Welcome to Year 6!

Hello and a huge welcome to Year 6. I trust you all had a happy and healthy summer break and are raring to go in your last year at St James’. I have to say, I am very happy to be teaching this wonderful class of children again and raring to go this year.

A few key messages from me:

• Your child will be bringing home their new reading record books this week. Please ensure your child reads at home to an adult at least 3 times a week. There are activities in the reading records to complete. Please sent reading records in each Friday.
• PE days: Wednesday and Friday
• Children don’t need to bring any additional stationary into school with them – we will provide everything they need to achieve in their learning. If your child does wish to bring in their own coloured pens/pencils, then they can keep them in a pencil case in their drawer. We have spoken about responsibility and that these items should be respected and looked after.
• Water bottles. Please ensure your child brings their water bottle in each day. I will remind them to bring their bottles home again at the end of the day for cleaning.

I am really excited about this year and what we can achieve together.  Please, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes

Mr Kilner

Spellings to be tested Friday 11th September

beginning

forgetting

preferred

happily

happier

Living & Learning – I follow the school rules

Our Living and Learning statement this week is I follow the school rules. We’ve explored our three school rules:

• We’re ready
• We’re respectful
• We’re safe

We’ve thought about what these rules look like, sound like and feel like in different parts of our school day, from lining up and moving around school safely to listening carefully, being kind and working hard in lessons.

We’ve been practising “3, 2, 1 stop” so we can all quickly show:

• silent voices
• positive body language
• focus on the speaker

Being able to stop what we are doing and be ready for our learning quickly is great because it means we can make the most of our learning time. What a jam-packed year of learning and fun we’re going to have!

Help at home: Talk to your child about our three school rules. Can they explain what being ready, respectful and safe looks like at home or when you’re out and about?

So much to celebrate …

Y4 have come back to school ready to learn!

We’ve had such a fantastic start to the term with children showing great behaviour for learning and a can-do attitude to their work. Whether your child has received a certificate in Celebration Assembly, a “perfect presentation” stamp in their book, a sticker in their Reading Record, dojos for class work or a phone call home, everyone should be celebrating a great start to this year.

Help at home – ask your child what they are proud of achieving this week and what they would like to achieve next week.

A great start to the new year!

We’ve been back for 3 days but it feels like we’ve been together so much longer! What a great start we’ve had to the new year!

We’ve got some very exciting learning ahead of us including Ancient Greece in History and grouping animals in Science.

Some key information:

• In Y4, our PE days are Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please make sure earrings are taken out before school.
• This half term, Y4 will be doing Forest School on a Friday. (See letter for further details of what to bring.)
• We visit the library and celebrate our Reading Records every Friday so please have your library book and Reading Record in school every week on this day.
• Spelling tests will be on a Friday – we’ve listened to your feedback and hope that sending specific words to practise will make spelling homework easier.

If you have any questions please let me know by email, by calling school or in person at pick up.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Poole

Living and Learning: I follow the school rules

What a brilliant first week we’ve had in Year 3!

I’m Miss Hopper and I’m so excited to be starting this year with our wonderful Year 3 children. It’s been lovely getting to know them already. I’m really looking forward to seeing them grow in confidence, independence and resilience throughout the year. There’s lots to look forward to as we begin our journey through Key Stage 2!

This week, we’ve been getting used to new routines, talking about the exciting changes that come with being in Key Stage 2, and working together to make our classroom a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe.

Our Living and Learning statement this week is I follow the school rules. We’ve explored our three school rules:

• We’re ready
• We’re respectful
• We’re safe

We’ve thought about what these rules look like, sound like and feel like in different parts of our school day, from lining up and moving around school safely to listening carefully, being kind and working hard in lessons. The children have shared some fantastic ideas and shown a great understanding of how our rules help everyone to feel happy, safe and ready to learn.

I’ve been so proud of the positive start the children have made to Year 3. Well done, Year 3 – you’ve made a fantastic start!

Help at home: Talk to your child about our three school rules. Can they explain what being ready, respectful and safe looks like at home or when you’re out and about? Can they think of an example of each?

Living and Learning – I Follow the School Rules

This week, our Living and Learning statement was: ‘I follow the school rules.’

We talked about why rules are important and how they help everyone to learn, play and get along. Rules can help to keep things fair and make sure that everyone feels safe and knows what’s expected of them.

We revisited our three school rules:

• We’re respectful.
• We’re ready.
• We’re safe.

We discussed what each of these rules might look and sound like in different places around school. The children came up with lots of examples, such as listening when someone else is speaking, having everything ready for learning, walking sensibly around school and using kind words with others.

We also thought carefully about how following our rules is something we can show through our actions every day, whether we’re in the classroom, on the playground or moving around school.

Help at home by talking about the rules you have at home or rules you follow when you’re out and about. Why do you have them? Can your child explain how a rule might help to keep people respectful, ready or safe?

A Warm Welcome

Hello and welcome to Year 5!

After a busy Summer, our children (and teachers) have returned to school and are settling in, ready for a fantastic year. It was great to hear such happy and healthy memories from the children, and it was nice for them to ask about my holidays, too.

It feels like we have restarted exactly where the class left me in Year 3 – determination, hard-work and resilient learners keen to be the best version of themselves. I’m really pleased with how everyone has adapted to changes, as transitioning between classes can be overwhelming.

We can’t wait to really get stuck in to our learning (especially our new history topic involving Ancient Egypt). The children have shown excitement and have even brought in lots of books for others to read during our book club.

In our first history lesson, we recapped our knowledge of British and world history, using timelines to plot time periods. The children worked well with this, completing the task either independently or as a group.

Help at home:

Talk to your children about our learning from this week.

What have they enjoyed so far?

What are they looking forward to learning more about?

As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

I look forward to another great year!

Take care,

Mr Freeman

Welcome to Year 2!

What a wonderful first week we have had in Year 2 here at St James’ CE Primary.

It has been such a pleasure to meet all of the children and begin getting to know their wonderful personalities. The children have settled in brilliantly. It’s been lovely to see them learn their new routines, making new friends and becoming familiar with their new classroom.

We have loved starting our new topic, The Great Fire of London. This week, we learned about timelines and chronological order, practising how to sequence our morning routine correctly.

I’m really looking forward to all the learning we have ahead in Year 2.

Welcome to Year 1

What a brilliant first week back at school! Year 1 have settled in so well and I’ve been so impressed by how enthusiastic, confident and ready to learn the children have been. It’s been wonderful to see lots of happy faces around the classroom helping to make our school a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe.

There are lots of differences between Reception and Year 1 but the children have taken everything in their stride. They’ve worked incredibly hard to learn all the little things that help our school days run smoothly – moving around the classroom, getting ready for different activities, keeping everything tidy…

One thing that has really stood out to me is the care and pride the children have already shown towards their learning. They’ve been keen to have a go, eager to share their ideas and have made such a positive start.

If this is what we can achieve in our first week, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings!

A few reminders

Reading books

We’ll continue to use the Collins Hub e-book platform for reading. The children have new login details this year which will be sent home on Friday (04.09.26).

NumBots

With this week’s homework, you’ll receive login details for your child to access NumBots, a fantastic resource for daily practice of number facts.

Reading Records

Please return a signed reading record by Wednesday each week ready to be sent home again on Friday. 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 Friday. 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 days

Our PE days this year are Monday and Thursday. Guidance for PE kit can be found here.

“Advisors recommend no earrings are worn for PE; therefore, we will ask your child to remove earrings before the lesson and put them back in after the lesson. This will be carried out by the child. If they are unable to remove or put their earrings back in by themselves, they must not wear them on the day they have PE.”

Water bottles

Please send your child into school with a clean, labelled water bottle every day. Water bottles should come home each evening so they can be cleaned and refilled ready for the next day.

Uniform

It’s been lovely to see children looking so smart and ready for school. We’ve already had plenty of jumper and cardigan detective work! Please make sure all uniform is clearly labelled. It makes life much easier when things inevitably find their way onto the wrong peg!

If you need any additional support, please email me at [email protected].

Help at home

Take a moment this weekend to celebrate what a fantastic start your child has made to Year 1. Ask them what they’ve enjoyed, what they’ve learnt and what feels different from last year.

You could ask:

• What is your favourite thing about Year 1 so far?
• What new routines have you learnt?
• What have you enjoyed learning about?
• What feels the same as last year?
• What are you looking forward to next week?