Our weekly message: Friday 16 May 2025

Finally…

Recently, I received an invitation to an education-themed Royal Garden Party. I saw the invitation as a celebration of all the wonderful stuff that goes on across Sphere Federation, so thank you to all the pupils, staff and parents/carers here at St James’ CE Primary and at the other two Sphere schools, Moortown Primary and Scholes (Elmet) Primary. Here’s a couple of pics taken at the event this week…

Our weekly message: Friday 09 May 2025

In the next few weeks, different statutory assessments take place. They kick off next week with the end of Key Stage 2 assessments (the SATs) which Year 6 children will sit. Early next half-term, Year 4 pupils do the Multiplication Tables Check and Year 1 pupils (and some Year 2 pupils) do the Phonics Screening Check. We wish all the best to all our pupils.

Cooking lessons

This term, your child will enjoy preparing a snack or meal – it’s the third opportunity in the year to develop food preparation skills.

• Years 1 and 2: Children will prepare fruit bars, practising skills such as weighing, mashing and mixing
• Years 3 and 4: Children will sieve, knead and glaze (amongst other skills) to make savoury scones
• Years 5 and 6: Children will use similar skills to make bread

Please alert us to any allergies your child has. We’ll do our best to adapt recipes.

For more about our Cooking curriculum, please check out our Cooking and Nutrition Curriculum Guide – they include the recipes and background information including the food preparation skills children will practise. (We’re in Year B this year.)

School meals

We’ve been informed by Catering Leeds, our school meals provider, that school meal prices are going to significantly increase from September. We’re told the increase in prices is to cover rising food costs and increased labour rates for all frontline catering staff. Catering Leeds has also taken the decision to charge a management fee on top of their school meal costs. This also has a knock-on effect to the prices that we need to charge parents/carers for meals.

As a result of this, we’ve had to make difficult decisions. From September, the price of a school meal for children in Nursery and Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be £3.00 per day.

Children in Reception and Years 1 and 2 will continue to receive Universal Infant Free School Meals (unless there’s any new legislation on this).

As you will no doubt have heard in the news, school budgets are becoming increasingly tight. We have no choice but to pass on the cost increases to parents/carers to ensure we have as much money as possible for teaching, learning and providing a varied curriculum for our children.

Here are some actions we’ve taken to try to limit the burden for you:

• Last year, we explored school meal costs, comparing with average costs across the country. The conclusion was that prices charged by Catering Leeds were reasonable.
• On hearing the news about the increase, we’ve checked prices with local schools but in a different local authority – the prices they charge are in line with the £3 per day costs we’re having to introduce.
• Next year, we’ll explore whether an alternative catering provider would provide better value for money.

Forest fun

At St James’ CE Primary, we’re blessed with wonderful grounds with lots of space. We’re always keen to get out and enjoy our Forest School. sessions. Here’s a pic of Year 2 children being crafty and creative…

Travelling to school consultation

This comes from Tim Taylor, Director of Transport Services for West Yorkshire Combined Authority and is mainly for parents of children in Years 5 and 6..

We are writing to make you aware and encourage your input into a public consultation.

As a parent or carer, you will know the importance of good transport options including public transport, walking, wheeling and cycling, to connect children and young people to education and opportunity. This should be convenient, safe and affordable, no matter where you are in West Yorkshire.

Here at the Combined Authority, we are working hard to deliver an integrated, sustainable and reliable transport system that connects all parts of our region so everyone can access the places they need to live fulfilled lives, including access to education.

We are therefore undertaking a consultation to get your views on how we can best support travel to school. This includes our policy regarding dedicated bus services to secondary schools, and how children and young people travel to their place of education in the future.

As a parent or carer of a child currently in primary school and likely to be considering options for secondary school, we want to understand you and your child’s needs, to help shape our future plans.

Your views will help us create a new, sustainable travel to school strategy, with any resulting changes to secondary school services not expected to be introduced until September 2026 at the earliest.

Transport for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and school bus services to primary schools are not part of this consultation and will remain unaffected.

We want to understand what’s most important to you when choosing a secondary school and learn more about your future travel arrangements. It’s important to share your views whether your child walks, wheels, cycles, travels by bus, car, train or uses a dedicated school bus.

The consultation opens on 23 April and you’ll have until 11 June 2025 to participate.

Find out more and complete the survey.

Our weekly message: Friday 02 May 2025

This week’s message introduces our new topics in Key Stage 1 and 2 – History topics.

This half-term, we’re historians. We’ll develop our understanding of people and events in Britain and the wider world.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary. See pages 28 and 29 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Each phase also has key historical concepts which will feature within most lessons. These historical concepts are themes that are revisited, strengthened and deepened during your child’s journey through the History curriculum. See page 23 of the same document.

Years 1 and 2

In this topic, children learn about two significant individuals who stood up for something they believed in. Nelson Mandela is famous across the world for his devotion to equal rights for black people in South Africa. Leonora Cohen was a suffragette from Leeds who fought passionately for the right to vote for women. Children will learn about what they believed in, what they did and the impact that they had. They’ll also consider what they believe strongly about and how they can make a change.

The key concept that children will learn about in this history topic is inequality.

Years 3 and 4

In this topic, children learn about the Leeds West Indian Carnival. They’ll learn about the carnival’s founder, Arthur France, and how he came to Leeds from the West Indies. They’ll learn about how Arthur and friends started the carnival. They’ll then use a range of historical sources to study how the carnival has changed and how it has stayed the same. Children will finally learn about the origins of West Indian carnivals by learning about slavery and the slave trade.

The key concepts for this topic are trade, inequality and power.

Years 5 and 6

In this topic, children learn about what life was like in Britain during World War II. Children begin by learning about how the war began. They’ll then learn about the mass evacuation of Jewish children from Germany to Britain. Next, they’ll learn about the Blitz and the evacuation of British children from towns and cities to the countryside. They’ll then learn about the role of women. Finally, they’ll investigate life after the war. They’ll learn about how the opportunities for women narrowed again and also the important role that immigration from Commonwealth countries played in helping Britain to rebuild after the war.

The key concepts for this topic are invasion, inequality and power.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they have been learning in class. Our Class News page 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 your child is learning.

Visit Abbey House Museum as they have some artefacts relating to suffragettes and Leonora Cohen – it’s also a great visit, regardless of which period children are learning about. Leeds residents also get free access to nearby Kirkstall Abbey which is great to explore on a sunny day.

Leonora Cohen also has a blue plaque on a house she lived in on Clarendon Road in Woodhouse. Your teacher would love to see a selfie of you with her plaque!

Nelson Mandela Gardens in Millennium Square commemorates Mandela’s visit to Leeds when he has presented with the Freedom of the City. It’s a small, calm space well worth visiting if you’re in the city centre.

For World War II, Eden Camp is a great visit. Also in North Yorkshire is the  Yorkshire Air Museum which will be of particular interest to anyone wanting to learn more about the planes used during the war. A bit closer is the Royal Armouries which has weapons and armour from a wide variety of time periods and places around the world.

Finally, it’s a little while away but a visit to the Leeds West Indian Carnival in August will give children the opportunity to experience the event in real life!

Finally this week,  at St James’ CE Primary, we’re blessed with having beautiful grounds with loads of space. Here’s a pic of one of our older pupils installing a bird box he helped to make to encourage wildlife to enjoy the grounds as much as we do…

Our weekly message: Friday 25 April 2025

We hope you enjoyed the Easter break.

Relationships and Sex Education

Coming up in the weeks commencing 02 June, 09 June and 16 June, children from Year 1 to Year 6 will take part in Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) lessons. These are part of our Personal, Social and Health Education curriculum (PSHE, or ‘Living and Learning’, as we call it).

We want parents/carers and pupils to feel assured that RSE is delivered at a level appropriate to both the age and development of pupils, and to feel safe to voice opinions and concerns relating to the provision.

The lessons are led by children’s class teacher. They take place in a safe learning environment and are underpinned by our school ethos and values.

Nationally, all primary schools are required by law to teach Relationships Education and Health Education. At St James’ CE Primary, we’ve provided RSE lessons successfully as part of Living and Learning for many years.

We refer you to these sections of our RSE policy:

1. Section 9 provides a list of the vocabulary that will be used (pages 7 and 8)
2. Section 11 includes an overview of the topics that will be covered (page 11 includes a table to show the learning across each year group)

We know that you may have some issues / concerns. If you’d like to find out more, discuss any concerns, or speak to someone in more detail about the teaching and learning planned for this important aspect of your child’s education, please contact Miss Beatson.

Similarly, you have the right to request that your child be withdrawn from some or all of the lessons that can be regarded as ‘sex education’. For our school, this comprises lessons in Year 6 on what human reproduction is and how babies grow. Please see the government’s factual guide to RSE for parents: Understanding Relationships and Health Education in your child’s primary school: a guide for parents. If you wish to withdraw your Year 6 child from RSE, please contact Miss Beatson to discuss the matter. See page 6 of the RSE policy for more information about your right to withdraw your child.

We’re committed to working in partnership with parents. Feedback indicates that the overwhelming majority of parents are highly supportive of our Relationships and Sex Education programme.

Attendance matters

Our whole school attendance figure up to the Easter holidays is 95.0%. The national figure for primary schools is 94.8% and it’s 93.3% for all schools. It’s great that we’re above the national averages.

• Reception:  94.5%
• Year 1: 96.0% – awesome attendance!
• Year 2: 94.7%
• Year 3: 96.7% – astounding attendance!
• Year 4: 94.1%
• Year 5: 96.2% – amazing attendance!
• Year 6: 91.5%

Well done and thank you to all of you who make sure their child attends school as much as they can.

Dermot O’Leary

Most of you will know Dermot O’Leary as a TV and radio presenter. Did you also know he’s a children’s author, too? On Tuesday, our older Junior Leaders visited another Leeds school where he was promoting his new book, Spy Fox and Agent Feathers.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

This half-term's Christian value is...

…peace.

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.

‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.’ (John 14:27)

This value is about positive harmony and healthy relationships between people. It involves spiritual as well as material security. Peace is a state of true wholeness, a state of wellbeing. This value promotes harmony, stability and security within the school and local community.

Christians believe that a dove is a symbol of peace. After the flood in the story of Noah (Genesis 5:32-10:1), Noah sends out the dove to see if the flood has subsided and that peace has been restored to earth.

Help at home!

The dove carrying an olive branch is a symbol of peace in Christianity.

Is Christianity the only religion to have a symbol of peace? Encourage your child to carry out some research about peace symbols.

Your child might also design their own symbol of peace to reflect who you are.

Our weekly message: Friday 28 March 2025

Look our for our Learning Updates next week. These ‘mini-reports’ are sent home at the end of the Autumn and Spring terms.

Compliments

I can give and receive compliments has been our Living and Learning statement this week. It’s all about being polite and making each other feel good about ourselves.

Help at home… Spend next week giving compliments to each other at home. Try to make sure the compliments are about what we’ve done and not just how we look – we’ve got more power to change what we do than how we look so these compliments can be much more effective. Some children find it hard to receive compliments, so this week of giving compliments might help, too.

Change makers

At St James’ CE Primary, we encourage and empower our children to take responsibility for issues in our locality.

During our recent Geography topic, Y2 children explored and reflected on issues around our school and suggested some improvements. Children expressed concerns over the traffic and road safety issues on Hallfield Lane. They investigated further, conducted fieldwork and presented their findings. Alongside the learning in Geography, the children focused their Reading and Writing learning on the importance of speeches. They had a go at writing their own speeches – the results were astounding!

This week, we welcomed Councillor Alan Lamb and traffic engineer Chris Proctor into our classroom, providing a platform for the children to voice their concerns. Our Year 2 children delivered their speeches skilfully and passionately, rousing our visitors to explore further action on the issues raised.

We look forward to welcoming Councillor Lamb and Mr Proctor back to our classroom to conduct further fieldwork and work together in making our locality safer.

Thinking of going on holiday in term-time?

From time to time across the year, we’ve let you know the impact of missing five days of school. We’ve thought about it in terms of Reading, Writing, Maths, Science, and the social and emotional aspects of school. Taking a week’s holiday during term-time means your child misses…

• over 4 hours of learning in Reading
• over 4 hours of learning in Writing
• over 5 hours of learning in Maths
• over 10 hours of learning in other subjects
• over 6 hours of opportunities for social time and play

Missing all this in one week means your child will miss significant chunks of teaching and will have gaps in their learning.

Schools are expected to issue penalty notices for unauthorised term-time absences.

The fine for school absences across the country is £80 if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.

If a parent receives a second fine for the same child within any three-year period, this is charged at the higher rate of £160. 

Fines per parent are capped to two fines within any three-year period. After this, legal action like a parenting order or prosecution is considered. 

So far this school year in Leeds, there have been 4,350 penalty notices issued.

Easter events

Check out this guide to help children and families in Leeds navigate their way through the Easter holidays. The guide’s has lots of free or low-cost activities for a range of ages, in the city centre and in your community.

Don’t forget our Easter service at St James Church on Wednesday at 2pm – we hope to see you there. 

PTA disco

It was lovely to see so many happy faces at the school disco on Friday. A huge thank you to the PTA who organised another great event. We raised £729.17!

Our weekly message: Friday 21 March 2025

Thank you if you managed to visit us this week for our second Topic Review session of the year. Please let us know your thoughts.

Thank you also if you made a contribution to today’s Comic Relief fundraising. We’ve raised a fantastic amount of £157.50 – well done!

There are four articles in this week’s message, one of which is a question for you: Do you know someone who might be interested in becoming a governor?

I can find solutions to different problems.

Our Living and Learning statement this week has been I can find solutions to different problems. This is a really useful one to practise at home, too. We all encounter problems – disagreements with family or friends, for example. In the long run, supporting your child to find their own solutions to problems is better than getting involved yourself.

Help at home. Spend time thinking about the solution more than the problem itself – this will help to move on. Look out for problems in a film or a story you’re enjoying together. Pause and discuss different solutions. If your child comes to you with a real problem, responses such as ‘How do you think you can solve this?’ can be really powerful. (Of course, remain sympathetic and reassure them you’re around if they need more help.)

Find each week’s Living and Learning statement in our calendar – look for the entry at the start of each school week.

Ofsted

You might not be aware that all three Sphere Federation schools have been inspected in the last year:

• Moortown Primary almost exactly one year ago, on 19-20 March 2024
• Scholes (Elmet) Primary two months later, on 21-22 May 2024
• St James’ CE Primary most recently on 21-22 January 2025

The inspections judge schools in five separate areas:

• the quality of education
• behaviour and attitudes
• personal development
• leadership and management
• early years provision

We’re delighted to say that all three schools have been judged to be good or outstanding in all the areas. (In fact, Early Years is judged to be outstanding in all three schools!)

The power of schools working closely together in Sphere Federation is a key part of this. The successful federation has many benefits, including:

• better, broader offer for pupils – both curricular & extra-curricular
• really effective professional development for staff
• better recruitment, succession planning and retention of staff
• close cooperation so teachers and support staff learn from each other
• greater capacity for innovation
• strong governance

Talking of governance…

Do you know someone who might be interested in becoming a governor?

Here are two extracts from the inspection reports about the Sphere Federation Governing Board:

Governors support and challenge leaders in equal measure. They ensure funding is available to support vulnerable pupils. They fulfil their statutory duties effectively.

(Moortown Primary, March 2024)

Governors are skilled and knowledgeable and fulfil their responsibilities well. They make regular visits to school. They use these visits to evaluate the impact of leaders’ decisions.

(St James’ CE Primary, January 2025)

Our Governing Board has vacancies – do you know anyone who might be interested in becoming a governor?

There are already quite a few governors who are parents, but if you feel you can add to our Governing Board, please let us know. If you’ve a relative or friend (not a parent of a child attending a Sphere Federation school) who might have the time and skills, please encourage them to consider taking on the role. It would be great to develop the diversity of the Governing Board, too.

Interested individuals should contact our Chair of Governors, Rachel Cooper: rachelcooper@spherefederation.org

Finally this week, West Yorkshire Police have asked us to share the following…

Vaping

Whilst more of a problem amongst older children, some children of primary age are regularly using vapes.

Our weekly message: Friday 14 March 2025

From time to time. we like to remind you of information and guidance on a particular subject. This week, check out our packed lunch guidance, part of our Food in School website page. Why not try one of the packed lunch top tips!

Watching and browsing online

According to Ofcom, 90% of children are watching online videos and browsing the internet regularly. Many children like to stream videos and look up information. It can be a fun way to learn and relax. However, they must be guided. The online world is filled with inappropriate content and dangerous material. It’s important that you’re able to steer your child towards the right places when online. Internet Matters has published a guide dedicated to supporting adults in setting digital boundaries for children so that they can make smart choices and build healthy online habits. You’ll find practical tips on managing content access, the use of safety controls, advice on setting boundaries and ways to educate children on how to stay secure online.

EYFS survey

Thank you to the Reception parents and carers who completed our recent survey. All those who expressed an opinion agree that…

• the transition into Reception was positive
• their child is happy at school
• we place a high priority on reading
• they’re happy with their child’s progress
• they’re happy with communication
• staff in Reception are approachable

We received some great feedback…

• We are really happy with how well [our son] settled into school and how much progress he has made since September. He loves coming to school, has made great friends and is thriving
• We are happy with our child’s progress and communication.
• We are really happy with how welcoming the school has been and how kind and friendly everyone is. [Our son] absolutely loves coming to school. He has had a great start to his school life at St James’.

We’re exploring all the comments, and we’ve passed on individual comments to the individual staff concerned.

Washing pods and capsules

Where do you keep your laundry and dishwasher washing pods? It’s quite common to store these in a cupboard low down. The Child Accident Prevention Trust has recently published guidance.

Finally, here’s another in our series of pieces about missing a series of days at school. This one relates to writing skills.

If your child was absent for five days in a row…

We typically teach writing in 2- or 3- week blocks. Children who miss five days struggle to access the learning in that whole block because they miss a large part of the sequence of learning. They might miss the initial lessons so they have no idea what they’re writing about or why; they might miss the teaching of key skills and the opportunity to practise these; or they might miss the opportunity to plan and write their own piece. They also miss the regular practice, and teaching, of handwriting, grammar, spelling and vocabulary.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 07 March 2025

This week’s message is about Computing, our current topic…

This half-term, we’re developing our knowledge of computers and computer programming.

Computer programming is super. Creating games, animations and solving real world problems is fun and encourages creativity – it’s challenging, too!

Importantly, the skills your child will use and develop are transferable to other subjects and areas of life. For example, the concept of decomposition in programming is concerned with breaking down a large task into smaller chunks. This concept could be used when writing a story, solving a maths problem or tidying a particularly messy bedroom! The process of debugging is about identifying and fixing an error in a program. It requires systematic, objective thinking and plenty of resilience.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skill sand vocabulary. See pages 12 and 13 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Years 1 and 2

Children will learn about how technology is used beyond school in our homes and all around us. They’ll begin to consider what a computer is and isn’t.

In programming lessons, they’ll create animations in Scratch Jr by creating and debugging algorithms. They’ll then continue to use Scratch Jr to create an interactive quiz.

Years 3 and 4

Children will reason about what exactly makes a computer a computer. Is a games console a computer? Is a TV a computer? Is a bedside lamp a computer? Next, they will learn about inputs and outputs and identify different examples of them in everyday technology.

They’ll then be introduced to Scratch. They will learn how they can add or change sprites and backdrops and then begin to experiment with making their sprites move. They’ll look at programs created on Scratch and use logical reasoning to explain what will happen when these programs are run. They’ll learn about the importance of sequencing in programming when they recreate a well-known melody. Finally, they’ll create their own ‘band’ on Scratch by programming different instrument sprites to play sounds.

Years 5 and 6

Children will learn about what a computer network is and that the Internet is an enormous computer network. They’ll also learn about the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web.

In programming lessons, they’ll be introduced to BBC Microbits – pocket sized computers – which they’ll program to do lots of different things. This will allow children to gain a deeper understanding of concepts like sequence, selection and variables.

Some of this vocabulary may sound alien to you but, as the topic goes on, your child will be able to tell you what they mean and give examples of how they’ve used them in their projects. Some of the projects your children will be making are a magic 8-ball style program which will give you an answer to all your questions and a pedometer to count the number of steps they’re making.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. Class News is a good place to go to find out more about what your child’s up to in school.

The school library and local libraries have lots of books about coding and computer games which your child will be able to borrow and develop both their reading skills and computing knowledge.

Finally, try programming with your child. There are loads of programming apps and software available to download, often for free.

Here’s a list for Key Stage 1:

• Daisy the Dinosaur (Apple only)
• Beebot
• Tynker Junior
• Scratch Jr
• Code Karts

…And one for Key Stage 2:

• Lightbot
• Tynker
• Scratch Jr
• Scratch