PTA disco

It was lovely to see so many happy faces at the school disco on Friday. A huge thank you to the PTA who organised another great event. We raised £729.17!

Our weekly message: Friday 21 March 2025

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.

Our weekly message: Friday 14 March 2025

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.

Our weekly message: Friday 07 March 2025

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

Solar panel assembly

A lot of our electricity in school is generated by solar panels on the school roof. Today, Mr Smith visited our school to check our solar panels and to talk to us in assembly. He told us how the panels generate electricity and the importance of saving electricity by turning off lights and other appliances when not in use. He explained that this would save the school some money!

He demonstrated how heat and natural sunlight can be measured and how this is helpful in his work.

We are going to try our best to save more electricity!

Our weekly message: Friday 28 February 2025

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.

This half-term's Christian value is...

…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.

Our weekly message: Friday 14 February 2025

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.

Our weekly message: Friday 07 February 2025

We’re looking forward to seeing you next week at parent-teacher meetings. To help the sessions go smoothly, please stick to the timings as much as you can – you can always arrange for a longer meeting if you think it’s needed.

There’s also Safer Internet Day next week – make sure you keep talking with your child about the precautions we all need to take when online.

Parking

In our message last week, we reminded everyone to park respectfully:

Getting to school by foot, scooter or bike is the happiest and healthiest. We know sometimes people might need to use their car – but if you do, please remember to park carefully. Check out this advice from Leeds City Council.

Sadly, this week, we’re having to ask again. If you have to drive to drop off and collect your child, please park away from the school and walk the last part – it’s safer, healthier and it respects our neighbours.

And if you see someone parking dangerously, please let us know – we’ll report it to the police.

Consent

Our Living and Learning theme this week has been I know the importance of consent. Help at home so your child knows the importance of consent or permission. As well as exploring consent generally, consider permission-seeking and permission-giving when online eg getting permission before taking and sharing images of others. As a parent / carer, you might want to start seeking permission before uploading images of your child online (‘Shall I share this pic, or would you prefer me not to?’ is one way to ask, for example.)

Policies

Governors have asked us to remind you that our key policies are available on our website – check out the Policies and Other Points page for most of these. Please ask us if you can’t see a particular policy or if you need a paper copy of one.

Class trips

Did you know we’ve a schedule of class trips? The plan is subject to change – there might be another event or trip opportunity which comes up, and the trips can only go ahead if we get enough voluntary contributions – but we try to stick to the schedule so children have a broad and balanced range of enrichment opportunities. You can check the schedule out on page 4 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Spring Attendance Competition

There’s only one more week left of our 2025 Spring attendance competition!

All pupils with attendance of 97% or higher will be entered into a prize draw to win a £50 Love to Shop voucher! So far this term, 31 pupils have 100% attendance and 85 pupils have 97% or more attendance – well done to the children and their families!

Talking of attendance, here’s another description of the learning that your child misses if they have a week away from school for a term-time holiday. This week, it’s the turn of Science.

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

Science lessons build learning in small steps across a number of weeks. If your child misses five days of school, they’ll miss one or two of these important steps. For example, in a Key Stage 2 unit of learning about the circulatory system, your child might miss a lesson which teaches them about the different blood vessels in the body. This will mean that they may not have the relevant prior knowledge when later learning about how blood is transported around the body.

Your child would also miss out on an opportunity to work scientifically. This may be planning or carrying out an investigation; taking measurements; recording and presenting results; or making conclusions and evaluations.

Finally, your child would miss out on an opportunity to ‘recap’ previously taught science learning from previous years.

Sticking with attendance, a reminder to check the NHS Is my child too ill for school? if in doubt.

Have a good weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 31 January 2025

It’s the last day of January – what a busy month it’s been. If you celebrated the lunar new year, then a belated Happy New Year to you.

National storytelling week

National Storytelling Week starts tomorrow. It’s an annual event that celebrates stories and storytelling – it’s the perfect opportunity for families to share the joy of stories together. Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of communication, fostering empathy and imagination in ways that resonate deeply with children. Whether through traditional folk tales, family anecdotes, or made-up adventures, storytelling helps children develop a love of language and encourages their natural curiosity about the world.

Join the at home by making storytelling part of your family routine. You can celebrate at home by reading a favourite book aloud with your child, recreating your own family stories and adventures or even acting out a tale together with props and costumes. Bedtime is a great time to bring stories to life, especially if you encourage your child to add their own twists to the tale. You could also explore audiobooks or visit your local library to find collections of folktales from around the world to share.

We know that children are more likely to enjoy reading if:

• someone reads to them regularly
• they find time to read
• they have books at home and at school
• they know a trusted person who can help them find the right books
• we make reading fun for them
• they are given a choice in what they read

Talking of reading…

World Book Day

World Book Day is on Thursday 06 March is another wonderful event that complements National Storytelling Week.

This year, we aren’t inviting children to dress up. (We alternate this each year.) Instead, we’ll mark the day in school with a host of fun and engaging reading-related activities. Amongst other things, we’ll hear teachers read aloud their favourite stories, spend time in other classes reading with different children and explore new authors and books. And remember to keep an eye out for a competition where you can win book vouchers!

National curriculum assessments

Primary school pupils in England take part in various assessments…

• Reception baseline assessment: within the first 6 weeks of entering reception
• Early Years Foundation Stage profile assessment: between April and June of the academic year in which they turn 5 (usually the Reception year)
• Phonics Screening Check: in June of Year 1
• Key Stage 1 tests: optional, these are at the end of Year 2
• Multiplication Tables Check: in June of Year 4
• Key Stage 2 tests (known as SATs): in May of Year 6

The government has updated its guides for parents about the different assessments.

Park up with respect

Getting to school by foot, scooter or bike is the happiest and healthiest. We know sometimes people might need to use their car – but if you do, please remember to park carefully. Check out this advice from Leeds City Council.

Finally, across the year we’ve been spotlighting the impact of a week away from school for a term-time holiday. This week, it’s the turn of Maths…

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

Daily maths lessons build learning in sequences of small steps. If your child misses five days of school, they’ll miss a large part of the sequence.

Our Maths curriculum is divided into blocks of learning (eg place value, fractions, length) that often last a week or two. If it’s the beginning of a new sequence that your child misses, it makes it much harder to understand the learning in the following weeks. If it’s the middle part of a sequence that your child misses, this means there will be gaps in their knowledge and skills. Either way, five days of absence means your child might well struggle to catch up or keep up.

Five days of absence would also mean your child misses the regular practice of calculation procedures and of recalling number facts and times tables times tables – all vital in developing fluency and confidence in Maths.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.