Message from the Executive Headteacher

December is here and it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

We’ve held back the festive tide for as long as we could but no more! The opening of advent calendars today was accompanied by a Panto visit for the children of Whittington. Next week, the children of Morda will enjoy the performance, so no spoilers here. There will be plenty more festive fun to enjoy in the coming weeks.

My message to the children this week has been one of festive generosity. As we all got excited for our various advent calendars, we considered that now is the time to give thought to what we can do for others.

Whilst we look forward to receiving gifts, there is a unique pleasure to giving and I challenged the children to think about thoughtful gifts and gestures that they can give to others that do not require lots of money to be spent. I hope that this has led to some thoughtful conversations at home.

As a Federation, this week we have been very fortunate to continue our collaboration with Adrenaline Sports, with Alan inviting us to attend a speaking event with Dave Edwards (former Premier League and international footballer) and this weekend’s Santa Run. These are terrific opportunities for our children and we look forward to continuing to support these events in the future.

Have a great weekend.

Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher

Message from Morda

It has been another vibrant (if a little chilly) week at Morda!

The Shamrocks class enjoyed researching some interesting destinations in India for their tourist information brochures. In science they have been creating circuits and investigating the effect of different components in the circuit.

In the Roses class children have been reading and writing river poems. The children have produced some really beautiful descriptive poems and have learned a River poem by heart, which they performed in school with mush enthusiasm.

Daffodils class has been rescuing a whale in their mantle drama and retelling their adventures as a fantastic story. Jane Webber (Youth Church Worker) came in to present ‘Christmas in a Box’, bringing to life the Christmas story for the children.

The Bluebells have been searching for signs of winter- and they have found quite a lot this week ! The children have particularly enjoyed finding ways to free some trapped ( plastic) animals frozen in the ice in forest school !

All around school, there are signs of the festive season appearing. It has been lovely to hear the Daffodils and Roses practising Christmas carols in preparation for their visits to Hope House and the Orthopaedic Hospital Christmas Bazar next week. The whole school are busy rehearsing for our Christmas service and we are very excited to be going to the Theatre Severn panto next week …’Oh yes we are !’

Have a lovely weekend and keep warm!

Mrs Helen Chapman
Head of School

Message from the Executive Headteacher

Our last week of term before hitting the month of December! We’re doing a wonderful in our schools of keeping learning focused as the festive season approaches. There is no doubt that things begin to get more Christmassy from next week!

In each school, there will be plenty of Christmas events to enjoy so please do take some time to consider the dates shared by each school so that everything is in your diary.

This week has featured more Federation activity than others this term as we instigated school visits for staff and a shared Professional Development Meeting for teachers. Two members of Whittington staff visited Morda this week to get a taste of ‘The Morda Way’ and were glowing in their feedback about the school. They commented on the welcoming atmosphere, the conduct of the children and the ‘above and beyond’ efforts of the staff. We will look forward to arranging more visits for staff to visit our schools.

During Wednesday’s Professional Development Meeting, subject leaders met to discuss action plans for this year and ideas for working together. The discussion was rich and purposeful and gives me cause for optimism about improved opportunities for our children.

Teachers then met their age-group counterparts (e.g. Conker class (Whittington) and Shamrocks (Morda)) to compare standards in books and to discuss way of working together.

Feedback from staff was very positive. What a brilliant team we have!

Enjoy the weekend, and bring on the Advent calendars next week!

Mr Carl Rogers
Executive Headteacher

Message from the Head of School

This week Shamrocks Class completed the Lions club of Great Britain 'Roar' competition. This is a programme for Primary Schools designed to give a platform to young people be innovators and entrepreneurs. The challenge was to think big and positively and design products which could change the world. Year 6 worked in teams to design, produce and market innovative products to improve our lives. The children thought up and designed some amazing prototype products. They worked collaboratively and their ‘Dragons Den’ style pitches were fantastic! This programme was generously funded by the Oswestry Lions Club. The winning Morda entry, by AJ Jones, Kia James and Mike Jones has gone forward into the national competition.

We held another successful Parent Open morning this week. Prospective pupils and their parents enjoyed looking around the school and seeing great work. Morda and Whittington staff had a productive shared staff meeting on Wednesday evening where subject leaders had the opportunity to exchange ideas and work together.

Art club (which meets on a Tuesday after school) have produced a beautiful exhibition of collage art inspired by sacred depictions of the baby Jesus and Mother Mary. The art is displayed in the Steam Room.

As the season of advent begins next week, we are all looking forward to the Christmas celebrations at school. We have already begun learning Christmas carols and working towards our Christmas nativity service which will be held at St Oswald's Church on the 13th of December. This is always a wonderful event and we look forward to welcoming parents to the festive service.

Mrs Helen Chapman
Head of School 

​Message from the Executive Headteacher

This has been an action-packed week in our schools, with many aligned events taking place. As you will read in the contributions of our Heads of School, this week has contained many activities and initiatives linked to national Anti-Bullying Week.

I’m very proud of the ways in which our schools have approached this week. The children in both schools have demonstrated a clear understanding of what bullying is and what they would do if they felt that they, or a friend, were being bullied in school.

Our definition of bullying is:

‘behaviour by an individual or group, usually repeated over time, that intentionally hurts another individual or group either physically or emotionally. This can happen in person or online’.

Children understand what behaviours might indicate bullying and are prepared to use our shared value of courage to stand up to bullies.

Elsewhere in our Federation this week, we have enjoyed ‘Mantle of the Expert’ workshops with the brilliant Luke Abbott and Tim Taylor. These workshops have focused on dramatic contexts for enquiry and the children have absolutely love them.

We also held a Full Governing Body meeting that focused on the financial situations in our schools. I’m very appreciative of the governors that we have, who are relentlessly committed to providing the best educational opportunities to our children.

Have a great weekend.
Mr Carl Rogers
Executive Headteacher 

Message from Head of School 

It has been an extraordinary week of positivity at Morda!

We had ‘Odd Socks Day’ on Monday where both children and staff celebrated their individuality in a sea of uniquely different socks.

On Wednesday, the school embraced the spirit of 'Positive Noticing Day', recognising and commending the many achievements and positive interactions of our pupils. Children went home adorned with labels highlighting the great things they were spotted doing throughout the day.

This week, we were delighted to welcome back internationally acclaimed Mantle of the Expert (MoE) coaches, Tim Taylor and Luke Abbott, who supported our teachers in further developing their MoE teaching skills. All classes experienced captivating, imaginative drama sessions: from the Bluebells class handling a tricky fox situation, to the Daffodils class who were developing a forest settlement, to the Roses Class who helped a story character deal with a difficult bullying issue, to the Shamrocks designing a travel website for the Indian tourist board. The creativity and engagement displayed were truly remarkable.

Friday was a vibrant celebration of Children in Need Day, featuring colourful dressing up and a lively Pudsey Bear treasure hunt that added a touch of joy to our week.

In addition to these festivities, we are thrilled to announce that Morda School achieved fantastic results in the England Rocks times table competition. We proudly stand in the top 13 percent of the 5000 schools that participated, with the Roses class emerging as our top performers! Special certificates were awarded to many children for their excellent participation, and our top three times table champions are Cooper Littleford, Fletcher Dawson and Oscar Lehuwala Bandarage. Congratulations to our winners and everyone who took part!

What an amazing week it has been!

Wishing everyone a delightful weekend

Mrs Helen Chapman
Head of School 

Message from the Executive Headteacher
The Christmas countdown has begun!
We have completed this first week of the festive half-term and, in spite of some pretty miserable weather, there have been lots of wonderful things happening in our schools.

Children have been focused in their learning and have been enjoying the exciting curriculum opportunities that have been provided to them by their teachers.

​ Next week is national Anti-Bullying Week and both of our schools will be taking part. We will look forward to wearing our odd socks on Monday - to show that we are all different and all equal – and to learning about what to do if we think someone is being bullied. Linked to Anti-Bullying Week, both schools will be taking part in ‘Positive Noticing Day’ on Wednesday 15 November. This is in celebration of our relational approach to behaviour management. We will be going ‘pozzy’ crazy and aiming for every child in each school to come home with positive recognition of something that they have done brilliantly in school. It’s going to be a lot of fun! Looking forward to another vibrant week. Have a great weekend. Mr Carl Rogers Executive Headteacher​

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 

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 : )