher at the start of the year, said she found her interviews with the pupils nerve-wracking.
“All of the other parts were easy to prepare for but I had no idea what they were going to ask me and they were so perceptive,” she said. “I was so on the spot and the governors were sitting behind them, so it was really hard.”
Almost 53 per cent of Moor Allerton Hall pupils don’t speak English as a first language and the school has pupils of Pakistani, Indian, African and eastern European descent, who travel from as far afield as Chapeltown and Harehills.
As a result, the school works hard to involve parents in school life, with an active PTA and a recently-established Friends of Moor Allerton Hall group.
Learning about acceptance and different cultures is also a major part of the curriculum, and the school achieves very good results from pupils who arrive with little use of English.
The school’s logo features a bird and a slogan, ‘Moor Allerton Hall gives children the roots to grow and the wings to fly’, which Ms McKay said was very apt for the school’s young attendees.
“The thing that really impressed me when I first came here is that everyone is willing to learn and all the children make progress,” she said.
“We know how to work with children from all sorts of backgrounds, from new-to-English children to special needs children, right up to those who are high flying.
“Everybody can be a high flyer at Moor Allerton Hall. It’s not just about academic ability, it’s the readiness to learn, wanting to do well and having a good learning attitude.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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