The Spring 1 half-term has been a short one, and a busy one as ever. Wrapping up the half-term were parent-teacher meetings – thanks for attending the meeting to find out more about your child’s learning.

Attendance prize draw – we’ve a winner!

St James’ CE Primary is a happy and healthy place to be – and even a lucky one for Isabella in Year 2 – well done for having amazing attendance this half-term.

All pupils with attendance of 96% or higher were entered into a prize draw to win a £50 Love to Shop voucher! Isabella was the lucky winner, announced this afternoon.

Well done to all the pupils (and their families) who had great attendance in Spring 1:

• 65 pupils had 100% attendance
• 89 pupils have over 96% attendance

We’re really pleased to see the whole school attendance figure rise in Spring 1, too.

Look out for another Attendance Prize Draw in the summer.

Holidays and training days 2024-25

While it seems we’re stuck in winter – certainly so with the snow yesterday – it’s worth looking ahead to brighter days! All the holidays and training dates for 2024-25 are confirmed – check out our school calendar if you want to start planning ahead.

Leeds Parent Carer Forum

The Leeds Parent Carer Forum is the way that the local authority and health partners engage and co-produce directly with parents and carers of children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). In Leeds, this is a very new organisation. We’ve been asked to share their promotional flyer with you.

School policies

Finally for this week, Sphere Federation governors have asked us to remind you that most policies are available on our website – the Policies and Other Points page. If you can’t find what you might be looking for, please do ask. Your views on any of the policies are always welcome, too.

On a similar subject, please ask if you’d prefer paper copies of anything on the website.

Thank you for your continued support, as ever. Have a happy and healthy half-term holiday.

Friday was Wear Red Day. At the time of writing the weekly message on Friday, we’d raised £63.50. Including donations made later, we raised £95.45.

The money raised goes to our current school charity: the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund in Leeds.

If you and your child donated, thank you.

If you and your child made a donation for our Wear Red Day. At the time of writing this message, we raised £63.50 – thank you. It was great seeing the different creative styles pupils added to their uniform today!

Living and learning

Living and Learning is our name for Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) and other provision which helps to support the personal development of children at St James’ CE Primary.

Each week, we have a different Living and Learning theme – check out our Calendar to read about each week’s theme (it’s usually showing on each Monday). This week’s theme has been I know how to seek help.

We all need to seek help from time to time. Make sure your child knows it’s ok to ask for help. Explore different situations when you and your child might both need to seek help. What could the situation be (friendships, online problems, tricky situations when out and about…)? Who could they seek help from? How would they do it?

Linked to this week’s theme is STOP. Here at St James’ CE Primary, STOP stands for two things to do bullying:

• the definition: hurting someone physically or emotionally Several Times On Purpose
• the solution: Start Telling Other People

Remind your child of the STOP acronyms.

Watch us while we work

Thanks to all who came along last Friday for the second of our Watch Us While We Work sessions. Thanks also to the parents who completed our new online form for their feedback.

Children very well behaved and good to see what happens in class.

 

The session was well planned and Mr Nash explained what he was doing and why. Gave some good suggestions on how we, as parents can add to what is done in school. Also, loved seeing [my child] in class and how engaged he was.

We really appreciate your suggestions for improvement, too. We can’t always act on these – some suggested longer sessions while other people comment the sessions were the right length – but we’ll try.

Coffee mornings

Thanks to parents and carers of children of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year2 who dropped in this morning – it was good to see you. You’re welcome to let us know any comments – please use our online form. Coming up is another coffee morning – this one for parents and carers of children in Years 3-6 – it’s on Friday 01 March.

Contact details

A quick reminder…

If you’ve got any new contact details for you or other contacts, please remember to let us know. We need up-to-date details for the people on our lists in case of emergencies. (The people on our lists are the ones you gave us when your child school – in most cases, this will be three different people.)

Reception survey

Another reminder…

If you’re a parent in Reception, please do complete our short survey. Your feedback is really important to us. the survey’s open for another week.

We hope you have a happy and healthy weekend, whatever you get up to.

This week, we’ve messages about measles, free school meals and a couple of forthcoming events in school. Before that, a thank you…

Watch us while we work

For parents and carers of children in Years 1 -6, this afternoon we’ve had another Watch Us While We Work session – the second of the year. Thank you if you were able to come to school to find out ways to support your child at home.

Based on parent feedback, we’ve a new feedback form for planned-in visits like this – things like Watch Us While We Work, Topic review sessions and Reception Stay and Learns.

We’d love to hear your views.

Measles

This comes from the Department for Education (DfE):

There have been recent localised outbreaks of measles centred around the West Midlands. There is a risk of further outbreaks in other areas unless urgent action is taken to increase Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccination take up in areas with low MMR vaccine rates.

Measles spreads very easily among those who are unvaccinated, especially in nurseries and schools. The best protection against measles for children and adults is to get both doses of the MMR vaccine. It is never too late to have these vaccinations.

Read the NHS advice for parents and carers.

Read the DfE has published an Education Hub blog with guidance on measles and the MMR vaccine for parents.

Free School Meals

Circumstances can change for anyone, as the enormous impact from the pandemic continues to prove. Some families can suddenly find themselves trying to cope with a new financial strain and pressure, perhaps as a result of a stressful new situation: separation, loss of a job, decreased working
hours, illness etc. If your household income is low or has recently decreased, your child may well qualify for Free School Meals.

Find out whether you’re eligible.

In addition to securing free school meals, your child would also become eligible for pupil premium funding. This provides us with extra money that we use to support children.

Finally this week, a couple of events coming up…

Wear Red Day

Our school charity this year is Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.

Wear Red Day is an annual fund-raising event to support the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit, its patients and their families.

The day is still a uniform day, but we invite children to come to school wearing some red, too – how might they adapt their uniform? Red socks, red polo short, red shorts…

This is an optional event. We welcome any donations, all of which will go towards our charity.

Safer Internet Day

This is on Tuesday 06 February. We’ll be making the day in school, but you might want to check out some resources to use at home.

Have a great weekend!

Early in each half-term, our weekly message centres around the current KS1 and KS2 topic. The message comes from Mr Wilks, who leads on foundation subjects (see page 7 for what foundation subjects are).

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term, we’re historians and will be developing our understanding of Britain’s past and the wider world.

I love history. It’s one of my favourite subjects to teach. There are so many amazing stories and characters from the past and although the people and events we study can be separated from our own lives by thousands of years, there are lots of relevant connections we can make with the world today. Children will use enquiry skills to answer questions about the past that require opinions. They’ll be ‘time detectives’, using sources of evidence to help them answer these questions.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary that they’ll learn, use and apply across the topic. See pages 22, 23 and 24.

Years 1 and 2

In this topic, children will learn about how shopping has changed over time. They’ll develop chronological understanding by sequencing events in their own lives before learning about how shopping was different during their parents’ and grandparents’ and great grandparents’ childhoods. They’ll look at similar products from different times and try to sequence them chronologically using logical reasoning. They’ll use photographs and other sources of evidence to identify changes and similarities on the high street over time. They’ll learn about the history of a local shop, Marks and Spencer, and how it has changed over time.

The key historical concept which we’ll explore in this topic is trade. Trade is the exchange of goods and services, initially for other goods and services, and then for money.

Years 3 and 4

Children will learn about the Roman Empire and its invasion of Britain. They will examine how life changed for the people living in Britain at the time of the invasion. They will learn about the Celtic warrior, Boudicca, and how she resisted the Romans. Children will also consider what we know about Boudicca, how we know it, and whether we can trust it.

They’ll learn about the amazing inventions and advances that the Romans brought to Britain. Finally, they’ll find out why the Romans left Britain and who the Anglo-Saxons were.

There are two key historical concepts which we’ll explore in this topic: empire and invasion. An empire is a large group of countries or states ruled by an emperor or empress. An invasion is when a country or region is invaded by an armed force. 

Years 5 and 6

In this topic, children will learn about Viking Britain and an Early Islamic Civilisation centred around the city of Baghdad around 800AD.

During this period of time, Baghdad was the largest city in the world and was the centre of the world’s trade routes. Trade between Vikings and Baghdad happened and provides a real link between these two societies.

Through studying the Vikings, children will again learn about how people invaded and settled in Britain. Invasion is also relevant as it brought an end to the Islamic Golden Age.

The Islamic Golden Age was a period of great innovation. Learning and knowledge was key to their success. They built the world’s first hospitals, universities and observatories, as well as studied writing from scholars around the world. The contrast with Viking Britain during the Dark Ages is stark!

There are three key historical concepts which we’ll explore in this topic: trade, invasion and innovation. Trade is the exchange of goods and services, initially for other goods and services, and then for money. An innovation is an improvement or replacement for something. An invasion is when a country or region is invaded by an armed force.

Help at home

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. The class news page of the school website is a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

Find some books from the library which match what the children are learning. This will be quite easy for children in Key Stage 2 as there will be plenty of books about Roman Britain and Viking Britain. You should also be able to find some about the Islamic Golden Age. For children in KS1, you may find it more difficult to find books about shopping over time. However, any book that looks at how an aspect of life has changed over time will be good. For example, you may find KS1 history books about toys and games, houses, transport, holidays. These will all help your child to sequence chronologically and explore similarities and differences.

Watch television shows about history. Horrible Histories is great – regardless of your age!

Welcome to our first message of 2024! It seems a little late to wish you a happy new year, but we’ll do it all the same: best wishes for a happy and healthy 2024. This week’s message has quite a few things, but we’ve tried to keep them fairly short…

Dates for your diary

This Spring term is a short one – just five weeks in Spring 1 and just a day short of six weeks in Spring 2. As always, please check our school calendar to know what’s coming up (amongst other things, a Watch Us While We Work session in Years 1-6 and Stay and Learn sessions in Reception, plus parent-teacher meetings).

Did your child get an electronic device for Christmas?

…If so, then do make sure parental controls are all in place. Here’s a handy guide from the NSPCC.

Attendance matters

Our whole-school attendance for the Autumn term was 94.2%. How does your child’s class compare?

• Reception – 94.8%
• Year 1 – 93.0%
• Year 2 – 96.1% – well done!
• Year 3 – 96.3% – brilliant!
• Year 4 – 96.8% – amazing attendance!
• Year 5 – 87.8%
• Year 6 – 90.7%

The low attendance in Year 5 and 6 is clearly a concern for us. We know some people in the class have high attendance, but the absence rate means about a week and half of lost learning as an average.

We know that winter is one of the peak times for adults and children to come down with mild illnesses such as colds, coughs and sore throats.

DT: Cooking and nutrition

We sent this message earlier in the week, but in case you missed it…

Our updated long-term plans for Cooking and Nutrition were introduced at the beginning of this school year. Last term, your child took part in a practical lesson where they did some cooking in school and were able to eat what they had made. Hopefully, they’ll have come home and told you all about it!

So we can continue to offer this to all children in Years 1 to 6, we’re asking you for a small voluntary contribution towards the cost of ingredients. This will help to cover the costs for the full year – that’s three recipes. We suggest a contribution between £3 to £6, although we really appreciate anything you can offer. Payment for this can be made online on the School Gateway app.

By the way, please remember to tell us if your child has an allergy so that we can adapt the recipes we’ve planned.

The Big Ambition survey

We’ve mentioned this before, too, but we’ve been asked to communicate a final reminder which comes from Dame Rachel De Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England…

I have been overwhelmed by the response the survey has received so far. More than 300,000 children, young people, parents and carers have participated, making it one of the largest surveys of its kind, but I want to give even more people the chance to have their say.

Complete The Big Ambition survey. It closes on Friday 19 January.

Finally, I don’t often offer a personal recommendation, but a highlight of the holidays for me was a trip to the cinema to see Wonka – I loved it! Have a good weekend, whether that involves a cinema trip or whatever you and your family get up to. 

…honesty.

At St James’ CE Primary School, we learn about Christian values that help us to become well-rounded citizens in society. Each half-term, we have a new Christian value that will be embedded into our collective worship and our reflection areas.

What is honesty? Honesty is being trustworthy and truthful in our friendships, our relationships, our school and our community. We understand that we need to be honest and truthful with others when working together as a team. There are challenges for us:

• How can we be honest in our daily lives?
• How can we encourage people to be honest?
• What can we do to fix it if we forget to be honest?

‘Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.’ (1 John 13:18)

In the Bible, we hear about Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), the tax collector, who was dishonest and stole money from others. Jesus went to visit him and he realised he had made a mistake. He saw the error of his ways. He had a total change of heart and got rid of his dishonest ways to follow Jesus.

Help at home!

Talk with your family about the consequences of not being honest or write a story or draw a picture to show what happens when people are dishonest. Bring it in to add to your class reflection areas.

Following an earlier message this week, this one is just to say all of us here at St James’ CE Primary wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year.

We look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 08 January. And don’t forget our Attendance Competition… All pupils with attendance of 96% or higher in the Spring 1 half-term will be entered into a prize draw to win a £50 Love to Shop vouchers!

This week’s message comes early, and it’s an unusual one because the majority of it is written by Mrs Weekes, the Head of School at Moortown Primary, one of our sister schools in Sphere Federation:

As we come to the end of term, we’d like to say a ‘goodbye for now’ to Mrs Palmer who is going on maternity leave. Taking over the class is Mr Nash. He has worked as a music teacher in Halifax and more recently has been a member of staff at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, one of our sister schools in Sphere Federation. Mr Nash started at St James’ in September and he has been a great addition to the team here. The Spring term will be his final term of initial teacher training for Mr Nash. To ensure a successful transition, Mr Nash has been working in Year 2 for the last few weeks. We look forward to hearing the wonderful news of a new arrival in the Palmer household sometime in January.

We say a more permanent farewell to Miss Rigley this week. She has been a teaching assistant at St James’ for the last couple of years and is now moving on to pursue a career in dance. We wish her all the very best.

This week’s message has three healthy-themed messages…

Living and Learning

In Living and Learning sessions, your child has been considering mental health. As we come to the end of this unit of learning, it would be a great time to reflect on this more at home.

Self-care is all about what you can do to help yourself feel better or to keep yourself feeling good. It’s a way that we can look after our own mental health and wellbeing. It can help your body and mind to relax, drift away, or be more energised.

This self-care plan from Anna Freud walks children through a series of steps, helping them to create a simple self-care plan that works for them.

There are lots of different ways you can try self-care: dancing, spending time with friends, playing sports, laughing, drawing, spending time with pets – anything that makes you feel good! We have listed some activity suggestions in this booklet – give them a try and see what works for you.

Let us know what you think…

We’ve recently updated our policy around food in school. Our Food in School policy sets out key points for parents/carers and staff. For parents/carers, this includes guidance around special occasions, birthdays, rewards and the importance of alerting us if your child has a food allergy.

Please let us know your thoughts.

Don’t skip breakfasts

Research suggests that having breakfast every day has a positive impact on diet quality, weight status and even learning. You might like to read this recent article about the importance of breakfast for school children.

 

And one final message, this time from Wetherby and District Foodbank…

Wetherby and District Foodbank is here for anyone who is in need or hardship. All information shared is private and strictly confidential. The foodbank not only provides food and a listening ear but can also arrange free face to face local appointments with Moneybuddies who can help with debt advice and budgeting support. Get in touch with the foodbank: 07840 455725.

Have a good weekend.