We hope you enjoyed the Easter break.

Relationships and Sex Education

Coming up in the weeks commencing 02 June, 09 June and 16 June, children from Year 1 to Year 6 will take part in Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) lessons. These are part of our Personal, Social and Health Education curriculum (PSHE, or ‘Living and Learning’, as we call it).

We want parents/carers and pupils to feel assured that RSE is delivered at a level appropriate to both the age and development of pupils, and to feel safe to voice opinions and concerns relating to the provision.

The lessons are led by children’s class teacher. They take place in a safe learning environment and are underpinned by our school ethos and values.

Nationally, all primary schools are required by law to teach Relationships Education and Health Education. At Moortown Primary, we’ve provided RSE lessons successfully as part of Living and Learning for many years.

We refer you to these sections of our RSE policy:

1. Section 9 provides a list of the vocabulary that will be used (pages 7 and 8)
2. Section 11 includes an overview of the topics that will be covered (page 11 includes a table to show the learning across each year group)

We know that you may have some issues / concerns. If you’d like to find out more, discuss any concerns, or speak to someone in more detail about the teaching and learning planned for this important aspect of your child’s education, please contact Mrs Weekes.

Similarly, you have the right to request that your child be withdrawn from some or all of the lessons that can be regarded as ‘sex education’. For our school, this comprises lessons in Year 6 on what human reproduction is and how babies grow. Please see the government’s factual guide to RSE for parents: Understanding Relationships and Health Education in your child’s primary school: a guide for parents. If you wish to withdraw your Year 6 child from RSE, please contact Mrs Weekes to discuss the matter. See page 6 of the RSE policy for more information about your right to withdraw your child.

We’re committed to working in partnership with parents. Feedback indicates that the overwhelming majority of parents are highly supportive of our Relationships and Sex Education programme.

Attendance matters

Our whole school attendance figure up to the Easter holidays is 95.0%. The national figure for primary schools is 94.8% and it’s 93.3% for all schools. It’s great that we’re above the national averages.

• Reception:  94.5%
• Year 1: 96.0% – awesome attendance!
• Year 2: 94.7%
• Year 3: 96.7% – astounding attendance!
• Year 4: 94.1%
• Year 5: 96.2% – amazing attendance!
• Year 6: 91.5%

Well done and thank you to all of you who make sure their child attends school as much as they can.

Dermot O’Leary

Most of you will know Dermot O’Leary as a TV and radio presenter. Did you also know he’s a children’s author, too? On Tuesday, our older Junior Leaders visited another Leeds school where he was promoting his new book, Spy Fox and Agent Feathers.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

…peace.

At St James’ CE Primary School, we learn about Christian values that help us to become well-rounded citizens in society. Each half-term, we have a new Christian value that will be embedded into our collective worship and our reflection areas.

‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.’ (John 14:27)

This value is about positive harmony and healthy relationships between people. It involves spiritual as well as material security. Peace is a state of true wholeness, a state of wellbeing. This value promotes harmony, stability and security within the school and local community.

Christians believe that a dove is a symbol of peace. After the flood in the story of Noah (Genesis 5:32-10:1), Noah sends out the dove to see if the flood has subsided and that peace has been restored to earth.

Help at home!

The dove carrying an olive branch is a symbol of peace in Christianity.

Is Christianity the only religion to have a symbol of peace? Encourage your child to carry out some research about peace symbols.

Your child might also design their own symbol of peace to reflect who you are.

Look our for our Learning Updates next week. These ‘mini-reports’ are sent home at the end of the Autumn and Spring terms.

Compliments

I can give and receive compliments has been our Living and Learning statement this week. It’s all about being polite and making each other feel good about ourselves.

Help at home… Spend next week giving compliments to each other at home. Try to make sure the compliments are about what we’ve done and not just how we look – we’ve got more power to change what we do than how we look so these compliments can be much more effective. Some children find it hard to receive compliments, so this week of giving compliments might help, too.

Change makers

At St James’ CE Primary, we encourage and empower our children to take responsibility for issues in our locality.

During our recent Geography topic, Y2 children explored and reflected on issues around our school and suggested some improvements. Children expressed concerns over the traffic and road safety issues on Hallfield Lane. They investigated further, conducted fieldwork and presented their findings. Alongside the learning in Geography, the children focused their Reading and Writing learning on the importance of speeches. They had a go at writing their own speeches – the results were astounding!

This week, we welcomed Councillor Alan Lamb and traffic engineer Chris Proctor into our classroom, providing a platform for the children to voice their concerns. Our Year 2 children delivered their speeches skilfully and passionately, rousing our visitors to explore further action on the issues raised.

We look forward to welcoming Councillor Lamb and Mr Proctor back to our classroom to conduct further fieldwork and work together in making our locality safer.

Thinking of going on holiday in term-time?

From time to time across the year, we’ve let you know the impact of missing five days of school. We’ve thought about it in terms of Reading, Writing, Maths, Science, and the social and emotional aspects of school. Taking a week’s holiday during term-time means your child misses…

• over 4 hours of learning in Reading
• over 4 hours of learning in Writing
• over 5 hours of learning in Maths
• over 10 hours of learning in other subjects
• over 6 hours of opportunities for social time and play

Missing all this in one week means your child will miss significant chunks of teaching and will have gaps in their learning.

Schools are expected to issue penalty notices for unauthorised term-time absences.

The fine for school absences across the country is £80 if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.

If a parent receives a second fine for the same child within any three-year period, this is charged at the higher rate of £160. 

Fines per parent are capped to two fines within any three-year period. After this, legal action like a parenting order or prosecution is considered. 

So far this school year in Leeds, there have been 4,350 penalty notices issued.

Easter events

Check out this guide to help children and families in Leeds navigate their way through the Easter holidays. The guide’s has lots of free or low-cost activities for a range of ages, in the city centre and in your community.

 

Don’t forget our Easter service at St James Church on Wednesday at 2pm – we hope to see you there. 

Thank you if you managed to visit us this week for our second Topic Review session of the year. Please let us know your thoughts.

Thank you also if you made a contribution to today’s Comic Relief fundraising. We’ve raised a fantastic amount of £157.50 – well done!

There are four articles in this week’s message, one of which is a question for you: Do you know someone who might be interested in becoming a governor?

I can find solutions to different problems.

Our Living and Learning statement this week has been I can find solutions to different problems. This is a really useful one to practise at home, too. We all encounter problems – disagreements with family or friends, for example. In the long run, supporting your child to find their own solutions to problems is better than getting involved yourself.

Help at home. Spend time thinking about the solution more than the problem itself – this will help to move on. Look out for problems in a film or a story you’re enjoying together. Pause and discuss different solutions. If your child comes to you with a real problem, responses such as ‘How do you think you can solve this?’ can be really powerful. (Of course, remain sympathetic and reassure them you’re around if they need more help.)

Find each week’s Living and Learning statement in our calendar – look for the entry at the start of each school week.

Ofsted

You might not be aware that all three Sphere Federation schools have been inspected in the last year:

• Moortown Primary almost exactly one year ago, on 19-20 March 2024
• Scholes (Elmet) Primary two months later, on 21-22 May 2024
• St James’ CE Primary most recently on 21-22 January 2025

The inspections judge schools in five separate areas:

• the quality of education
• behaviour and attitudes
• personal development
• leadership and management
• early years provision

We’re delighted to say that all three schools have been judged to be good or outstanding in all the areas. (In fact, Early Years is judged to be outstanding in all three schools!)

The power of schools working closely together in Sphere Federation is a key part of this. The successful federation has many benefits, including:

• better, broader offer for pupils – both curricular & extra-curricular
• really effective professional development for staff
• better recruitment, succession planning and retention of staff
• close cooperation so teachers and support staff learn from each other
• greater capacity for innovation
• strong governance

Talking of governance…

Do you know someone who might be interested in becoming a governor?

Here are two extracts from the inspection reports about the Sphere Federation Governing Board:

Governors support and challenge leaders in equal measure. They ensure funding is available to support vulnerable pupils. They fulfil their statutory duties effectively.

(Moortown Primary, March 2024)

Governors are skilled and knowledgeable and fulfil their responsibilities well. They make regular visits to school. They use these visits to evaluate the impact of leaders’ decisions.

(St James’ CE Primary, January 2025)

Our Governing Board has vacancies – do you know anyone who might be interested in becoming a governor?

There are already quite a few governors who are parents, but if you feel you can add to our Governing Board, please let us know. If you’ve a relative or friend (not a parent of a child attending a Sphere Federation school) who might have the time and skills, please encourage them to consider taking on the role. It would be great to develop the diversity of the Governing Board, too.

Interested individuals should contact our Chair of Governors, Rachel Cooper: rachelcooper@spherefederation.org

 

Finally this week, West Yorkshire Police have asked us to share the following…

Vaping

Whilst more of a problem amongst older children, some children of primary age are regularly using vapes.

From time to time. we like to remind you of information and guidance on a particular subject. This week, check out our packed lunch guidance, part of our Food in School website page. Why not try one of the packed lunch top tips!

Watching and browsing online

According to Ofcom, 90% of children are watching online videos and browsing the internet regularly. Many children like to stream videos and look up information. It can be a fun way to learn and relax. However, they must be guided. The online world is filled with inappropriate content and dangerous material. It’s important that you’re able to steer your child towards the right places when online. Internet Matters has published a guide dedicated to supporting adults in setting digital boundaries for children so that they can make smart choices and build healthy online habits. You’ll find practical tips on managing content access, the use of safety controls, advice on setting boundaries and ways to educate children on how to stay secure online.

EYFS survey

Thank you to the Reception parents and carers who completed our recent survey. All those who expressed an opinion agree that…

• the transition into Reception was positive
• their child is happy at school
• we place a high priority on reading
• they’re happy with their child’s progress
• they’re happy with communication
• staff in Reception are approachable

We received some great feedback…

• We are really happy with how well [our son] settled into school and how much progress he has made since September. He loves coming to school, has made great friends and is thriving
• We are happy with our child’s progress and communication.
• We are really happy with how welcoming the school has been and how kind and friendly everyone is. [Our son] absolutely loves coming to school. He has had a great start to his school life at St James’.

We’re exploring all the comments, and we’ve passed on individual comments to the individual staff concerned.

Washing pods and capsules

Where do you keep your laundry and dishwasher washing pods? It’s quite common to store these in a cupboard low down. The Child Accident Prevention Trust has recently published guidance.

Finally, here’s another in our series of pieces about missing a series of days at school. This one relates to writing skills.

If your child was absent for five days in a row…

We typically teach writing in 2- or 3- week blocks. Children who miss five days struggle to access the learning in that whole block because they miss a large part of the sequence of learning. They might miss the initial lessons so they have no idea what they’re writing about or why; they might miss the teaching of key skills and the opportunity to practise these; or they might miss the opportunity to plan and write their own piece. They also miss the regular practice, and teaching, of handwriting, grammar, spelling and vocabulary.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

This week’s message is about Computing, our current topic…

This half-term, we’re developing our knowledge of computers and computer programming.

Computer programming is super. Creating games, animations and solving real world problems is fun and encourages creativity – it’s challenging, too!

Importantly, the skills your child will use and develop are transferable to other subjects and areas of life. For example, the concept of decomposition in programming is concerned with breaking down a large task into smaller chunks. This concept could be used when writing a story, solving a maths problem or tidying a particularly messy bedroom! The process of debugging is about identifying and fixing an error in a program. It requires systematic, objective thinking and plenty of resilience.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skill sand vocabulary. See pages 12 and 13 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Years 1 and 2

Children will learn about how technology is used beyond school in our homes and all around us. They’ll begin to consider what a computer is and isn’t.

In programming lessons, they’ll create animations in Scratch Jr by creating and debugging algorithms. They’ll then continue to use Scratch Jr to create an interactive quiz.

Years 3 and 4

Children will reason about what exactly makes a computer a computer. Is a games console a computer? Is a TV a computer? Is a bedside lamp a computer? Next, they will learn about inputs and outputs and identify different examples of them in everyday technology.

They’ll then be introduced to Scratch. They will learn how they can add or change sprites and backdrops and then begin to experiment with making their sprites move. They’ll look at programs created on Scratch and use logical reasoning to explain what will happen when these programs are run. They’ll learn about the importance of sequencing in programming when they recreate a well-known melody. Finally, they’ll create their own ‘band’ on Scratch by programming different instrument sprites to play sounds.

Years 5 and 6

Children will learn about what a computer network is and that the Internet is an enormous computer network. They’ll also learn about the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web.

In programming lessons, they’ll be introduced to BBC Microbits – pocket sized computers – which they’ll program to do lots of different things. This will allow children to gain a deeper understanding of concepts like sequence, selection and variables.

Some of this vocabulary may sound alien to you but, as the topic goes on, your child will be able to tell you what they mean and give examples of how they’ve used them in their projects. Some of the projects your children will be making are a magic 8-ball style program which will give you an answer to all your questions and a pedometer to count the number of steps they’re making.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. Class News is a good place to go to find out more about what your child’s up to in school.

The school library and local libraries have lots of books about coding and computer games which your child will be able to borrow and develop both their reading skills and computing knowledge.

Finally, try programming with your child. There are loads of programming apps and software available to download, often for free.

Here’s a list for Key Stage 1:

• Daisy the Dinosaur (Apple only)
• Beebot
• Tynker Junior
• Scratch Jr
• Code Karts

…And one for Key Stage 2:

• Lightbot
• Tynker
• Scratch Jr
• Scratch

We’re now well and truly into the second half of the school year and we hope it’s a happy and healthy one for your child at St James’ CE Primary. Positive relationships between home and school have a key role to play in ensuring this. We welcome your questions, comments and concerns. Do catch us at the start or end of the school day for any quick conversation, and for anything longer or more sensitive, please call us or arrange a meeting.

School dinners

Our school dinner menus have been updated. Check out the updated menus.

On the same website page, please check out the information about free school meals, too. Free school meals are available to all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. They’re also available to some older children according to family income. It’s important to register for entitlement to free school meals, even if your child has a packed lunch or is in a younger class – this is so we can receive additional funding (called the pupil premium) which we can use to help your child.

For the first half of the year, from September right up to the Spring half-term, out whole school attendance figure was 95.3%.

• that’s higher than the national figure for primary schools (94.8%)
• it means we’re in the top 30%-40% of schools nationally
• it’s much higher than the full 2023-24 attendance figure (93.7%)

Here’s the attendance figures for each year group:

• Reception: 94.7%
• Year 1: 96.1% – great to see a high figure here, so children don’t miss crucial phonics learning
• Year 2: 95.1%
• Year 3: 96.4% – a close second!
• Year 4: 94.5%
• Year 5: 96.9% – brilliant!
• Year 6: 92.3%

Thank you for making sure your child attends school as much as they can.

…forgiveness.

At St James’ CE Primary School, we learn about Christian values that help us to become well-rounded citizens in society. Each half-term, we have a new Christian value that will be embedded into our collective worship and our reflection areas.

‘Do not be angry with each other, but forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, then forgive him. Forgive each other because the Lord forgave you.’ (Colossians 3:13)

Throughout the Bible, God is described as slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin (Numbers 14:18) and Jesus is shown to be uncompromising in his command to forgive. ‘Forgive’, he said, ‘seventy times seven’ (Matthew 18:21), meaning forgive and keep on forgiving without limit.

At St James’ CE Primary, our children are encouraged to forgive each other. Forgiveness is associated with our Positive Relationships Policy. Children have many chances to reflect on their behaviour and make the right choices. Poor behaviour choices are always forgiven without a grudge and we enjoy a ‘new beginning’.

Sometimes, we accidentally break things that belong to ourselves or others. Sometimes, we use something so much it wears out. Some things that are broken cannot be mended, but it’s often possible to mend things that we’ve broken.

Help at home!

When you fall out with one of your friends, you can’t mend that friendship with a needle and thread, or some Sellotape, or glue or a puncture kit or a sticking plaster. Talk together about you can help show forgiveness towards those around you and how you can help mend any broken friendships.

This week, our Living and Learning theme has been I know that people should treat others respectfully when online. It tied in with Safer Internet Day. Check out the tips, advice, guides and resources for parents and carers.

We’ll start off this week’s message sticking to this theme… 

Online safety quiz

Does your child know how to stay safe online? Test their knowledge with this online quiz.

Maude and Scram – Fraud Advice for Infant Children

The West Yorkshire Police Fraud Team have devised a series of video stories to share with your child: check out Maude and Scram’s YouTube page. Have a read of the Maude and Scram Fact Sheet about online safety, too.

How Safe is WhatsApp for children?

WhatsApp is one of the most popular instant messaging apps, used by over 2 billion people in 180 countries. To set up an account, all you need is a phone number. Check out this blog from the NSPCC about the dangers of the app, and don’t miss their top tips.

Want to read more? This article from ParentZone is also worth a read.

Manipulative marketing in mobile games

Children are increasingly major components in the online games industry.

Free in the context of apps is a highly flexible term.Whilst they claim to be free, many games are deceptively pay to play: the download is free but most of the gameplay is locked. Online gaming firms use the ‘free’ label to draw in players. Money making tactics such as this can be hard to detect, even for adults.

Read more about manipulative marketing on the Better Internet for Kids site. You’ll learn why companies use these tactics and how they can impact your child and their rights. You’ll also learn how you can support your child to spot and avoid these issues, as well as where you can seek help and support.

 

Moving from staying safe online, we’ve two more articles this week…

Our annual Number Challenge

Each year, we raise money with an annual sponsored Number event:

• children in Years 1, 2 and 3 do an addition/subtraction challenge
• children in Years 4, 5 and 6 do a multiplication/division challenge

On Wednesday 26 February, we’ll repeat the challenge, hopefully seeing some huge improvements and raising lots of money along the way.

Children have their facts to work on over the holiday and hopefully get some family and friends to sponsor them on their journey to improvement. Can you help your child get sponsors for each correct answer they get?

Children in Reception join in, too – they’ll do a tens frame challenge on the same day.

Money that we raise will be shared between our chosen charity, Yorkshire Air Ambulance, and the PTA.

Our annual Reception parents/carers survey

Have you completed our Reception survey yet?

Each year, we ask parents/carers of children in Reception to complete a short survey. It should only take 5-10 minutes or so. Your feedback helps us to explore ways we might be able to improve the Reception year. It’s also an opportunity to let us know any specific questions or concerns you might have – we’ll try to respond to all of these (leaving your name will help, but that’s optional).

Have a happy and healthy weekend.