Our weekly message: Friday 06 February 2026

Don’t forget the parent-teacher meetings happening next week on Tuesday and Thursday after school – we’re looking forward to seeing you there.

Also next week…

Number facts challenge

Does your child know their times tables and other number facts?

On Wednesday next week, we’ll be doing the challenge for the first time with no preparation. After this, your child will bring home the challenge, their score and sponsor forms.

Please help your child improve their score for the next part of the challenge which will be on Wednesday 25 February. Help us raise lots of money for our school charity and for PTA – funds raised will be split 50-50.

Safer Internet Day 2026

Next Tuesday (10 February) is Safer Internet Day. This is an annual, global awareness day that encourages children, young people and adults to think carefully about how we use the online world and digital technology.

At home, it can be a powerful annual prompt to refresh conversations about online safety, wellbeing and responsible digital behaviour. Use these top tips for parents and carers from the UK Safer Internet Centre.

Sticking with the staying safe theme…

Blue lights

This week’s Living and Learning theme has been ‘I know the importance of the emergency services’.

Children in Key Stage 1 should watch this BBC Bitesize clip called “The different people who help us’. Have a chat about what they’ve watched. Can your child name any other people who help us?

Children in Key Stage 2 should watch an alternative BBC Bitesize clip: ‘How to make a call to emergency services’. On the same page are lots more short clips in the same series – how to deal with burns, choking, bites and stings… Aim to watch them over the next few weeks.

Attendance matters

Each term , the Department for Education produces a report which analyses each school’s attendance and compares attendance with a small group of similar schools. Here are some highlights from the Autumn term…

1. Across school, attendance on Monday mornings was higher than 13 out of 20 similar schools.
2. Year 4 attendance was higher than 11 out of 14 similar schools.
3. Year 2 attendance was higher than 9 out of 20 similar schools.

Well done to pupils (and parents) in Year 2 and 4! Thank you to everyone who helps to make sure their child attends school with no unnecessary absences.

Finally this week…

St James’ Church – vacancy

We’ve been asked by our friends at St James’ Church to let you know there’s a vacancy for Parish Office Manager. Read more about this vacancy.

For further details please contact Rev Matthew Peat:

• telephone: 01937 529875
• email: wetherbyvicar@gmail.com

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 30 January 2026

We’re fast approaching the end of half-term, marking the half way point of the school year. Despite the dark and cold mornings (this morning being one of them!), it’s lovely to see our children coming in happy and healthy with a smile on their faces.

2026-27 training days

Last week, we let you know that the 2026-27 holidays are in our school calendar. We can now confirm the five training days are all confirmed and in the calendar, too. They are:

• Tuesday 01 September 2026
• Friday 02 October 2026
• Friday 23 October 2026
• Monday 07 December 2026
• Friday 28 May 2027

There are three in Autumn 1 half-term because this is a long half-term (eight weeks), giving children a chance to have a couple of longer weekends to rest.

Bird watching

Also last week, we mentioned the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch – the world’s largest garden wildlife survey. Our Year 3 children wasted no time in getting involved…

A happy and healthy place to work

As well as welcoming helpful constructive questions, comments and concerns, every year we invite you to complete a survey. We do the same with staff – sometimes just teachers and sometimes all staff. Here are a couple of comments from this year’s survey of teachers:

• ‘Regular check-ins are meaningful and consistently followed up. I feel listened to and supported, and I feel strongly that wellbeing is viewed as a priority in our school. Introduction of new initiatives is workload-friendly.’
• ‘I really appreciate the personalised feedback/support/challenge… I feel valued as a part of the team at St James’ and the wider Sphere Federation. This has a positive impact on my wellbeing’

St James’ CE Primary is a happy and healthy place to learn and also to work!

Happy, healthy and safe

Do you have to use a car to drop off and collect your child? The best way to travel to and from school is to walk, scoot or cycle. If you do drive, please remember to drive and park up with respect and care…

Hallfield Lane is being used so much for parking:

• sometimes residents can’t get out of their own driveways
• emergency vehicles would not be able to access if needed
• it’s dangerous for families who are walking to and from school

If you park on the double yellow lines or zigzags anywhere round school, this causes danger to our children, pedestrians, and other drivers. Please don’t park on them or across the road from them. Read more about these road markings and the law.

Freemans Way and Ceres Road are both alternative roads to park on, This will help congestion on Hallfield Lane (and walking at least park of the way is healthier, too!).

We know that the lack of parking is frustrating but please help us to keep the environment safe, our children safe and show that we consider the residents who live around school. Thank you for your cooperation and support.

You might want to report a problem to Leeds City Council – the more who do so, the more likely something will be done. We suggest using the link to Report a Traffic Management Issue – it only takes a minute.

Charging, remissions and outstanding payments

We’ve recently updated our policy. Check this out, especially if your child attends wraparound care, after-school clubs or Nursery, or has tuition for an instrument. Main updates are around what we do if we’re waiting for a payment for these services.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 23 January 2026

This week’s message is a busy one. However, most of the sections are short and the last two sections are just suggestions…

Online safety Zoom

Did you attend Monday’s Zoom session – Online Safety Workshop?

• If you did, thank you. We welcome your feedback
• If you didn’t, you can watch a recording

Watch us while we work

Talking of feedback, thank you for the feedback following our recent Watch Us While We Work session.

• ‘It was good to see the children being able to have an open conversation about their feelings and learning about the different types of feelings.’
• ‘An interesting session listening to the children understand the feeling of guilty’
• ‘It was a great Watch us While we Work today!’

2026-27 school holidays

Leeds school holidays can be found here, and they’re now also in our school calendar. What’s missing at the moment is the dates of the five training days which schools take – we’ll be confirming these shortly and we’ll let you know soon.

Absences in term time

You all know we don’t authorise holidays or trips away in term time. You can be fined or face legal action for taking your child on holiday during term time. Since September 2025, there have been 1,841 penalty notices issued to families in Leeds.

We’re able to authorise an absence if it’s unavoidable or exceptional:

If your child is genuinely ill, that’s unavoidable (check the NHS Is my child too ill for school?). However, if your child has had numerous absences, we can ask for evidence of an illness or simply not authorise the absence.

If you need to be absent for something exceptional, like a wedding of a close relative, please ask for a form to request the absence is authorised. We may ask for more details so we can be clear about the absence. (And please remember – the absence must be exceptional, so a second absence is unlikely to be classed as exceptional, even if it’s for a different reason.)

Big Garden Birdwatch

The RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch starts today. It’s the world’s largest garden wildlife survey. It’s simple: spend an hour watching the birds in your patch, between 23 and 25 January, and record the birds that land!

Half-term suggestion

We can’t believe there are only three weeks left of this half-term before the half-term holiday. Fancy something different? Maybe consider something new, like climbing – there are sessions in Leeds and Harrogate – or something more traditional, like football.

As with all clubs and holiday activities, we strongly recommend you check out the provider’s safeguarding policies and practices. Check out the four questions you should ask – they’re at the foot of our Our extra-curricular activities page.

Our weekly message: Friday 16 January 2026

At St James’ CE Primary, we treat everything around health and safety seriously. One aspect of this is to make sure we do regular fire drills. Similar to this is to practise lockdowns and invacuations. Put simply, a lockdown is when people must stay where they are and an invacuation is when people must all go inside, possibly to the same space. We’ll be doing one of these practices next week. We explain to children reasons in a child-friendly way – for example, that this might be if there’s been a report of an angry dog or if there’s a building on fire and there’s too much smoke. 

The rest of this message is about this half-term’s topic…

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term, we’re historians. We’ll be developing our understanding of Britain’s past and the wider world. 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 23, 24 and 25. 

Years 1 and 2

In this topic, children will learn about how toys and games have changed over time. They’ll develop chronological understanding by sequencing events in their own lives before learning about how toys and games were different during their parents’ and grandparents’ and great grandparents’ childhoods. They’ll look at similar toys 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.

The key historical concept which we’ll explore in this topic is innovation. An innovation is an improvement or replacement for something

Years 3 and 4

In this topic, children will learn about the Roman Empire and its invasion of Britain. It 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 Key Stage 1, look for some books about toys 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 books about shopping, 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!

Finally, don’t forget on Monday, we’ve an online session to support you to help your child stay safe online. This is important: very frequently, we’re made aware of unsafe behaviour amongst children when they’re online at home. Join in the Zoom session using the link that has been emailed to parents/carers.

Our weekly message: Friday 09 January 2026

It’s a little late, but we wish everyone a happy new year.

New year, new details? If there are 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.)

Attendance

Our attendance so far this year is 94.0% – this is a lower than the national figure for primary schools (95.1%) and lower than our attendance rate for Autumn 2024 (95.4%). Let’s hope it can rise across the Spring term.

Please continue to check the NHS site, Is My Child Too Ill For School.

Positive home-school relationships

Have you read our Positive Home-School Relationships Policy? It sets out reasonable expectations for meetings or emails with teachers and – occasionally – what we might do if we encounter unreasonable communications or unacceptable behaviour.

Staying safe online

Here’s an extract from an email from, Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner:

I have recently published a new guide, What I wish my parents or carers knew: A guide for parents on managing children’s digital lives.

Supporting children’s safety is a shared responsibility between families, schools and wider society. For parents and carers, this responsibility has become increasingly complex as children’s lives are now deeply intertwined with the digital world. Many parents face difficult decisions about how to balance protecting children from online harm with enabling access to spaces that are now central to learning, socialising and play.

This guide…focuses on the challenge of managing children’s everyday online habits.

This guide was written with the direct involvement of children in England. It is a reflection of their views.

When I speak to children about what they would do differently when it comes to being online, with the benefit of hindsight, I ask them: would they give a smartphone to their own teenager? Almost unanimously, they tell me no. They want to be protected from it as long as possible.

As parents, carers, and educators, our job must begin and end with our children’s care and safety. It’s what they expect and what they want from you.

As one young person told me: “Don’t be afraid to be firm… If you are worried [that] your child is seeing harmful content and you don’t know what they’re watching and it’s affecting the behaviour, just take it that you know best – they don’t.

School dinners

In January 2025, 7,724 pupils entitled to a free school meal missed out on a free, hot lunch. School meals can be cheaper than a packed lunch. Think of the time you could save, too! All of our school meals are cooked on site and freshly prepared. Find out if you’re entitled to free school meals by applying online.

Our second Watch Us While We Work session for parents of children in Key Stages 1 and 2 is next Wednesday at 9.00am. As always, there will be two parts. One will focus on a feature of our Living and Learning curriculum that we call Feelings First, and one will focus on Reading. See you then!

Our Christian value focus this half-term is...

…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.

Our weekly message: the last in 2025

Thank you for all your support this term. This week’s message has a mix of articles… 

Christmas productions

Thanks to everyone who came to one of our Christmas productions this week – we hope you enjoyed Humph!

The production raised £182.16 for our current school charity, Martin House Children’s Hospice. Thank you for all donations.

Move to Arbor

Our management information system move to Arbor is well underway. Thank you to the 81% of parents/carers who have logged into the parent portal. You should have noticed that most of the communications now come through Arbor. If you have not seen any emails for a while, please check your spam box and make sure you mark emails from school as safe.

From January, all payments should be made on Arbor. Reception, Year 1,2 and Year 3,4 all have trips coming up next term. Emails have been sent out about these, and payment can be made on Arbor.

Also, just a reminder to download the Arbor app and set up your phone so you receive notifications. Quick/short messages will be sent in-app rather than by text message (as in-app messages are free for us to send).

Get out and about over the holiday…

Over the holiday, it can sometimes be good to get out and about. There’s lots going in Leeds – check out the Child Friendly Leeds Winter Guide.

…and stay safe online

2 in 5 parents more relaxed about children’s online safety over Christmas according to this article. This might be at a time when children are even more online than normal. Check out this guide: the 12 Days of Online Safety.

Have a very happy Christmas and we’ll see you again in the new year – Monday 05 January 2026.

Our weekly message: Friday 12 December 2025

It’s a busy time of year, but it was lovely to see so many of you at the Christingle service on Wednesday.

Living and Learning

This week’s Living and Learning theme has been about giving and receiving compliments.

Spend a week giving compliments to each other at home each day. 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.

How we communicate with you

After-school club – early closing

Next Friday is the last day of term. If you use our wrapround care on Fridays, please remember it closes early: 5pm.

Finally this week, thank you to the pupils who have visited Warm Spaces this year, and thank you for the warm welcome when we got there!

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 05 December 2025

At this time of year, there’s a recurring theme to school: the sound of younger children rehearsing for their Christmas production! The build up to Christmas is an exciting time, but it can mean children are tired – sticking to routines and getting plenty of sleep is needed to help everyone.

Rocksteady

On Wednesday, we welcomed parents in to watch our end of term Rocksteady concert. There were six bands on show with a range of children across both key stages showing off their talents. It was so lovely to see children achieving and believing in themselves – the courage shown by all to perform to a full crowd really shone through. All our band members have thoroughly enjoyed Rocksteady (and based on the huge applause, I think parents have, too!).

Here’s just one of the songs performed. (We can’t post the videos of all songs due to video sizes and photo permissions – sorry.)

Look out for more about Rocksteady at St James’ CE Primary before the end of term.

Topic review

Did you come to our Topic Review session last Friday? If so, thank you!

And did you manage to find a couple of minutes to leave us some feedback? Again, if so, thank you.

• ‘It was good to see how much fun my son and friends have whilst learning.’
• ‘Very informative and all children seemed interested in the topic.’
• ‘All the kids seemed really engaged and knowledgeable.’
• ‘It was good to see how engaging the teacher was with the class and what the children are learning for their topic.’
• ‘Great to see the teaching in the classroom. Great pupil engagement and interesting topic.’
• ‘Brilliant lesson. Super interesting and very engaging’
• ‘It was great to be able to see both of my children. I liked that the sessions were interactive and my children were able to talk to me about what they’ve been learning as well as showing me their work.’

Thanks to the parents who got stuck in, too – here are some pics from the Year 6 Topic Review session…

Our weekly message: Friday 28 November 2025

If you came along to our Topic Review session this afternoon, thank you. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you’d like to leave some feedback, we’d love to read it. We pass compliments on to teachers and take on board suggestions.

Today’s the last day of our 100% in November attendance competition…

In total, 91 had 100% attendance. In assembly this afternoon, winners from each phase were randomly selected:

• Early Years: Leo (Reception)
• Years 1 and 2: Evelyn (Year 1)
• Years 3 and 4: Alfie (Year 3)
• Years 5 and 6: Madeleine (Year 6)

Each of the four winners win a £25 Love2Shop vouchers. Well done to all the children with 100%.

The next part of this week’s message is from our PTA. Let’s start with festive news: PTA will be selling tickets to the Christmas Disco all next week.

Your School Lottery

Your School Lottery is great! A member and supporter of our community wins a cash prize every single week and each month there’s a fantastic prize on offer – from a £500 Lego voucher to a Nintendo Switch Bundle, the prizes are brilliant. There’s also a £25,000 jackpot up for grabs each week (one of us will win it one day, we feel sure of it!).

The more tickets we sell the more money goes to our school. Get your ticket!

Look out for monthly communications to tell you about the current monthly prize. Good luck!

Easyfundraising

Easyfundraising means your online shopping can help to raise free money for school. It’s completely free for parents. If enough people use it, we’ll make some completely free money for school.

Over 7,000 brands will donate to us when you use easyfundraising to shop with them – at no extra cost to yourself! All you need to do is sign up and remember to use easyfundraising whenever you shop online. Did we mention it’s easy and completely free?!

These donations really mount up, so please sign up to support us!

Pre-loved uniform

We all know how quickly kids grow out of their uniform, so our dedicated Uniform Fairies collect donations and then twirl their magic wands to make the items ready for their next owner. Ta dahh!

This is a service aimed at helping people, rather than making money, so items are not priced. Instead it’s a pay-as-you-feel system (minimum £1). If you need any items at any point in the year, please email us on the email address below or speak to one of us in the playground.

This information comes from our PTA page on the website.

Finally this week, a competition from Active Leeds…

We’re inviting children and young people across Leeds to get creative and celebrate their local leisure centres! 

At Active Leeds, we believe our leisure centres are more than just places to swim or work out… they’re spaces where memories are made, friendships grow, and confidence builds. From learning to swim to trying gymnastics for the first time, or simply spending time with friends, there are so many amazing experiences that happen every day in our centres.

We’re asking young people to share an experience they’ve had at their local leisure centre through art, writing, animation, or any creative way they like. It could be a drawing of their swimming lesson, a collage of their favourite activity, or even a short animation showing what makes their centre special.

The winning creation will receive a £50 Amazon gift voucher and be featured in our upcoming MADE IN LEEDS campaign, seen right across the city!

We want to highlight the joy, energy and sense of community that our centres bring to young people and their families. Who better to show that than the kids themselves?

Entries are open until 01 December 2025.

Simply send a photo or video of your entry to sport.webupdates@leeds.gov.uk.