Swimming lessons at Scholes (Elmet) Primary next year

We’re making an exciting change to how children in Years 3 and 4 access swimming lessons.

Currently, children in Year 3 go swimming. With travel included, it takes up a large part of the afternoon for a relatively short weekly lesson. (Older children can’t use the Scholes (Elmet) Primary pool because it’s too shallow.)

Next year, we’re installing a pop-up pool! In the Summer term, a purpose-built, temporary swimming pool will ‘pop up’ on the playground. Children in Years 3 and 4 will benefit from an intensive 3 week block of lessons where they will swim for 45 minutes every day with fully qualified, external swimming instructors. We’re confident this change will mean even more children can learn to swim whilst also saving on learning time lost throughout the year.

We understand this may seem like fewer lessons overall. However, the intensive, daily format has been shown to significantly boost children’s progress. Here’s why:

• Faster skill development: Swimming every day builds confidence and skill without the gap between weekly lessons that often leads to forgetting.
• More time in the water: Without the need for travel, children get more meaningful lesson time.
• Less disruption to learning: A concentrated block avoids weekly interruptions across the year, protecting curriculum time.
• Improved outcomes: Qualified instructors can better tailor lessons to each child’s needs, helping more pupils learn to swim and develop water confidence.

We’re sharing this facility with Moortown Primary, another Sphere Federation school, alternating each year. This means that in 2026-27, Moortown Primary will have the pool and we’ll have a year off. Across the two year cycle, all children in Years 3 and 4 will benefit.

Look out for more details nearer the time.

Uniform update

Please remind yourself of our Uniform Policy so you and your child can be ready for September. We’ve made a couple of minor changes: nothing major, mainly making the guidance around additional items hopefully a bit clearly.

Happy and healthy in the holidays

Breeze is back and heading to a park near you this summer! Read more about the series of local and low-cost days out. Fancy something even more active? Check out the range of events from Active Leeds.

Why not balance this with some reading? The reading challenge from Leeds Libraries this year is all about getting outside and enjoying a bit of fresh air. The Summer Reading Challenge theme is Story Garden and is all about the outdoors, which is full of enchanting words, all kinds of creatures and plants, and fascinating facts – get ready for a book-borrowing adventure! Children will be able to find new reads linked to nature, and access activities at the library – and best of all, it is completely FREE!

Well done!

At the end of the school year, there are different statutory assessments for children in different year groups. With assessments still coming in or yet to be confirmed, it’s early days to look too closely at the results, but here’s a quick first look:

• The vast majority of our Year 1 children reached national expectations in the Phonics Screening Check – 97.5% compared to the national figure of 80.1%
• Our Year 4 children’s average score in the Multiplication Tables Check was 21.8 out of 25 – we don’t know the 2025 national average, but that’s comfortably above last year’s figure of 20.6
• In the Key Stage 2 tests (the SATs) in Reading, Maths and Grammar and Punctuation, the outcomes for Year 6 are all above national – in fact, 73.8% of the children reached national expectations (or better) in Reading, Writing and  Maths combined compared to 62% nationally

Well done to all the pupils for doing so well.

Spaces in school

Our library had a make-over just a few weeks ago – it looks incredible. The walls have been ‘wrapped’ with lots of well-loved book covers. Reading is a non-negotiable at Scholes (Elmet) Primary and so our library is a very important space in school.

Our KS1 wildlife area has really matured over the last year and the new signs and bug hotels have made it a firm favourite with lots of mini-beasts! It’s also a really calm space to just sit and appreciate what’s around you. We don’t do this enough!

A new space in school was created during the Easter holidays – The Nest. This space is going to be an area where individuals and groups can go to take some time away from the classroom and enjoy doing something a bit different.

A happy and healthy end of year

Despite the heat (and it really was very, very hot!), we managed to enjoy another great Sports Day, squeezing the Reception/KS1 Roundabout and the KS2 Competitive Event into just one morning. It was great to welcome so many parents, carers, friends and family who came to watch and cheer on the children. A special thanks to those families who donated their gazebos for the morning. The shade was very welcome!