A Message from Mrs Murphy

Dear Parents and Carers, 

The return to school after the festive period has been very positive here at St James and all the children have returned ready for a further term of learning. 

This week we have had a visitor from Surrey County Council to  complete our annual review visit and it was lovely to be able to discuss the schools strengths whilst touring the school and visiting classes. Our commitment to delivering the best possible education for our children was praised during our visit, along with governance procedures, calm learning environments and the excellent manners and behaviour of our children.  

Reading 

Thank you to all the parents who are encouraging the love of reading by supporting their children to read regularly at home. As you know we do provide certificates for reading efforts and I am very pleased to announce that 117 children have achieved 50 reads so far this year, and 11 children have achieved 100 reads. We would love to see the remaining 72% of the school reach their 50 read milestone over the next few weeks. 

Curriculum enhancements 

Across the last two weeks we have had a range of experiences for the children across the school to enhance our curriculum delivery. 

• In Year 1, there was much excitement about the 'alien landing' on the playground which has enhanced their enthusiasm about their writing. 

• Year 3 visited the synagogue today to extend their R.E learning on Judaism. 

• Year 5 had a workshop on the Vikings, led by Open the Box Theatre

• Reception completed a workshop on Polar Explorers, led by Open the Box Theatre

• We were very fortunate to have a visitor in assembly this week to talk about Sikhism. This was really interesting for all the children and supported their R.E learning. 

Sports News 

• On Thursday 9th of January, the St James girls football team played away against St Cuthberts. After a hard fought match, St Cuthberts won 2-0.  I understand there was some excellent play from all the team. Well done Girls on representing the school so well.  

• We are very proud of Sam (Y6), who qualified for the Surrey Sports hall competition in Guildford. He competed in a team with children from Cleves and other schools, and as a group the boys team came first. Well done Sam! 

Maths at St James 

As part of our continued drive to aim for excellence in all we do at St James, as well as respond to the feedback by parents during the Parent Survey 2024, where more information about how we challenge children in Maths was requested, we have created the following information for parents and carers:

Curriculum

At St James we believe in developing a culture of deep understanding, competence and confidence in Maths. Our Maths Curriculum is based on the philosophy of Maths Mastery, which encourages deep understanding of maths.  We do not rush children on to new concepts, or larger numbers, yet instead encourage application of skills through a range of reasoning tasks.

At St James, we use the White Rose scheme, which is a progressive scheme to guide our coverage of the National Curriculum. Through adaptive teaching methods, teachers deliver the learning so all children have the opportunity to learn key concepts and practise and revisit these regularly.

We support children to understand concepts using concrete and pictorial representations. This means that all children, from Reception to Year 6, will use manipulatives resources and visuals where needed, to encourage deeper grasps of concepts, before moving to abstract methods. 

Daily lessons

At St James, Maths is taught daily and each lesson begins with a retrieval of key facts. The use of this daily 'flashback' activity supports the cognitive learning theory, as retrieval of prior learning helps to ensure that understanding and knowledge moves to the long-term memory.  

Within all lessons, children will have the opportunity to use their reasoning skills and apply what they have learnt. Children are encouraged to explain why, and prove their understanding.  For the older children, they are required to use sentences to explain their thinking, but sentence starters are provided to support.

Challenge for children in Maths comes from the complexity of the reasoning questions, and the number of steps needed to solve these problems.

Has Maths Changed?

In essence, the Maths philosophy and methods have not changed from Maths that parents may remember from their own school experience, however the steps taken to ensure secure understanding of the Maths concepts has developed. Formal methods are still used, but this is more towards Key Stage Two, and after children have been exposed to a range of other methods so that they can choose the most appropriate way to solve problems. This is to ensure that they have the deeper understanding of the Maths, not just the process.

We have a calculation progression document on our website that may assist parents in understanding how these methods progress, but White Rose have also produced some excellent videos to explain further.

You can view these resources here : Maths with Michael | White Rose Education

How can we help?

At St James we are keen to know how we can help parents to be able to support their children at home. We are currently planning some Maths workshops for parents and carers who would like to know more about our Maths teaching and lessons. To help us plan these sessions, if you are interested in learning more, please complete this short questionnaire here. 

Wishing you a lovely weekend. 

Mrs Murphy 

Please find below the lunch menu from our school caterers, Twelve15. This is a three week rolling menu. All children choose from one of the three meal options at the start of each school day.  

If your child is in KS2 and has a school meal, please remember to pay for and book their meals in advance using the SCOPAY app for next term.