This week has been our Being Healthy themed week, the second of our Living and Learning themed weeks in the year. A particular was our Sports Day – despite the heat, a fun day was had by all. Thanks for coming along and supporting this end of year highlight!

Home learning

Our first message this week is here for two reasons:

• to help parents of children going into Year 1 in September know about home learning
• to make sure other parents are aware of our expectations for home learning (this stems from feedback in our 2025 annual survey)

At St James’ CE Primary, we set out five home learning tasks for children to do:

• Reading – daily for at least 10-15 minutes
• Number fluency – use NumBots or TimesTables Rock Stars for about ten minutes each day
• Spellings – daily for 5-10 minutes
• Talk Time – weekly for about 15 minutes
• Living and Learning– weekly for about 15 minutes

Altogether, this varied diet of home learning totals about 35 minutes each day (that’s allowing for a day or two off). Read our Home Learning Policy. This includes a Homework Guide which you might want to print off and keep somewhere for easy reference.

Summer production

The Year 6 leavers’ production of ‘Let the Games Begin’ was a huge success. Well done to all of the children and staff involved in putting on a wonderful performance. Thank you, also, to all of you who managed to attend. We hope you enjoyed it.

Summer Fair

Thank you to everyone who attended the Summer Fair and all those involved in organising the event. The total raised on the day was £2,107.54! This is a fantastic amount and it will be a huge contribution to the playground trim trail that the PTA are saving up for.

Governance

For those of you interested to read more about our Governing Board, the Sphere Federation Annual Governance Statement for 2024-25 has been published.

We do still have a vacancy on the Governing Board. Please mention this to any friends or relatives! Anyone interested should contact the chair of governors, Mrs Rachel Cooper: rachelcooper@spherefederation.org

That’s a date!

At Sphere Federation, we like to be organised because we know many of you do, too. That’s why you’ll find most of the key dates in our calendar for 2025-26. Because we’ve got these planned in so far in advance, there’s a small chance one or two might need to be changed (we’ve not had to do this very often this year!). Well over 50 events are listed, including:

• Christmas events
• Church visits
• Early Years events such as Stay and Learn sessions
• Happy and healthy school community sessions (formerly known as our Coffee mornings, but renamed because some are in the afternoon now, too!)
• all our Living and Learning statements (with improved prompts for continuing the  learning at home)
• Living and Learning themed weeks (Me and My Money and Staying Safe)
• Living and Learning themed days (Anti-bullying day and Safer Internet Day)
• National assessments
• Productions across the year
• Watch us while we work sessions (so you can see some teaching and learning in core skills like Reading, Writing and Maths)
• Topic review sessions (come and and see the learning in Art and Computing)
• Some online presentations (Y6 SATs and residential; Y1, Y2 phonics and early reading; online safety)
• Parent-teacher meetings (in October and February)
• Photographer (for individual and class photos)
• lots of events to celebrate Reading
• Sports Day

Safeguarding over the Summer break

During the Summer holiday, you might have a concern about a child that you feel needs acting on. In term time, we would encourage you to share the concern with us at school but this isn’t possible when school is closed.

Here are some options for you if you have any concerns:

• During office hours: You can call Children’s Social Work Services on 0113 222 4403 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, except Wednesdays when they’re open from 10am). You can also discuss your concerns with someone who works with children and families, such as your health visitor or your GP
• Out of office hours: If you think a child is in immediate danger call the police on 999
• Our Federation Safeguarding Lead will also be picking up emails. You can contact her using our safeguarding email address: stayingsafe@spherefederation.org

Talking of summer, don’t forget…

Our Summer competition

The aim is simple: capture or create a smiley face to sum up our happy and healthy place to achieve and believe! We want you to stay alert to happy and healthy faces all around you… and take a pic of any hidden smiley faces in your surroundings: a day out at the beach might include creating a smiley face in the sand, for example! We’re sure you and your child can do than our suggestion (look for the smiling face!)…

Look out for things around you that show a hidden smiley face – a happy and healthy face – or encourage your child to create their own from things around them (pebbles, leaves, Lego…).

To enter, email your pics to stjamesoffice@spherefederation.org by Monday 08 September. Enter ‘Summer competition’ as the subject. All entries will be displayed in a happy and healthy display in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.

Next week’s our last week of the 2024-25 school year. The last day of term is Friday 18 July. If your child’s in Year 6, we’re looking forward to seeing you for our Leavers’ Service at St James Church on Thursday at 2.00pm.