We hope you had a happy and healthy Spring break.

Industrial action

First, in case you missed an earlier message this week, is some advance warning about the forthcoming industrial action.

The National Education Union (NEU) has announced planned strike action for Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 02 May.

St James’ CE Primary has previously remained open and been largely unaffected by the industrial action. It seems likely that this will be the case again.

However, as was the case previously, we’re not in a position to guarantee this because all workers, including teachers, have the right to take industrial action without prior notice. It would be advisable to prepare for some disruption on the days listed here just in case.

We’ll continue to keep you informed.

Class trips

Thank you very much for your responses to the recent survey about class trips. The feedback has been really helpful. The key message we’ve received is that you’re very keen for school trips to happen more regularly and that you see a lot of value in them:

• ‘I think they are an important part of the curriculum to enhance learning and make connections with the real world. They also form a memorable part of school. In summary, an invaluable experience.’
• ‘Great that these are coming back following the pandemic.  Thank you for putting time and energy into making these a possibility again. In terms of the regularity of class trips, the vast majority of people would like there to be more than one trip per year. We’ll aim to offer two class visits per year, but this does depend on receiving enough voluntary contributions from all parents/carers.

You also gave us a variety of other feedback and suggestions which we’ll consider. Examples of useful points raised include scheduling trips on a Monday or Friday if classes need parent helpers; a memorable visit doesn’t have to be something new or expensive or a long distance away; and weekly direct debits to build up contributions – we’ll ponder over your suggestions as well as start putting in place a schedule of trips across all year groups.

Attendance matters

For the year so far, up to the Easter holiday, the whole-school attendance rate is 91.7%.

This is lower than the national figures for the same period: 92.4% for all schools and 63.9% for primary schools.

Our assessments show a simple picture: the higher the attendance rate, the better the learning.

Not only that, children with good attendance get a chance to socialise with their friends – they’re happier and healthier.

For their sake, please make sure your child attends school as much as they can.

Enjoy the weekend.