What a busy week…

Thank you to all the parents/carers who met with teachers this week for the first of two parent-teacher meetings in the year. We’re available for short updates and questions, comments and concerns at other times, but we hope you found the meeting this week helpful.

Yesterday, we visited St James’ Church for the Harvest Festival. It was lovely to see so many of you there.

Today, we’ve had a training day. Teachers from across Sphere Federation have had four professional development sessions:

• Art
• Maths
• Special Educational Needs
• Assessments

Coming up in the first week after half-term break…

Remember 100% in November

Don’t forget our attendance competition after the half-term break!

In the four weeks of November, children with 100% attendance will be entered into a prize draw to win one of four £25 Love2Shop vouchers. There are four vouchers to be won – one for every phase in school.

If your child attends every school day on time from 03 November to 28 November, their name will be added to the prize draw taking place on Friday 28 November.

Me and My Money themed week

Our next whole school themed week, Me and My Money, is based around money and financial education. A variety of events and lessons are planned to help us deliver this aspect of our Living and Learning curriculum. Learning throughout the week will include:

• What is money?
• Where does money come from?
• How do we spend money?
• How do we manage money?

If your job involves an aspect of finance and/or money and you can support our themed week by coming into school, please contact us.

We’ll select the new school charity as part of the themed week. The shortlist is:

• Zarach, whose mission is to end child bed poverty, giving children the opportunity to engage at school and break the cycle of poverty.
• Martin House provides family-led hospice care free of charge for children and young people with life-shortening conditions.
• Emmaus (pronounced em-may-us) helps people move away from homelessness by providing a home, training and work opportunities as part of a package of long-term support.
• National Deaf Children’s Society, who support deaf children with any level of hearing loss.
• Woodland Trust, the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity, whose vision is a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature.

Applying for a place in Reception or secondary school?

The deadline for applications for Year 7 places falls in half-term: 31 October 2025. If you need help with an application, please contact startingsecondary@leeds.gov.uk.

If you’re applying for a Reception place, you might want to check out Leeds City Council’s You Tube video about applying for a school place.

Staying safe online

We’ve recently updated our Online Safety page on our website. If you’ve not spoken with your child about the importance of staying safe online for a while, it would be worth having a look at the clips and checking out the NSPCC link over the half-term break.

Watch us while we work

If you visited us for our recent Watch Us While We Work session, thank you. An even bigger thank you if you left us some feedback:

• ‘It’s really lovely to see what and how the kids are taught and be able to relate that to learning we do at home.’
• ‘It’s always great to be invited into the classroom, it’s a valuable insight into teaching and how we can support this at home.’

One comment was around varying the subjects we feature. We’ll act on this next time.

Have a happy and healthy half-term break.