Holiday Clubs in school

PE Partner OFSTED registered May half-term & summer holiday clubs

PE Partner are back with their holiday clubs, giving children the chance to enjoy active, exciting and positive days during the school holidays.

Their holiday clubs are designed to keep children moving, smiling and engaged, with a fun mix of sports, games, challenges and creative activities.

They’re a brilliant way for children to burn off energy, build confidence, make new friends and enjoy time away from screens in a safe and supportive environment.

Whether your child loves football, dodgeball, team games, creative activities or simply being part of a fun and friendly group, PE Partner holiday clubs offer something for everyone.

May half term and summer holiday club dates are available, including wraparound hours from 8am to 5pm.

Places can fill quickly, so parents are encouraged to take a look at the clubs available nearby and secure their child’s place early.

Book here:
https://pepartner.coordinate.cloud/list

Our weekly message: Friday 08 May 2026

Now that we’re into the Summer term, please remember to make sure your child is protected from the sun: sun cream, hat, plenty of water.

We kick off this week’s message with a question…

Have you thought about becoming a governor?

We have vacancies on our Governing Board. The role involves acting as a ‘critical friend’, providing support and challenge at a strategic level. There are six core Governing Board meetings in the year, three online and three in person, plus occasional additional meetings. There are also visits into school, the focus of these would depend on your role as governor.

If you’re interested, please contact the Chair of Governors, Rachel Cooper: rachelcooper@spherefederation.org

Read more about the Sphere Federation Governing Board.

Getting to grips with things…

Thank you to all the adults who visited us in Reception to explore some fine motor challenges with us.

Children had the chance to show everyone just how well their pincer grips are developing. Some of the activities included pegging out the washing, creating butterfly paintings using cotton wool buds, and filling the holes in Lego pieces with water using pipettes. The children showed great focus and enthusiasm throughout.

Mrs Kendrew then spoke about how children are developing both gross motor skills (big movements) and fine motor skills (small and pincer movements) to support correct pencil grip. She also discussed the 4 Ps of handwriting: posture, pencil grip, paper position and pressure.

Staying Safe themed week

Our next whole school themed week, based around Staying Safe, is from Monday 18 May 2026.  The key message is how to be safe in a range of situations – at home, at school, online and in the environment.

A variety of sessions and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education including water safety (Canal and River Trust and RNLI); fire safety (West Yorkshire Fire Service); first aid; safety in our community (PCSOs) and drug education (d:side).

On Wednesday 20 May from 3.00pm – 3:30pm, there’s a drug education drop-in information session in the playground. A representative from d:side, a health education provider, will be available to discuss details of your child’s drug education learning in the themed week.

Can you help? Does your job involve an aspect of safety?  If you’re able to support our Staying Safe themed week by coming into school to speak to children, please contact us via the office or your child’s class teacher.

Due to the rising costs of visitors to school, this year, we are requesting a voluntary contribution of £2 per pupil to go towards paying for visitors. This can be made on Arbor. Thank you for your support with this.

We’ll keep you up to date about events during the week on the Class News pages. Thank you for your support to keep St James’ CE Primary School a happy, healthy and safe school.

Nursery

At the moment, children in Early Years (Nursery and Reception) are taught in one classroom. In 2026-27, we’re expecting higher numbers join us in Reception. This, combined with low numbers for Nursery, mean that we’re looking at withdrawing our Nursery provision. Please contact us if you’ve any questions, comments or concerns about this.

Sweatshirts

For some years, pupils in Year 6 have worn a different coloured sweatshirt to wear as part of the school uniform. From this September, Year 6 children will wear navy blue sweatshirts, matching the rest of school. There are several reasons for this:

• Expecting Year 6 pupils to wear different colours each year means our uniform is unsustainable – they can’t be passed on and reused. Blue sweatshirts that still fit the children can continue to be worn into Year 6.
• Government guidance from September 2026 states, ‘schools should limit the number of compulsory branded items of uniform’ and that schools should ensure their uniform is cost effective and sustainable.
• We want Year 6 pupils to look and feel like they belong at St James’ CE Primary.
• School has always bought pupils one sweatshirt or cardigan to help with the cost of wearing a different colour – in our current economic climate, we can no longer afford to do this.

Although there will be some disappointment amongst the Year 5 children, we’ve explained the points above and reassured them that they will still have leavers’ hoodies at the end of Year 6.

Finally this week… To our Year 6 children: All the best for your end of Key Stage 2 SATs assessments next week. And to everyone: Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 01 May 2026

Don’t forget Monday is a bank holiday, so we’ll see you next week on Tuesday.

Fancy some magical fun for all the family? Check out this magic show on Saturday 09 May.

Now, let’s find out more about our Summer 1 topic…

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term we are geographers. The topic is called Explorers.

In this geography-driven topic, we’re comparing a place in the United Kingdom with a place in another country. Y1,2 children are heading to Kenya in Africa, Y3,4 children are having a mini-break in Venice, and finally, Y5,6 children are trekking through the Amazon Rainforest in South America.

Across the year groups, children will develop their understanding of some key geographical concepts:

• Location is a position (eg a country, a city), often described in a clear, precise way (ie using a latitude and longitude). It is separate from people’s perceptions and experiences.
• Place = location + meaning. This will include the physical and human geography that make a place unique. Importantly, place is not rigid. It is changing and can be perceived in different ways.
• Scale is defined by the relative sizes of places. This could be differences in area, population or distances. Scale can also be defined by our view of the world. For example, we may consider an aspect of geography on a local, national and international scale.
• Interdependence is the idea that the world is connected and that countries or individuals do not act in isolation. Our actions here affect people in different countries around the world, for example, food, energy, holidays, climate.

Check out our Topic Curriculum Guide for more information about key concepts (page 17) and age-related expectations and vocabulary (page 20 and 21).

Year 1,2

Children have begun the topic by learning about the different continents and oceans in the world. They’ll learn about the equator and how it splits the Earth into two hemispheres. They’ll then focus on a specific continent, Africa, and a specific country within that continent, Kenya. They’ll compare a city in Kenya, Nairobi, to Leeds with a focus on the physical and human geography of these two places. They’ll then take a visit into the countryside and compare features of the Yorkshire Dales with a National Park just outside Nairobi.

Year 3,4

Children will develop learning about the equator and hemispheres by learning about the tropics and climate zones. A focus on European and world cities and countries will follow and will link to climate zone learning. They’ll then focus in on Venice in Italy and its physical and human geography which they’ll compare with York. They’ll learn about the positives and negatives that tourism brings, putting themselves in the shoes of both tourists visiting the places and locals who live there. Finally, they’ll learn about the problems posed by flooding in both localities and the solutions introduced to limit the consequences of flooding.

Year 5,6

Children will learn about the different types of biomes found on Earth and how these are linked to climate. They’ll then focus on the biomes found in Brazil and the UK. They’ll then focus on Brazil more generally, building their understanding of it as a place. Next, they’ll focus on the Amazon Rainforest and its importance to Brazil in terms of the economy as well as its importance ecologically. They’ll learn about the threats to the rainforest and the impact that deforestation is having. Finally, children will learn about what Brazil needs to do to slow deforestation and what we can do to slow deforestation.

How can you help?

Regardless of the year group your child is in, Google Earth is a brilliant tool to help develop children’s understanding of space, place, scale and interdependence. Zoom right in on your home and then zoom out to reveal the area of Leeds that you live in. Zoom further out to see what city you live in. Zoom further for the county. A little further and you might start to spot some national parks. Further still and you can see the country that we live in. Keep zooming and you’ll see the continent we live in (though this isn’t labelled). Before you know it, you’re floating in space and circling the Earth!

Google Maps is another great tool for comparing places. Try the street view option and you can walk along a street in Nairobi and a street in London. Take a drive through the lush Yorkshire Dales and compare this to the Kenyan countryside. You could wander down the Shambles in York and compare this to the streets in Venice. You can also compare images of the same street from different points in time.

Quizzing your children about some locational knowledge will help them to remember important information. I’ve listed some examples below. Use the age-related expectations to find the right pitch for your child.

• Which continent do we live in?
• Which country do we live in?
• In which hemisphere is our country located?
• Which county do we live in?
• Which city do we live in?
• Which part of Leeds do we live in?
• Which four countries make up the United Kingdom?

If you can, go to the library and get some geography-related books, especially an atlas. You could compare maps of the same place to see what type of information they show. For example, you find lots of maps of the United Kingdom. One might show the countries and capital cities. Another might show the mountains, rivers and national parks. Another might give information about the climate.

For KS2 children, there are lots of different games and activities on Ordnance Survey Mapzone. I especially like the jigsaws in the Map Puzzles section of the Games.

Also for KS2 children, there is lots of information and some tasks and quizzes on BBC Bitesize.

Have a happy and healthy long weekend – see you on Tuesday.

Our weekly message: Friday 24 April 2026

We hope you had a good break over Easter.

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 started school – in most cases, this will be three different people.)

Living and Learning

Next week’s Living and Learning theme is an important one: I know that a person’s body belongs to them.

The NSPCC’s Speak Out, Stay Safe message is an important one. It helps children understand more about this week’s theme and supports them to speak out if they have any concerns. At home, make sure your child is aware of Childline.

Attendance matters

The national attendance rate so far this year for primary schools is 94.8%.

At St James’ CE Primary, the attendance rate is 93.0%. This is lower than national and the gap is widening. For some pupils, this might be because of illness and we’re happy to work with families to support this. But it also might be because of repeated term-time holidays or some other unauthorised reason – we’ll refer such an absence for a penalty notice or take other legal action.

Brushing teeth

We love this new guide all about brushing teeth. Even though it’s part of a series of guides for younger children to give them the best start in life, it’s full of good advice for everyone.

For example, one of the top tips is to try different flavours of toothpaste or brushes of varies sizes and textures.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our Christian value focus this half-term 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: Thursday 02 April 2026

This week’s message is a day earlier than normal. First up, here’s a repeat of part of last week’s message, in case you missed it…

Easter

With Easter on the way, please see this list of free and low-cost things to do over the Easter school holidays in Leeds.

Also (and not in last week’s message), check out this Child Friendly Leeds guide to help children and families in Leeds navigate their way through the Easter holidays.

400 words for Leeds

Did you know Leeds is celebrating 400 years since Leeds received its Royal Charter from King Charles I back in 1626? Leeds Lit Fest invite your child to get involved in the 400 Words for Leeds 400 writing competition.

Warm Spaces

Each term, some of our children visit Warm Spaces, a local community cafe, held at St James’ Church Hall. The cafe has been running for four years following the Covid pandemic and is getting busier each year. Recently, some money raised at Warm Spaces has been donated to our school which has helped buy a new interactive whiteboard screen for the hall and helped buy some screens for the classrooms. We appreciate the generous donation and we’re making good use of the new screens. A big thank you to everyone who organises Warm Spaces and people who attend the weekly cafe.

Rocksteady

It was great watching all of our Rocksteady bands perform this week at the end of term concert. It takes lots of perseverance to learn to play a musical instrument and courage to stand up and perform. Well done to all the children who took part and to Connie, our band leader.

SEND parent carer monthly drop-in sessions

Are you a parent or carer of a child with special educational needs and/or disabilities or waiting for your child’s needs to be assessed? You might like to join one of the monthly drop-in sessions at the Reginald Centre or Moor Allerton Community Hub.

Finally, a message from our PTA…

Summer Fayre

Dear parents and carers

We hope this message finds you well. We wanted to let you know that, unfortunately, we won’t be holding a Summer Fayre this year.

As a PTA, we rely entirely on the time and support of volunteers to organise and run events, and this year we simply haven’t had enough people able to commit to making the fayre possible.

We completely understand how busy life can be, and we want to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you for all the support you’ve given us in the past.

Whether you’ve helped at events, donated items, or simply come along and taken part, it has made a real difference and helped us create some wonderful experiences for the children.

We’re still very much committed to supporting the school and hope to run other events throughout the year. If you’d ever like to get involved, even in a small way, we’d love to hear from you.

Thank you again for your continued support.

Warm regards,
The PTA Team

Have a happy and healthy Easter holiday.

Our weekly message: Friday 27 March 2026

First of all… Thanks for your donations for last week’s Comic Relief. We raised £132,40.

This week’s message centres around working with us in a constructive way. It’s prompted by a recent guide from Parentkind and a recent blog from Ofsted, both of which we talk about here.

We want St James’ CE Primary to be a happy and healthy place for all. Your views are important – they can help us to get better and better. Our Questions, Comments and Concerns page sets out how you can help with this.

Parentkind

Parentkind can support your child’s learning and wellbeing. They offer parents free webinars, practical toolkits, and a Be School Ready guide to support new starters, alongside a wide range of expert resources and practical guidance.

Working alongside the Department for Education and Ofsted, they’ve recently produced a guide to school complaints – it’s more of a step-by-step support to help you resolve any concerns quickly, easily and positively.

You’ll notice the first piece of advice is What kind of issue is it? They highlight feedback, concerns and complaints. This matches our Comments, Concerns and Complaints Policy which follows best practice guidance for schools from the Department for Education.

Ofsted

Ofsted has recently published a blog called How we consider complaints about schools – it’s an interesting read.

In the blog, they make it clear that it’s important parents follow a school’s complaints policy:

Before contacting us, a parent should:

• contact the school informally – for example, by talking to a teacher about the problem
• if things cannot be resolved this way, consider making a formal complaint to the school
• if they’re still dissatisfied, follow the next steps in the school’s complaint procedure – for example, making a complaint to the governing body or another organisation

When a parent comes to us directly, we encourage them to approach the school first. We will continue to stress to parents that we can’t resolve differences between them and a school or affect the results of a school’s complaints process.

This matches the advice in Parentkind’s guide to school complaints.

Ofsted receives hundreds of complaints each year, but very few of these are investigated because they don’t meet the criteria for Ofsted to investigate (in the last year, only about 1 in 10 were investigated).

School

Here are a few ways you can express your views here at St James’ CE Primary…

• After various school events, such as our recent Topic Review session, we like to gather your views on how the session went with a short online survey.
• Towards the end of the school year, we invite you to take part in a longer survey, too – there’s typically a final question or two which are more open-ended so you can comment on anything you like.
• Don’t wait until these surveys, though! We’d like to hear from you. You could send us an email (stjamesoffice@spherefederation.org) or simply have a chat with your child’s class teacher or one of us at the start or end of the day at the school gate.

Thank you for supporting the positive relationships between home and here at St James’ CE Primary.

Easter

Finally this week, with Easter on the way, please see this list of free and low-cost things to do over the Easter school holidays in Leeds, including Story Explorers at the Central Library; a hat exhibition at Temple Newsam House; a Roman-themed Rabbits Trail at City Museum; newborn animals at Temple Newsam Home Farm; a dragon egg quest at Lotherton; and various activities (alongside the usual delicious food stalls) at Kirkgate Market.

Enjoy a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 20 March 2026

We’ll start this week’s message with four thank yous…

Thank you

If your child made a donation to today’s Comic Relief Wear Red Day, many thanks.

Thanks to everyone who was able to come along this afternoon to our Happy and Healthy School Community session. This was the second of our two Happy and Healthy open events for Key Stage 2 parents – your chance to spend some time with your child and others in our happy and healthy school community.

A third thank you: thank you to everyone who attended Monday’s Topic Review session,  and for your feedback…

My child loves coming to school and said she really enjoyed the activity.

Finally, a few weeks ago, we had a sponsored Number Facts Challenge in school. We raised £532.65, half of which goes to this year’s school charity, Martin House, and half to our PTA. Thank you for your donations.

Uniform Policy

Today’s been a day when uniform has been optional, raising money for Comic Relief. Every now and again, it’s worth reading through our Uniform Policy to remind yourself of expectations on a more typical day in school. Here’s a few key points to remember…

No jewellery during PE. 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 your child. If they’re unable to remove or put their earrings back in by themselves, they must not wear them on the day they have PE. If you want your child’s ears pierced, it makes life easier for everyone if this is done at the start of the summer holiday.

Only discreet stud earrings are allowed. This means earrings should be small and not brightly coloured. The only other jewellery allowed are items that are absolutely required by a religion.

Devices that connect to the internet or that can record are not allowed. This means that things like smart watches are not allowed. This is for safeguarding reasons.

Please keep PE kit as plain as possible and avoid branding. For the past few years, we’ve allowed PE kit on PE days – this saves time and reduces lost property. However, we still want our children to look smart.

Staying safe while gaming

We’ve been made aware of some websites that children are able to access with inappropriate content. The websites allow children to bypass any restrictions to access games. Two of the websites we’ve come across are Unblocked WTF and Unblocked FreezeNova but we think there are more. Please be vigilant at home when your child is online.

Wetherby’s Community Cafe

Do you know about the Community Cafe, here in Wetherby? Check out their April schedule here.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 13 March 2026

We’ll start this week with a couple of reminders of pages on our website you might not check out very often, but it’s useful to know they’re there…

• the Safeguarding page gives you a broad overview of some aspects of safeguarding that we consider carefully – it even includes a list of support services for domestic violence and abuse
• the Join in Beyond School page includes a physical activity guide suggesting out-of-school physical activities available to families in our local area

Next week

A couple of events next week…

On Monday, there’s a topic review session at 2.30pm. This is the second of two drop-in sessions – a chance to look at your child’s topic learning. If you’re coming, please arrive promptly.

The vast majority of children enjoy sharing their learning – it’s a cause for celebration and feeling proud. We recognise there might be one or two who struggle with the change or the extra people – please consult your child’s class teacher if you’ve concerns.

Next Friday is Red Nose Day. (This is a day that wasn’t in our calendar in September because they hadn’t announced the date.) We invite children to come to school wearing red and making a donation.

As always with non-uniform days, please continue to respect our Uniform Policy. Here’s what it says about non-uniform days:

Pupils should dress appropriately and respectfully, even on non-uniform days. Clothes are inappropriate if they, for example, glorify violence, feature bad language, are very short (eg crop tops), or relate to age-inappropriate topics. When consulted (18.03.21), junior leaders described this as ‘setting-appropriate’ clothing and clothing that is ‘well-judged’. Make-up (other than face paints as part of a specific costume) is not allowed. Flipflops or high-heeled shoes are not allowed, even on non-uniform days, because they’re dangerous when running.

Personal hygiene

Spirituality and Forest School

St James’ CE Primary’s vision is to be a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe. Regardless of whether you have a faith or none at all, developing spirituality plays a role in achieving this for our pupils and our staff, enabling them to flourish.

At St James’ CE Primary, spirituality means a sense of connection: this might mean connecting with ourselves, connecting with others, connecting with the world and environment, or connecting with a greater force beyond.

Our Forest School area is a very special place in our school grounds where children have an opportunity to connect with each other and with nature. It provides a space to develop spirituality. Sarah from Born of the Forest leads
our children in Forest School and she’s finding lots of ‘wow moments’ where the children can appreciate, notice and connect with the world around them.

A quote from Sarah Following a recent session, Sarah says: “We were bird spotters today and shared moments that were exciting, fascinating, and joyful. The robin birdsong and red kites were some highlights. There was a discussion today about the fact that we humans are also animals (which seemed to confuse some), and that we’re all are part of nature.”

A Year 2 pupil recently spoke enthusiastically about their time in Forest School: “Last week, we were litter picking so we could help the environment. I enjoy playing in the mud kitchen with my friends – it’s fun to get muddy!”

We’re very thankful to our PTA (Parent and Teacher Association) who help fundraise and pay towards Forest School so all children at St James’ CE Primary School can take part.

Reception parents survey

There’s a few days left to complete this short survey. for parents of children in Reception – it closes on Wednesday 18 March. It’ll only take a few minutes and your views can make a difference. (If you’d like us to follow-up any of your responses with you, we can only do this if you leave your name.)

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 06 March 2026

This week’s Weekly Message is a busy one…

World Book Day

Have a look at these interesting characters who showed up at school yesterday…

Competing in cross country

Second, all three schools in Sphere Federation had children representing Leeds in the West Yorkshire cross country final at Temple Newsam on Tuesday. Two of our Key Stage 2 children took part.

We’re very proud of our runners who raced in tough, competitive conditions, with the best runners from across West Yorkshire. They both put in 100% effort and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing at this level.

Our two runners managed to finish in 56th (out of 141) and 22nd place (out of 151) – a fantastic achievement for both.

Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.

Reception parents survey

Before that, if you’re a parent of a child in Reception, please complete this short survey. At St James’ CE Primary, we’re always trying to keep getting better and better. Your views help us to do that. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete and you’ve got until Wednesday 18 March to complete. (If you’d like us to follow-up any of your responses with you, we can only do this if you leave your name.)

The rest of this week’s message is an overview about our current half-term topic. It seems long, but just read the sections that apply to your child… 

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term, it’s Computing. We’re developing our knowledge of computers and computer programming.

Computer programming is super. Creating games, animations and solving real world problems is fun, encourages creativity and is challenging! Importantly, the skills the children develop and use 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! Debugging is the skill of identifying and fixing an error in a program. It requires systematic, objective thinking and plenty of resilience.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary that they’ll learn, use and apply across the topic. See pages 12 and 13 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Years 1 and 2

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

In programming lessons, they’ll be introduced to algorithms and will learn about how they need to be written in the correct sequence.

They’ll create their own algorithms in ‘unplugged computing’ lessons and will debug errors in their own and others’ algorithms. Next, they’ll plan and create their own unplugged game where they have to create an algorithm to move a character from one place to another using positional language.

Children will then use the same concepts using Beebots – simple robots which can be programmed to move and turn. Finally, it’ll be time to create their own game using Beebots.

Years 3 and 4

Pupils will begin with some ‘unplugged computing’. They’ll create and debug unplugged programs which use sequence and repetition before they then create their own unplugged game which will require some decomposition. Next, pupils will explore how branching databases help us organise and use information. They’ll start by asking and creating yes/no questions to sort objects into groups, learn how to build and structure a branching database, and think about attributes that help with classification. Across the six lessons, they’ll make their own branching databases, plan how to structure them, and compare different ways of presenting information. By the end of the unit they will test their database by using it as an identification tool and think about how similar systems are used in the real world.

Years 5 and 6

Children will begin the topic by reasoning about what makes a computer a computer. They’ll then learn about how search engines work and how to best use them. In programming lessons, they’ll use Scratch to gain a deeper understanding of concepts like sequence and repetition before learning about selection and variables. Some of this vocabulary may sound alien to you. However, before the end of the topic, 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 create are:

• A Spirograph style drawing animation with some potentially psychedelic visual effects!
• A chatbot program which will ask you questions and decide if your responses are correct or not.
• A times table quiz program that will test you on randomly selected times table questions within a set time limit.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. Our Class News is a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

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:

Key Stage 1:

• Beebot
• Code for Life: Rapid Router
• Lightbot
• Scratch Jr

Key Stage 2:

• Code for Life: Rapid Router
• Lightbot
• Scratch Jr
• Scratch