Kiara, Y5: ‘I enjoyed organising the Easter bake sale. We chose new books for the library with the profits we made. This was someone’s suggestion and we acted on it.’

Ethan, Y5: ‘I’m pleased with how we spent the money raised. A lot of people have said they’ve enjoyed reading the new books.’

Kupa, Y3: ‘It’s been good reading out our class suggestions in meetings and we’ve acted on them by sharing ideas for playground equipment. I’ve enjoyed being in the JLT because we can help the school.’

Freddie, Y4: ‘We had a big discussion about hot food in the after-school club. Miss Beatson has told us that hot food will now be on the menu in September which I’m happy about.’

PTA annual report

A big thank you to our PTA for all the help they provide us across the year. They’ve just released their 2025-26 annual report.

Swimming lessons next year

We’re making an exciting change to how children access swimming lessons.

Currently, children in Year 4 go swimming. With travel included, it takes up a large part of the afternoon for a relatively short weekly lesson.

Next year, we’re installing a pop-up pool! In the Summer term, a purpose-built, temporary swimming pool will ‘pop up’ on the playground. Children in Years 3 and 4 will benefit from an intensive 3 week block of lessons where they will swim for 45 minutes every day with fully qualified, external swimming instructors. There may be time for older children to swim, too. We’re confident this change will mean even more children can learn to swim whilst also saving on learning time lost throughout the year.

We understand this may seem like fewer lessons overall. However, the intensive, daily format has been shown to significantly boost children’s progress. Here’s why:

• Faster skill development: Swimming every day builds confidence and skill without the gap between weekly lessons that often leads to forgetting.
• More time in the water: Without the need for travel, children get more meaningful lesson time.
• Less disruption to learning: A concentrated block avoids weekly interruptions across the year, protecting curriculum time.
• Improved outcomes: Qualified instructors can better tailor lessons to each child’s needs, helping more pupils learn to swim and develop water confidence.

We’re sharing this facility with another school, alternating each year. This means that in 2026-27, we have the pool and then in 2027-28, we’ll have a year off. Across the two year cycle, all children in Years 3 and 4 will benefit.

Look out for more details nearer the time.

The rest of this email has a summer theme, starting with a couple of reminders…

Summer competition

Over the summer holidays, we invite your child to re-create our school logo in some creative way – maybe a painting, a collage, even a mobile.

It could be anything – the only rules are:

• it needs to be ‘display-able’, so we can put it on display along with the other entries
• it needs to show our shells logo in some recognisable way (but the more original, the better

To enter, your child needs to bring along their pieces of art in the first week – no later than Friday 04 September. Entries will be displayed in a St James’ CE Primary shells logo display in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.

Summer savings

This is a reminder of something from a previous message…

The Great British Summer Savings scheme starts next week. Running from 25 June to 01 September 2026, its aim is to help families feel a bit less squeezed this summer.

The scheme includes reduced VAT on days out, including tickets at attractions like soft play, adventure centres and theme parks, children’s tickets for theatres and cinemas, and children’s meals in restaurants. Children aged 5 to 15 in England will also be able to travel free on local bus services throughout August.

Summer Breeze fun club

Join the Breeze team for arts, games, sports, food and…inflatables!

There are four Breeze Healthy Holidays Fund Days happening this summer. Choose from:

• Wednesday 22 July: Shaftesbury Fields
• Thursday 23 July: Millshaw Playing Fields
• Friday 24 July:  John O’Gaunts, Rothwell
• Monday 27 July: Whinmoor Warriors Rugby Club

You’ll need to register with Healthy Holidays before they can book. If you’re not already registered, you can do this now. To book visit the Healthy Holidays website and search for the event group name ‘Breeze Healthy Holidays Fun Day’ and select your preferred event from the list.

Summer reads

Stay reading right through summer. Check out these recommended reads, or simply take a trip to a nearby library!

If you do go to the library, look out for Read to the Beat. It’s great opportunity for children to maintain their reading levels during the summer holidays and build on their love of books, which will help them in school and later in life.

And how about some Reading Bingo? Download a printable reading challenge for the summer holidays.