Oatlands Fair donation 

We were very grateful for a kind donation of £150 from the organisers of Oatlands Fair today and we are very thankful for those parents who attended and supported all the great causes that this event supports. We will be considering how we can use this money for the benefit of as many children as possible. 

Kind reminders

As you will have seen from our communications, we have seen a rise in the number of chickenpox at St James over the last week. Please could I also remind parents of the 48-rule that should be followed if your child has been vomited or had diarrhoea. We have had to send a number of children home this week as this rule has not been followed. Thank you for your support in preventing the spread of this to all children and staff at St James. If you are ever unsure on whether you can or can't send your child to school, please refer to this NHS guidance.

As a further reminder, please could I ask all parents to ensure that children are only bringing water in their water bottles at school. We do not allow squash or sports drinks in the classroom. 

Celebration of learning assemblies 

Just a reminder that these year group assemblies are planned in the next few weeks 

Year R - 12th July at 9am

Year 1 - 18th July at 9.15am

Year 2 - 5th July at 9.15am

Year 3 - 26th June at 9.15am

Year 4 - Had their Trombone Performance on 27th March at 10.30am

Year 5 - 27th June at 9.15am

Year 6 - Leavers Service at St James' Church - 17th July at 9am

The children rehearsing hard in classes and I am sure these will be a fabulous opportunity for you to see what they have learnt over the year. 

INSET Day change in 2024-2025

We have made a change to our planned INSET days next year in 2025. In light of receiving such a positive response to us positioning our INSET day on the Friday before the May half term, from staff and parents,  the INSET day will now be on the 23rd May 2025 not the 2nd June 2025. 

Looking ahead to next week

And finally, as we look forward to next week where we host our 8 Millions Ideas Entrepreneur day, supported by Mr and Mrs Harkin and also our Music Day on Friday.

Wishing you a lovely weekend, 

Mrs Murphy  

We are keen to promote our locational knowledge within the children of St James and this is something the children will be looking at regularly in their Geography lessons. Guided by the National Curriculum, by the end of KS1 children should be able to:

•  name and locate the world’s seven continents and name five oceans

•  locate and identify characteristics of the four countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom and its surrounding seas 

By the end of KS2, children should be able to: 

• locate the world’s countries, using maps to focus on Europe (including the location of Russia) and North and South America, concentrating on their environmental regions

• name and locate counties and cities of the United Kingdom,

Whilst we appreciate that this is a challenging national curriculum requirements, even for the adults, we know that our children are ready for the challenge. 

To help them with this information, Mrs Lawrence ,our Geography Lead, has provided some songs that will be revisited regularly in school. 

If you would like to assist in this challenge, or even challenge yourself, we have attached the following clips to inspire you.  Warning: these songs will get stuck in your head! 

Recommended reads

Parents are often asking us which books we would recommend for their children to read. The website Books for Topics has just updated their recommended reads for each year group. These can be found here. 

We will aim to get as many of these in our library as we can, but parents may find these useful to guide their next purchase or look out for these in the library. 

To celebrate Music Day on Friday 21st June, we are having a special Music themed lunch. The lunch will include:

Funky Chicken Goujons with Reggae Rice

Or 

Soulful Sausage Roll (vegan)

Vegetable medley

Microphone Muffin

If your child is in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, they are entitled to receive a free school meal under the Universal Infant Free School Meals Scheme.

If your child already has school lunches, you don’t need to do anything as you child will automatically receive a meal for that day.

If your child usually has packed lunches from home, but would like to have the special lunch on Friday 21st June, you can order your child's lunch by signing into SCOPAY going to Balances, Dinner Money, Top up balance, Calendar and then select the correct day. If you are entitled to free school meals you do not need to select top up balance, just go straight to Calendar.

Due to this special lunch, Fish and Chips/Veggie fingers will replace the usual menu on Tuesday 18th June.

Please find below the new Summer 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.