Welcome to Reception meeting
It was great to see so many of you at the ‘Welcome to Reception’ meeting this week. For those of you who were unable to attend, please find attached the PowerPoint shared at the meeting.
Year 3 Science
This week in Science, Year 3 began their new topic: Skeletons. We learned that our skeleton gives us shape, helps us move, and protects our organs. The children enjoyed naming key bones: the skull, pelvis, femur, ribcage, and spine.
Help at home: help your child practise naming and identifying some of the key bones we have learned in class.
The five bones we are focusing on are:
- Skull – protects the brain.
- Spine – supports the body and protects the spinal cord.
- Ribcage – protects the heart and lungs.
- Pelvis – supports the body’s weight and protects organs.
- Femur – the thigh bone, longest and strongest in the body. It helps us to stand.
You could even make it fun by playing “Simon Says” and pointing to the correct bone on yourself!
Reading Records and Library Books
This week, your child has brought home a new reading record and a library book. Log-in details for NumBots are Collins Hub are on the back of reading records. Please let me know if you are having access issues.
Reading Records
Please return a signed reading record by Thursday each week ready to be sent home again on Friday. Each week, please write a short comment about your child’s reading (something that’s gone well, something they’ve enjoyed, something you’d like more support with). This is a valuable stream of communication. I’ll set a target for your child each week which can help to give your home learning a focus.
Library Books
Your child has (almost!) free rein of our school library. We have a huge variety of books for you to enjoy at home. We’ll help steer your child towards something that is age-appropriate and will encourage them to engage with something they’re passionate about. Enjoying library books at home is a brilliant way of learning ‘book behaviour’.
- Exploring books physically – turning pages, engaging in conversation about pictures, some independent reading
- Preference – help your child to develop likes/dislikes in genre, illustration, repetition and rhyme, relatable characters
- Impact – vocabulary, listening skills, developing fluency, link reading to being fun (not just school!), bonding through shared reading
Year 1 will visit the library to return books (and select a new one) every Monday. Please return library books to school by the end of the week – this helps us to smooth out the returns process and makes more time for loving books!
PE – Football
This half-term, we are focussing on football to help develop our fundamental movement skills (below). Every sport/activity needs a variety of these skills. Our job is to develop them enough so that children can interchange across sports using the same learnt fundamental skills.
Year 5 have made a great start in the first few weeks. The children have followed instructions well and have kept the same high classroom standards outside. The first few sessions were all about passing accurately to a partner and keeping control of the ball. In groups of 2 or 3, children needed to pass with the inside of their foot (for the most control), to their partner. We linked this to the fundamental skill of throwing from last year. When you throw, you want your arm to end up following the direction of the ball. Kicking a football is the same – you want your foot to follow the ball through to keep the pass straight. Here are some pictures of the children in action:
Help at home:
We’re learning about urban green spaces in geography. Perhaps explore some of these spaces where you live and practise those passing skills?
We Are Geographers!
This half term, our geography topic learning is based around where we live in the world.
We started by looking at the earth and noticed the sea and land. We found out that the land is split into continents and we live in Europe.
After finding Wetherby on our map, we thought about the scale of towns, cities, countries and continents. The children labelled some concentric circle to compare the sales of these places.
We then looked more closely at the United Kingdom. We learnt about the four countries and where we can find them on a map.
Help at home: Can you child remember the four countries that make up the United Kingdom?
Why not explore Google Earth together and find familiar places?
Welcome to Reception
A reminder that our ‘Welcome to Reception’ meeting is on Wednesday 10 September, 2025 at 6pm. This is held at school.
Following our first welcome session, this is an opportunity to find out some basic ‘need to knows’ about life in Reception.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Living and Learning: 8Rs for learning
This week, we looked at our school 8 Rs for Learning.
They remind us of the skills and attitudes that we need to help us to become the very best learners:
🌟 Responsive – listening carefully and joining in
🌟 Ready – being prepared and focused
🌟 (Safe) Risks – being brave and trying new things
🌟 Responsible – looking after our learning and behaviour
🌟 Resourceful – using things around us to help
🌟 Resilient – keeping going when it feels tricky
🌟 Remember – practising so we don’t forget
🌟 Reflect – thinking about how we did and how we can improve
We looked at some statements and decided which of the 8Rs they would be.
We need to always show our teacher we are ready. Deacon
Our recaps help us remember what we have already learnt. J
We need to take safe risks to find out if we like new things. Zubi
Help at home: Can your child tell you which of the 8Rs they have used today?
Thank you!
As we start the second week of Year 4, I wanted to say thank you for a great start to the year! I can tell this is going to be a great year!
I’ve been so impressed with how quickly the children have settled in to their new routines. We can already respectfully and safely hand out books and equipment and collect it back in again, come in to class ready to learn and get straight in to our morning task. We really are fantastic at being cheerleaders for each other; past the initial embarrassment, they now love saying together “Wow **insert name of classmate**, you’re amazing!” when one of their peers pushes themselves to try something they didn’t believe they could do.
A few of us are still working on having our hands empty, silent voices and eyes on the speaker (which helps us all to concentrate on our learning) so we are working on that as our class target. Every time we achieve our class target we earn a shell. Every time we collect 10 shells we earn an enhancement to our end of term treat. Given how well they are doing I can see this is going to be a BIG treat!
Help at home
Ask your child what is going well for them in Year 4 and what they would like to get better at. If there is anything you or your child need help with please let me know either by email, calling me at school or at pick up. The door is always open!
Living & Learning – Our School Rules
This week we’ve been revisiting our school rules:
We shared some top tips to help us keep our school rules.
Be respectful
Remember 2 wrongs don’t make a right (Max and Arthur)
Always listen to the teacher (Lillie-Jane)
Always listen to your friends (Orianne)
Always respect nature in school (Sophie)
Use fidgets under the table so you don’t distract friends (Orianne and Sophie)
Be ready
When you hear the whistle at playtime you need to freeze. (Monty)
Stop at 2 when it is “3-2-1 stop” (Freddie)
When you hear “3-2-1 stop” you need to listen (Aria)
Be safe
Don’t stand too close to people in the line so you don’t knock them over.
Don’t stand too close to the fence. (Sophie and Orianne)
Help at home
Help at home by discussing our school rules with your child. Ask them when they find it difficult to follow the rules and how they might be able to overcome this.
Living and Learning – I Follow the School Rules
Every week, we have a Living and Learning statement (you can find them on the calendar).
To start the school year, our statement is:
I follow the school rules.
We’ve been talking about what it means to follow the school rules. A rule is something that we all agree to follow so that everyone can feel happy and healthy. Rules help us to know what to do and how to behave at school, at home and in the community.
At St James’ CE Primary, we have three school rules.
- We’re respectful
- We’re ready
- We’re safe
The children shared some ideas about how these rules might look around school.
We’re respectful
- we show kindness
- we use good manners
- we listen carefully
- we take care of our belongings
- we look after each other
- we put our hands up to speak
We’re ready
- we come to school ready to learn
- we have silent voices
- we have empty hands
- we have eyes on the speaker
We’re safe
- we make sensible choices
- we walk around school
- we use equipment properly
- we ask for help when we need
When these rules are followed, it helps our school to be a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe. They help us to feel cared for and included.
Help at home by discussing the school rules with your child. Do you have any rules at home? Can you think of any places in the community with their own special rules (perhaps a swimming pool or the library?).