5th December 2025

A Message from Mrs Murphy

Dear Parents and Carers,

The festive season has officially landed at St James! This week, the school has been transformed with beautiful lights, sparkling tinsel, and creative decorations thanks to the hard work of our staff. It is wonderful to see the children enjoying the festive spirit throughout the building.

Curriculum Enrichment

We believe in providing hands-on, memorable learning experiences to enhance our curriculum delivery here at St James. Over the last few weeks there have been so many exciting things going on including:

Year 6 Mayan Workshop: Our Year 6 historians have enjoyed a fantastic, immersive workshop dedicated to the Ancient Mayan Civilization. This engaging session allowed the children to step back in time, exploring Mayan beliefs and customs.
Year 3 Feet First Training: Year 3 pupils have successfully completed their Feet First Training delivered by the Surrey County Council Travel team. This important pedestrian training equips children with crucial skills to walk safely near roads.
Year 5 Launch Car Challenge at Reed’s: Our Year 5 pupils visited Reed's School for the exciting Launch Car Challenge. They all made a car and competed to travel the longest distance. Congratulations to Malachi, Zach, Bradley, Aarya, Rosie and Sofia who will be representing St James at the Launch car final in the Summer term.
Year 4 Electricity Workshop: Linked directly to their Science unit on circuits, our Year 4 students took part in a hands-on Electricity Workshop. This session allowed pupils to practically investigate and construct simple series circuits, explore the role of switches, and test different materials as conductors and insulators.

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A Huge Thank You for Our School Fair Success

What a fantastic event our recent School Fair was! It was lovely to see so many of our families, friends, and staff come together to celebrate and raise vital funds for the school.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the incredible Friends of St James Committee, Becky, Sam and Daisy for the hours of planning, preparation, and sheer hard work they put into making the Fair such a success. Thank you to everyone who ran a stall, donated prizes or simply came along to support the school your commitment to our community is truly appreciated. I would also like to thank all my staff team who gave up their weekend to support this event.

Upcoming Choir Performances

Our school choir is busy preparing for several festive appearances in the local community! They will be performing at Gails Bakery, Morrisons and at St James' Church over the next two weeks so please do come and see them perform. We cannot wait to see them let their light shine and spread joy beyond the school gates.

Encouraging Active Travel

Choosing to walk, cycle, or scoot to school not only promotes excellent physical health but also helps to reduce congestion around the school gates. Today we have handed out 297 badges to children for travelling actively to school at least once a week this month. Well done everyone!

To make the walk to school even more fun, We have attached some christmas themed ideas and an updated walking activity sheet for the winter period. Printed versions of the ticklist are available in the office.

Living Streets, who run the WoW initiative, are asking parents and carers to complete a short survey about your school commute. This will directly shape how schools, councils and decision makers make routes safer and easier. The survey is available here

Weybridge Lantern Parade

It was truly wonderful to see so many of our families and students participating in the Weybridge Lantern Parade this past Sunday. Over 250 members of St James took to the streets with their lanterns to walk from the church to the Christmas tree. The lanterns created by our pupils were beautiful, and their presence added such a vibrant glow to the community event. Thank you to everyone who joined in and represented the school.

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St James Christmas Extravaganza!

On Friday 19th December we invite all children to wear Christmas themed clothes for the last day of term and our annual St James Christmas Extravaganza. We are thrilled to announce we will have a visit from real-life reindeer and a very special, jolly, festive visitor who has taken time out of his busy schedule to greet our pupils! We cannot wait!

I hope you have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Murphy

Christmas Performances

Save the Date!

EYFS & Year 1 - 10th & 11th December (9:15am - School hall)

Year 2 - 16th December (9.15am - School hall)

Years 3 & 4 - 16th December - Carols (2.30pm - School hall)

Years 5 & 6 - 17th December - Carols at St James Church (5.15pm until 6.15pm)

Sports Update

This half term has seen plenty of sporting action from St James. The boys and girls football teams both attended the annual Royal Holloway 7-a-side football competition and both teams acquitted themselves to the best of their abilities and had lots of good fun shared team experiences and made good memories.

The boys have had three league football matches (Manor Croft, Cardinal Newman and St Annes) and all of these were very well played. There were some great goals by Alex, Zac, Tyler and Sam. Billy had a great performance in goal.

Our girls football team had their first game this week versus Cobham Free School in the league. There was a great demonstration of St James teamwork and they are looking forward to the next match.

Also having their first outing was our netball squad who played Cardinal Newman. More netball matches will be held in January.

Well done all the children who have been involved in representing St James.

School Lunches

Christmas Lunch - 19th December

Our caterers, Twelve15 will be serving our Christmas Meal on Friday 19th December. Please see the menu attached.

If your child would like to have a Christmas meal on this day, please book on Arbor by Friday 12th December.

Please find below the current 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. There is also a fully stocked salad bar and fresh bread served daily.

Please remember to book school meals in advance using ARBOR.

Spring Term Clubs

Please see attached the 2026 Spring Term club timetable.

To view external club flyers, please click here.

Teacher Led Clubs

Bookings for teacher-led Spring term clubs will open at 6pm on Sunday 7th December 2025. An online form will be sent out to sign your child up.

Places will be issued on a first come first served basis. You will be notified by email, before the end of term, if your child has been given a place at one of these clubs.

External Providers

Club places for external providers can be booked using the links on the club information document below or the contact details on the individual flyers.

French club details will follow as soon as they are confirmed.

2026 Club dates and times Spring Term.pdf

Attendance and Penalty Notices

Weekly reminder - for parents/carers, that if they take their children out of school without authority for 5 or more days (which do not have to be consecutive), then you will be liable for a penalty notice fine

1. If you have not incurred a penalty notice relating to this child/children in a rolling 3 year period since 19 August 2024, then the penalty notice will be charged at the rate of £160.00, per parent/carer per child, if paid within 28 days. This will be reduced to £80.00 if paid within 21 days of receipt of the notice. Failure to pay the Penalty Notice will result in Surrey County Council considering legal proceedings against you in the Magistrates Court.

2. If you have incurred a penalty notice relating to this child/children since 19 August 2024, the rolling 3 year period will be activated from the date of the first penalty notice and the second penalty notice will be charged at the flat rate of £160.00, per parent/carer per child, if paid within 28 days. There will be no reduction for payment within 21 days. Failure to pay the Penalty Notice will result in Surrey County Council considering legal proceedings against you in the Magistrates Court.

3. If you have incurred 2 penalty notices relating to this child/children in the rolling 3 year period since the first penalty notice was issued, then you will NOT receive a third penalty notice – Surrey County Council will have no option but to consider a prosecution, per parent/carer per child, in the Magistrates Court under s 444 Education Act 1996.

Surrey County Council is not responsible for authorising pupil absence and therefore cannot withdraw any Penalty Notice requests without the written permission of the Headteacher.

The St James Attendance Policy can be found here..

Leave of Absence form can be found here.