Chosen charity
Last week, the children voted for the charity we will be supporting as a school this year. The overall decision was made by the Junior Leadership Team. This year we will be supporting Martin House.
Our weekly message: Friday 07 November 2025
We hope you had a good half-term break. This week in school has been a themed week – Me and My Money. Talk to your child about something new they’ve learnt or considered about money!
Remember 100% in November
We’re at the end of Week One of our attendance competition…
Throughout November, children with 100% attendance have the chance of winning one of four £25 Love2Shop vouchers. There are four vouchers to be won – one for every phase in school:
- Early Years (Nursery and Reception)
- Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2)
- lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4)
- upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6)
So… if your child attends every school day on time from 03 November to 28 November, their name will be added to the prize draw.
We’ll select four lucky winners on Friday 28 November.
Odd socks day
Monday is Odd Socks Day.
The day celebrates that we’re all unique. Children are invited to wear odd socks to school today, marking the fact we’re all different in some way. Part of Anti-Bullying Week, the day sends an important message to pupils that they should be allowed to be themselves, free from bullying. It helps us celebrate anti-bullying day in a fun and positive way.
Help at home: Please make sure your child knows that bullying is wrong and damages children’s social and/or emotional health. Check they know our two STOP messages:
- Definition: What is bullying? Hurting someone Several Times On Purpose
- Solution: How can we stop bullying? Start Telling Other People
Bullying is often group behaviour. For older children, it would also be great if you could talk about the different roles people might play. Watch this short clip together, and link it back to Start Telling Other People.
Children in Need
Next Friday is the annual Children in Need fundraising day. Your child is invited to attend school in non-uniform with a donation to the charity. If you wish to donate at school, please donate in cash only.
Please remember that pupils should dress appropriately and respectfully, even on non-uniform days. More details can be found in our Uniform Policy.
Is my child too ill for school?
As winter approaches, schools face rising illness-related absences. We know some are unavoidable, but please refer to NHS guidance to know if your child is too ill for school.
The Department for Education has asked us to share some key messages:
- Always ask: Is my child too ill for school? Use the NHS site for guidance – it’s easy to use.
- Pupils shouldn’t miss school on a precautionary basis and can normally attend with a mild cough or cold, unless they have a fever or diarrhoea or vomiting.
- Book medical appointments outside of school hours where possible. Where this isn’t possible, they should bring their child to school before, and return after, if they are well enough. Pupils can attend appointments in their school uniform.
Times tables
The government sets out the expectation that children should know their times tables by the end of Year 4. Knowing times tables off by heart makes a huge difference to children’s progress in Maths. It helps them:
- solve harder problems more easily
- work more confidently and quickly
- focus on new concepts without getting stuck on basic facts
Times tables underpin many other areas of Maths, such as division, fractions, long multiplication, algebra and ratio. The more fluent your child is, the better prepared they’ll be for future learning.
At St James’ CE Primary, children in Years 3 and 4 take part in daily Mastering Number lessons to learn their times tables. Older children continue to practise their times tables.
In school, we chant multiplication facts by saying the smallest number first and we don’t say ‘times’ or ‘equals’. For example, for 4×3=12, children would say ‘3, 4, 12’.
Towards the end of Year 4, children do an online Multiplication Tables Check – find out more about this.
We’re proud that almost half of Year 4 pupils in 2025 achieved 25 out of 25 in the check – much higher than national figures. Thank you for continuing to help your child practise their times tables at home.
Finally this week…
Admissions consultation
Leeds City Council is running a public consultation on the 2027/28 admission policy for Leeds community and voluntary controlled schools. You can share your views until 1 December. Find out more.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.
Our Christian value focus this half-term is...
…compassion.
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.
This half-term, we focus on compassion.
‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ Ephesians 4:32
The definition of compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is hurting, in pain, or has misfortune and is accompanied by a strong desire to help the suffering. Christians believe that Jesus is the greatest example of someone with true compassion. Not only did Jesus have compassion and heal people from physical suffering, he also showed the greatest compassion when he died on the cross for our sins.
A Junior Leadership Team member thinks this value is important because, ‘It helps you understand what they’re feeling and how to help them and then makes the school a happier place’.
It’s not always easy to show compassion, especially when we feel like the person deserves their misfortune, but we try to show compassion to all who need it whether they are the same as us or different.
Help at home!
Talk to your child about compassion.
- How can they show sympathy for a friend?
- Is there anyone in school who is very compassionate?
- Talk about a time when you were compassionate or someone was compassionate towards you.
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.
This half-term, we focus on compassion.
‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ Ephesians 4:32
The definition of compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is hurting, in pain, or has misfortune and is accompanied by a strong desire to help the suffering. Christians believe that Jesus is the greatest example of someone with true compassion. Not only did Jesus have compassion and heal people from physical suffering, he also showed the greatest compassion when he died on the cross for our sins.
A Junior Leadership Team member thinks this value is important because, ‘It helps you understand what they’re feeling and how to help them and then makes the school a happier place’.
It’s not always easy to show compassion, especially when we feel like the person deserves their misfortune, but we try to show compassion to all who need it whether they are the same as us or different.
Help at home!
Talk to your child about compassion.
- How can they show sympathy for a friend?
- Is there anyone in school who is very compassionate?
- Talk about a time when you were compassionate or someone was compassionate towards you.
Our weekly message: Friday 24 October 2025
What a busy week…
Thank you to all the parents/carers who met with teachers this week for the first of two parent-teacher meetings in the year. We’re available for short updates and questions, comments and concerns at other times, but we hope you found the meeting this week helpful.
Yesterday, we visited St James’ Church for the Harvest Festival. It was lovely to see so many of you there.
Today, we’ve had a training day. Teachers from across Sphere Federation have had four professional development sessions:
- Art
- Maths
- Special Educational Needs
- Assessments
Coming up in the first week after half-term break…
Remember 100% in November
Don’t forget our attendance competition after the half-term break!
In the four weeks of November, children with 100% attendance will be entered into a prize draw to win one of four £25 Love2Shop vouchers. There are four vouchers to be won – one for every phase in school.
If your child attends every school day on time from 03 November to 28 November, their name will be added to the prize draw taking place on Friday 28 November.
Me and My Money themed week
Our next whole school themed week, Me and My Money, is based around money and financial education. A variety of events and lessons are planned to help us deliver this aspect of our Living and Learning curriculum. Learning throughout the week will include:
- What is money?
- Where does money come from?
- How do we spend money?
- How do we manage money?
If your job involves an aspect of finance and/or money and you can support our themed week by coming into school, please contact us.
We’ll select the new school charity as part of the themed week. The shortlist is:
- Zarach, whose mission is to end child bed poverty, giving children the opportunity to engage at school and break the cycle of poverty.
- Martin House provides family-led hospice care free of charge for children and young people with life-shortening conditions.
- Emmaus (pronounced em-may-us) helps people move away from homelessness by providing a home, training and work opportunities as part of a package of long-term support.
- National Deaf Children’s Society, who support deaf children with any level of hearing loss.
- Woodland Trust, the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity, whose vision is a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature.
Applying for a place in Reception or secondary school?
The deadline for applications for Year 7 places falls in half-term: 31 October 2025. If you need help with an application, please contact startingsecondary@leeds.gov.uk
If you’re applying for a Reception place, you might want to check out Leeds City Council’s You Tube video about applying for a school place.
Staying safe online
We’ve recently updated our Online Safety page on our website. If you’ve not spoken with your child about the importance of staying safe online for a while, it would be worth having a look at the clips and checking out the NSPCC link over the half-term break.
Watch us while we work
If you visited us for our recent Watch Us While We Work session, thank you. An even bigger thank you if you left us some feedback:
- ‘It’s really lovely to see what and how the kids are taught and be able to relate that to learning we do at home.’
- ‘It’s always great to be invited into the classroom, it’s a valuable insight into teaching and how we can support this at home.’
One comment was around varying the subjects we feature. We’ll act on this next time.
Have a happy and healthy half-term break.
Our weekly message: Friday 17 October 2025
Let’s start this week with news about the return of our attendance competition…
Remember 100% in November
It’s the return of our attendance competition…
In the four weeks of November, children with 100% attendance will be entered into a prize draw to win one of four £25 Love2Shop vouchers. There are four vouchers to be won – one for every phase in school:
- Early Years (Nursery and Reception)
- Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2)
- lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4)
- upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6)
So… if your child attends every school day on time from 03 November to 28 November, their name will be added to the prize draw.
We’ll select four lucky winners on Friday 28 November.
Remember, arriving late for school counts as an unauthorised absence. This affects a child’s overall attendance figure, and that might mean they lose out.
Thank you
A few weeks ago, we asked for donations to support our Cooking curriculum. To make sure that we can continue to offer this, asked for a voluntary donation of £3 to £6 to pay for the ingredients. So far, we’ve received £132 which will really help to pay for the ingredients we need. Thank you for your support.
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 A this year.)
Arbor
We have recently moved our Management Information System (MIS) to Arbor. Arbor will allow us to communicate with you more efficiently and will eventually bring all core school data into one system.
Yesterday, you should have received an email letting you know how to login to the parent portal/app for your child. If you’ve not received this, please let the office know.
You can familiarise yourself with Arbor using this link: Getting started – Log into the Parent Portal and the Parent App
Arbor also offers access to other training resources, which can be found here.
Before the half term break, we hope to have finalised the payments area in Arbor, so you’ll be able to pay for school meals on the portal or app. We’ll let you know when this is live.
If you’ve any questions, please contact the school office.
Well done…
…to our newly elected Junior Leadership Team:
- Year 1: Eleanor and Joey
- Year 2: Cora and Alfie
- Year 3: Kupa and Harry
- Year 4: Isabella and Freddie
- Year 5: Ethan and Kiara
- Year 6: Tommy and Chloe
We’re looking forward to meeting with the new team very soon.
Happy and healthy
At St James’ CE Primary, we’re proud to have been awarded the Gold School Games Mark for 2024-25. The School Games Mark is a government-led award scheme. It celebrates schools’ commitment to developing competitive sport within their school and community. Here’s a few recent pics of our happy and healthy physical activity…
Have a happy and healthy weekend!
Our weekly message: Friday 10 October 2025
This week’s Living and Learning theme has been about the nine protected characteristics – characteristics protected in law. Nine is a lot to learn about, and some are more suitable for older people to consider. More important than simply remembering all of them is to encourage your child to be aware of fairness and equality.
Community Cafe and Advice Hub
Earlier in the week, we emailed to advise you of a new supportive space for families in our area to access services and additional advice and support: the Community Cafe and Advice Hub. It’s open between 10am and 12pm every Friday at the Church Room, St James’, Wetherby. There are free refreshments and young children are welcome.
Check out this poster with the essential details and the newsletter.
You said, we’ve done…
Just before the Summer holiday each year, we ask you to complete a short survey. We take your views really seriously. School leaders have met and reviewed thee suggestions you made. Some might be useful across all Sphere Federation schools and others relate more specifically St James’ CE Primary. We’ll look to action quite a few points.
Don’t wait until the annual survey! One parent recently raised some really useful suggestions about how the Junior Leadership Team is elected in order to make it fairer – they were great suggestions and we’ve planned a few small changes (such as no prepared PowerPoint presentations) that might just make a big difference.
Flu vaccinations
From September 2025, the School Aged Immunisation Service (SAIS) began delivering flu vaccinations to primary and secondary school-aged children across Leeds. The vaccine offers vital protection against flu, helping safeguard both individuals and those around them. Read more about these immunisations.
The Spy books series
We want to make you aware of a recent issue affecting some popular children’s books by Andrew Cope, including the Spy Dogs, Spy Cats, and Spy Pups series.
Some editions of these books include a printed web address at the back. This link used to go to the author’s website, but the domain is no longer under his control. It has since been taken over by another party and now leads to inappropriate adult content.
The publisher, Puffin, has stressed that the website has no connection to the author or publisher.
What this means for you:
- If your child has any Spy Dog, Spy Cat or Spy Pups books at home, please check the back for website links and make sure they do not try to visit the site.
- It’s safe for children to continue reading the stories themselves — the concern is only with the outdated link.
- We recommend talking with your child about the importance of not following web addresses in books without checking with an adult first.
Reception Stay and Learn session
Thank you very much if you managed to attend our recent Stay and Learn in Reception. And thanks for the feedback we’ve received:
Lovely to watch how they are taught things!
If you’ve time, please let us know your feedback.
Finally this week, as the half-term holiday approaches, you might be looking for a holiday club. Check out PE Partner.
As always, have a happy and healthy weekend.
Our weekly message: Friday 03 October 2025
We’ll start this week’s message with a letter from the Safer Leeds Partnership. You should be aware, although it’s probably more relevant if you’ve older children.
This week’s message has four articles, including a couple of different ways to support your child…
Perfecting some poetry
Yesterday, we celebrated National Poetry Day by performing poems. It was wonderful to listen to so many poems being performed with expression, actions and lots of smiles. Last week, our whole school home learning was to learn and practise a poem: thank you for helping your child to engage in poetry. It’s a chance for children to develop their vocabulary, memory and general awareness of poems.
Support with sleep
Does your child struggle with sleep sometimes? If so, you might like to attend a workshop coming up from MindMate Support Team. The workshop will cover:
- Why sleep matters for mental health
- Common sleep difficulties and their impact
- What healthy sleep looks like at different ages
- Tips for building a consistent and positive bedtime routine
- Evidence-based strategies to make bedtime calmer and more manageable
The hour-long session is on Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 5pm. It’s at Collingham Lady Elizabeth Hastings C of E School, LS22 5BS.
Top trips
Class trips are a wonderful enrichment to the learning going on at St James’, especially in Topic and Science. We’ve recently reviewed the trips, taking on board the views of pupils and teachers, and your comments from the annual survey in the Summer term.
The visits are mapped out across Reception, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 to ensure progression and continuity (subject to change eg if a venue is temporarily closed). The 2025-26 school year is in Cycle A.
Read more about our curriculum, including the Topic and Science long term plans.
12 ways to help your child make friends
Some people might think of school as being all about learning. It’s not. Making relationships with other children is one of the prime purposes. The social aspect of schools is vital to the socialisation of children at important points of their lives. Properly socialised children make for properly socialised adults, who in turn make excellent citizens in later life.
For some children it may be easier said than done. Navigating the topsy-turvy of these nascent relationships is not for the faint hearted, yet it must be done. ACAMH Learn has produced a webinar (it’s short – only 15 minutes) to explore some of the ways this can be helped: watch the webinar here.
Year 5: Bikeability
Bikeability takes place in the Spring term for children in Year 5. This year, it will take place from Monday 09 to Wednesday 11 March 2026.
The training has two core elements: basic skills and road safety. If your child is unable to ride a bike, they may be unable to take part in the road safety aspect as they will not be able to cycle outside of school. We’re giving plenty of notice, in case your child would like to practise before March.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.
Our weekly message: Friday 26 September 2025
This week in school, children in Key Stage 1 and 2 have been considering rights and responsibilities, part of Living and Learning.
A key message is that alongside every right comes responsibility:
- At school for example, children have the right to play and relax, and alongside this comes the responsibility to play alongside others safely and respectfully.
- In lots of situations, we’ve the right to express our views, and alongside this we must do so in a respectful way.
Spend some time thinking of more examples in different situations: rights and responsibilities at home, in a shop, in a park…
BBC Bitesize ‘Rules, rights and responsibilities’ is worth checking out with children in Key Stage 2.
Assessments
Just so you’re aware, primary school pupils in England take part in six statutory assessments. Click on the links for more infomation from the Department for Education.
- Reception Baseline Assessment: It’s likely your child has already completed this assessment, which must be done within the first 6 weeks of entering Reception
- Early Years Foundation Stage Profile Assessment: Towards the end of the Reception year, teachers consider whether your child has reached what’s called a Good Level of Development
- Phonics Screening Check: In June of Year 1, (and for some pupils in Year 2, too), pupils are asked to read some words (real and made-up) to assess their phonics skills, crucial as a step in learning to read
- Key Stage 1 tests: Pupils do these near the end of year 2, which is the end of Key Stage 1
- Multiplication Tables Check: Pupils in Year 4 do this online check in June
- Key Stage 2 tests (often called ‘SATs’): These tests happen in May of Year 6
All of the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 tests feature in our school calendar. (The two assessments which happen in Reception are more gradual and ongoing, so they don’t feature – your child won’t even be aware of these.)
Attendance
Talking of assessments…
There’s lots of national evidence about the link between attendance at school and success at school and beyond. Here’s a simple conclusion from just the three schools in Sphere Federation. It’s based on the 87 pupils in Year 6 last year (2024-25).
33 pupils out of the 87 pupils across the Year 6 classes (38%) had excellent attendance (98% or higher)…
- Almost all of them (around 92%) reached Expected Standard in the Reading and Maths SATs tests (there’s no test for Writing).
- Almost half of these pupils reached Greater Depth Standard in Reading.
- Just under one third reached Greater Depth Standard in Maths.
15 pupils out of the 87 Year 6 pupils (17%) had low attendance (92% or lower)…
- A much lower proportion reached Expected Standard in Reading and Maths: 30%.
- Only about one in ten of them reached Greater Depth Standard
Check out the NHS website to decide if your child is well enough to attend school.
Finally this week, you might like to check out some more images of Wetherby High School’s new building. Quite a few of our children move on to this secondary, so the pics might be of interest.
Smiley face competition
We had so many wonderful entries for our smiley face competition this year. Thank you to everyone who sent photos- they were all very creative and entertaining to look at.
A big well done to the overall winners: Frankie, Emily and Orianne.
Our weekly message: Friday 19 September 2025
Last week, we started our rock band sessions. The children are learning to play guitar, drums, keyboard and singing. The bands sounded fantastic!
- ‘I really like the session and I think it’s good because we have different musical experiences.’ (Kiara, Year 5)
- ‘We can express ourselves and we’re going to learn to play different types of music.’ (Emily, Year 5)
At the moment, all our bands are full but if you’d like your child to be put on a waiting list then please let the school office know.
Cooking
Over the course of the year, your child will enjoy three opportunities to prepare food:
- Year 1 and 2: banana sandwich, fruit salad, a wrap
- Year 3 and 4: leek and potato soup, pitta pizza, and salad and dressing
- Year 5 and 6: lentil and vegetable soup, omelette, and a tomato sauce base
We’ve a couple of requests, please:
Most importantly, please alert us to any allergies your child has. We’ll do our best to adapt recipes.
To make sure that we can continue to offer this, please make a voluntary donation of £3 to £6 to pay for the ingredients. We really appreciated your donations last year.
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 A this year.)
Relationships and Sex Education
At the start of each year, we like to encourage you to be aware of our Relationships and Sex Education Policy.
Later in the year, your child will have Relationships and Sex Education lessons. In those lessons, we’ll talk about anatomical terms and different relationships. However, we might need to use the terms at other times, such as when dealing with incidents of misuse or disrespectful language, and we’ll talk about lots of different relationships at any time of the year, too.
Staying safe
As you and your child settle back into school routines, keep online safety top of mind this school year.
Finally this week, a message from the Department for Education…
Best start in life
The Best Start in Life website replaces the Childcare Choices website as the main source of information for early education and childcare support – offering a broader range of resources for families, including eligibility for childcare offers, information about free breakfast clubs and Best Start Family Hubs in their area, and support on pregnancy through to starting school and beyond. Although the website has changed, the offers for parents – such as support for working parents and the 2-year-old childcare offer – are not affected.
The weather feels like summer is months ago. One of the joys of autumn is seeing the excitement on children’s faces when they collect conkers. Over the weekend, why not look out for other signs of autumn?