If you came to one of our Christmas performances, we hope you enjoyed it and thank you for your donation. We raised £95 for our school charity: Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Highlights

It’s our last message of 2024! We thought it would be nice to share some of our highlights…

• Mr Freeman: ‘Handwriting and presentation has been impressive. This has been noticed by parents and other adults looking in books across all subjects – the children have really worked hard in daily handwriting and dictation practice. And another: Year 3 have consistently sustained a happy and healthy attitude. They look after each other, show compassion to each other and are willing to help children and staff at any opportunity. Their fantastic manners were noted on our trip to Lotherton Hall by the workshop organisers!’
• Miss Ward: ‘The children in Nursery really enjoyed a particular story this term: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. Their favourite part was going on a bear hunt into our forest school! After lots of searching and recalling key parts of the story, we found the bear! In the story the bear walks away from the family home and looks sad, so the children wanted to invite the bear back to Nursery to enjoy snack time together. We spoke about how it’s nice to be kind and caring towards each other. One of our Christian values is compassion.’
• Mr Kilner: ‘Children in Year 5 and 6 continue to arrive at school happy and healthy, ready to achieve. We’ve seen progress across all subjects and this has been supported with recent assessment results. Our recent Art topic has been a huge success. We’ve even incorporated this Art work with our yearly calendars. Some other highlights include our trip to Leeds Discovery Centre, The Royal Armouries, Tempo FM, Wetherby Town Hall and Wetherby High School (here we continue to build links, helping children with their transition to high school).’
• Mrs Kendrew: ‘My highlight for the autumn term has got to be how well the Reception children have settled into school. They’ve adapted amazingly to school life making new friends and establishing the school values and routines. They really have been shining stars for St James.’
• Mrs Poole: ‘The highlight of this term for me has to be all things related to times tables! It has been wonderful to see children’s enthusiasm for Mastering Number and to demonstrate our learning to teachers from other schools across West Yorkshire. It was also exciting to celebrate many of the children achieving their personal best at the times tables check last week.’
• Mrs Bye and Mrs Palmer: ‘The real highlight of the autumn term in Year 1 has been the children’s fantastic attitude to learning, which has led to amazing progress since their first day. By applying their Christian values to all aspects of their work, they have shown great courage, compassion, and perseverance.’
• Mr Nash:‘My highlight is this half term’s art topic. The children have been really engaged when learning about Georges Seurat and his work, and have been fascinated by pointillism. They’ve loved exploring different mark-making techniques to the point where pointillism has infiltrated our everyday… any opportunity to be artistic has been characterised by pointillism. Move over Georges Seurat!’

…and the highlight from Miss Beatson and me is a simple one: standing at the school gate at the start of the school day and being greeted by happy and healthy children as they arrive at school – it’s such a positive way to start the day! ​Our teachers at St James’ CE Primary have been great, pupils have been great, and parents have been great. Thank you to everyone.

Spring Attendance Competition

Just like last year, we’re excited to launch our Spring attendance competition… St James’ CE Primary is a happy and healthy place to be – and maybe even a lucky one, too!

All pupils with attendance of 97% or higher will be entered into a prize draw to win a £50 Love to Shop voucher!

So… for the full Spring 1 half-term, Monday 06 January to Friday 14 February (six weeks), if your child comes to school 97% or more, their name will be entered into a prize draw. We’ll select one lucky winner on the last day of the half-term (Friday 14 February).

Remember, arriving late for school counts as an unauthorised absence. This affects a child’s overall attendance figure, and that might mean they lose out.

So far this term, 40 pupils have 100% attendance and 87 pupils have 97% or more attendance – well done to the children and their families!

Leeds at Christmas

The ultimate guide to Christmas in Leeds includes a whole host of information about what’s happening over the Christmas and New Year period, such as visiting the Christmas markets across the city centre, family attractions including Northern lights at Temple Newsham and where to see Santa.

Finally, all that needs to be said is have a happy Christmas. We’ll see you all again on Monday 06 January.