Our weekly message: Friday 16 October 2026

Thank you for your kind words on hearing the news that I’ll be leaving Scholes (Elmet) Primary and Sphere Federation at the end of the Autumn term. After working in schools for 30 years (10 years as a teacher and 20 years as a headteacher), it feels like it’s time for a change and new challenge, although I’ll be very sad to leave my Sphere Federation family.

Earlier this week, our Chair of Governors sent a letter to you explaining the interim arrangements for the Spring and Summer terms. I’m confident that Miss Hague, Mr Catherall and all the great teachers and support staff here at Scholes (Elmet) Primary will continue to help your child to flourish in this happy and healthy place to learn.

Amazing attendance

So far this school year, 210 pupils at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School have achieved 100% attendance. That’s about 2 in 3 of all pupils. That’s great news!

Junior leaders

Our new Junior Leadership Team (JLT) were voted for this week. Well done to everyone who made a speech – we were impressed by all of you.

After a democratic decision, our new junior leaders are:

• Class 1A: Liliana
• Class 1,2B: Harry
• Class 2C: Orla
• Class 3,4A: Keira
• Class 3,4B: Thomas
• Class 3,4C: Henry
• Class 5,6A: Millie
• Class 5,6B: Ruby
• Class 5,6C: Heidi

Congratulations to you all – we’re sure you’ll do a grand job.

AI and safeguarding

As we all know Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making the news for all sorts of reasons. Whilst there’s some amazing things happening, there has to be a constant awareness of safeguarding. We need to make sure that we’re not exposing personal details to the wider world.

At the moment, there’s a lot of posts on social media about AI and school photos pics – perhaps you’ve seen them. Some people are recommending that parents ask AI to remove the watermark from a sample school photo so that they don’t need to pay the price. If you do this, your child’s photo’s ‘out there’ for AI to use in the future, responding in whatever way people ask.

Your child’s digital footprint (including photos) are your responsibility until they’re old enough to give consent; in legal terms that would be 18 years old. Please be aware of this when using social media and AI.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Our weekly message: Friday 09 October 2026

With over five weeks in school, we’re now well and truly settled into the school year. School leaders have been busy doing observations of teaching and learning around school – there’s lots of great teaching and even greater learning going on! You can get a chance to see some of this next week…

Watch us while we work

We’re looking forward to seeing lots of you on Tuesday next week for another of our popular Watch Us While We Work sessions. These are a chance for you to visit your child’s class and see some teaching and learning.

• Start time: 9am (please arrive promptly)
• Focus: Reading and Maths (later in the year, the focus will be Phonics or Spelling and one of our Feelings First sessions)

Teachers will try to make the activities home-friendly so you can continue to support your child at home if you’d like.

There will be two short sessions, each about 15 minutes, and you can attend two classes, swapping half-way, so you can see two of your children if you need to.

The vast majority of children enjoy sharing their learning – it’s a cause for celebration and feeling proud. We recognise there might be one or two who struggle with the change or the extra people – please consult your child’s class teacher if you’ve any concerns.

Parents and carers of children in Reception should look out for Stay and Learn sessions across the year.

Is your child in Year 6?

The deadline to apply for a place in secondary school is approaching: 31 October 2026. Find more information on the Leeds City Council website.

Me and my community

Our next themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be take place from Monday 02 November. This is the first of two themed weeks in the year. The rest of this week’s message is a preview of the themed week…

In Me and My Community week, children will learn about what it means to belong to a community, from family to national or even international
communities. Importantly, our children will also learn to respect and celebrate different communities.

A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this aspect of our Living and Learning education. Events and learning during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging and self-esteem, and the diversity of people around us, including race, age, religion and disability.  Children will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations and taking pride in the local area, for example by litter picking.

Active travel in the community
We encourage children to get out in the community in an active way on their way to and from school, with prizes available as part of the themed week. By walking/scooting/biking to school, families will be keeping our community
safer and healthier by reducing congestion at the school gate. Maybe even pick up a piece of litter on the way! Even by parking further away from school, your child could then travel the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter. Bike and scooter storage facilities are available to the left of the school gates.

Email us using [email protected] with a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark in our community on your route to school, for the chance to win one of three vouchers. Entries to be submitted by 4pm on Thursday 05 November.

New school charity
At the end of the themed week, classes will have the chance to discuss our charity shortlist and the Junior Leadership Team will make the final decision about which charity Scholes (Elmet) Primary will support, replacing our current charity, Woodland Trust.

Can you help?
Maybe you speak another language and you’d be happy to speak to children about this or you’d like to share about your own family culture and heritage. If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have
any local community links that may support our week?

Lots to look forward to. In the meantime, have a happy and healthy weekend!

Harvest Collection

Our weekly message: Thursday 01 October 2026

Tomorrow is one of five training days for teachers – this means school is closed tomorrow. The dates for the training days are:

• Tuesday 01 September 2026
• Friday 02 October 2026
• Friday 23 October 2026
• Monday 07 December 2026
• Monday 07 June 2027

Please remember to keep checking our website calendar for forthcoming events.

Cooking

A couple of weeks ago, we asked if you’d be kind enough to make a voluntary donation to cover the cost of ingredients  for our DT: Food and Nutrition sessions each term. This is so we make life easier for you by buying the food in bulk rather than asking for children to bring in their own ingredients. It also means that we can continue to offer this opportunity to learn important kitchen skills.

Thank you to those of you who have made a contribution.

If you’ve not already, please consider making a donation. We’ve set up Arbor for quick payments of £6, but you can also call into the office with any donation amount – we’d be grateful for any amount to contribute to costs.

Here are some Year 3,4 children cracking on with their egg-pots…

Year 5: Bikeability

Bikeability takes place in the Spring term for children in Year 5. This year, it will take place from Monday 15 March to Friday 19 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.

Dropping off and collecting your child

Do you have to use a car to drop off and collect your child from school? The best way to travel to and from school is to walk, scoot or cycle. If you do drive, please remember to drive and park with respect and care.

If you park on the double yellow lines or zigzags anywhere round school, this causes danger to our children, pedestrians, and other drivers. Please don’t park on them or across the road from them. Read more about these road markings and the law.

Were you aware…?

The long strip of grass down the side of Morwick Grove, adjacent to the school boundary hedge, is actually owned by neighbours on Morwick Grove, not Leeds City Council or the Parish Council. Access to the Nursery and Out of School Club is granted to us by them as a goodwill gesture to the school – it is not a right. Because we would obviously like to maintain the good relations we have, we ask that parents/carers using Morwick Grove ensure that they park and use this area respectfully. Please do not park on the double yellow lines or grass verge, and please do not block residents’ driveways. Our Morwick Grove neighbours are not liable for any injury or damage caused when using this route.

Did you know…?

We’ve just got permission for parents to park in The Buffers car park (we’re looking at other alternatives, too) in the hope of easing  congestion and allow walking the rest of the way to school. It’s a great way to get in some steps and get the feeling of walking to school. If you do use either of these car parks, please do so respectfully.

We know that the lack of parking is frustrating, but please help us to keep the environment safe, our children safe and show that we consider the residents who live around school. Thank you for your cooperation and support.

You might want to report a problem to Leeds City Council – the more who do so, the more likely something will be done. We suggest using the link to Report a Traffic Management Issue – it only takes a minute.

Finally this week, another reminder – please make sure you’ve let us know of any allergies your child has, or any other medical condition we should know about. And if you’ve got any updates about emergency contacts, please let us know those, too.

Our weekly message: Friday 25 September 2026

It’s been a testing start to the new school year, what with unexpected fire alarms last week (caused by a fault in the swimming pool building) and plumbing problems leading to running out of water (possibly caused by works off the school premises). Nevertheless, there’s been lots of happy and healthy learning activity from Reception to Year 6…

Check out our Class News pages to find out more about what your child’s been up to.

Gold!

We’re proud to be awarded the School Games Mark recognising our commitment, engagement and delivery of competitive school sport. Just before the summer holidays, we were delighted to be awarded Gold again!

National assessments

There are various national assessments that children in England do – it can be confusing keeping up with them all…

• Reception Baseline Assessment: within the first 6 weeks of entering Reception
• Early Years Foundation Stage Profile assessment: between April and June of the academic year in which they turn 5 (usually the Reception year)
• Phonics Screening Check: in June of Year 1
• Key Stage 1 tests: at the end of Year 2
• Multiplication Tables Check: in June of Year 4
• Key Stage 2 tests (sometimes referred to as SATs): in May of Year 6

Read more about the assessments. You can always ask your child’s tacher about these, too, of course.

Staying safe: Does your child have a mobile phone with one of these apps?

The NSPCC has published figures (April 2025 to March 2026) showing which platforms children name when they talk to Childline about online sexual abuse:

• Snapchat: 324 mentions in one year (that’s 19% more that the year before)
• TikTok: 234 mentions
• Instagram: 197 mentions
• Discord: 92 mentions
• WhatsApp: 39 mentions

Between them, these five platforms came up in nearly 900 counselling sessions.

Attendance matters

At the start of the year, it’s quite possible your child might pick up a bug or feel a bit more tired than usual. This is perfectly normal and helps to build up some resilience. Check out this short YouTube clip from the Department for Education about illness and attending school. There’s also advice on our new Attending School website page.

If your child really does need to miss a day at school, please tell us as soon as you can.

Did you know that schools have the right to decide if they will authorise the absence or not. In most circumstances, we authorise the absence, but sometimes, we don’t – we make the decision based on one or more of the following factors:

• doubt: if there is a specific reason to doubt the illness
• frequency: if a child misses school very often
• no communication: if a parent/carer fails to give a reason or fails to contact the school, the absence automatically goes down as unauthorised
• no requested proof: if we ask for reasonable medical proof for frequent absences and the parent fails to provide it

Finally, do you know anyone with a child starting school in September 2027? It seems a long way off, but we’ve already had enquiries about starting school then. We’ve three dates planned in for open sessions to visit our school – 

• Wednesday 14 October – 6.00pm
• Tuesday 10 November – 2.00pm
• Friday 20 November – 9.30am

There’s no need to book a place.

Our weekly message: Friday 18 September 2026

Thanks again to all those who entered our Summer Competition. Summer might seem a distant memory, but these creations bring a sunny smile to our faces…

Make sure you check the Class News each week. Since the end of August, there have been over 25 Class News stories to read across school, from Nursery to Year 6!

Thank you…

Over the summer, we were delighted to have some new playground markings installed on the KS1 playground. They’ve helped to make the playground a bright and attractive place for our happy and healthy, active playtimes. The markings were paid for thanks to a generous donation from the Barwick in Elmet and Scholes Community Fund to FOSP who then kindly donated the money to school – a huge thank you to all involved in this!

This rest of this week’s message focuses on some specific teaching and learning guides that you might like to check out so that you can support your child at home…

Handwriting

This year, we’ve refreshed the way we teach handwriting. Children have told us that with better handwriting, they feel more confident and proud of their learning! Our Handwriting Guide is easy to follow and a great way to support your child. Check out the guide to letter formation and our three top tips on page 3.

Spelling

We’ve also updated the way we teach spellings in Years 2 to 6. Our Spelling Guide describes how we teach spellings in Key Stage 2, including sequences for teaching different spelling rules and patterns and related lists of spellings to learn.

Feelings First

Last year, some of you attended a Watch Us While We Work session where we showed you a Feelings First session. The feedback from the session was really positive. We’ve prepared this Feelings First Guide to give you an idea of the feelings we cover each half term (page 6) and our simple definitions of each feeling (page 7).

Homework

We’ve made a small tweak to our Homework Guide which reflects a change of routine for children in Key Stage 2: their spellings to learn is now around a two week cycle, with a small test each fortnight.

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.

Cooking

Over the course of the year, your child will enjoy three opportunities to prepare food:

• Year 1 and 2: a fruit smoothie, overnight oats, and fruit bars
• Year 3 and 4: egg pot, chopped tomatoes and garlic, and savoury scones
• Year 5 and 6: vegetable and chickpea curry, pasta bake, and bread

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 across the year, please make a voluntary donation. We’ve set up Arbor for quick payments of £6, but you can also call into the office with any donation amount – we’d be grateful for any amount to contribute to costs.

For more about our Cooking curriculum, please check out our Cooking and Nutrition Curriculum Guide – this includes the food preparation skills children will practise (this is Year B).

All the guides mentioned here (and more) can be found on the red Learn More pages of our website.

Finally this week… Please remember to update us with any changes to the information we have about you or your child. This includes any changes in health details and contact details.

Compost donations needed!

Our Early Years children love playing in the outdoor mud kitchen but we’re running a little low on compost!

If you have any spare bags of compost at home that you would be happy to donate, we would be very grateful!

Thank you for your continued support.

Our weekly message: Friday 11 September 2026

Did you catch Monday’s message with news of our Summer Competition winners? Well done to them and to all who entered – we loved seeing all your creative ideas.

At the start of every half-term, children in Years 1 to 6 begin a new topic. This week’s message is all about the new topic so you can chat with your child at home about what they’re learning over the next few weeks.

(If your child’s in Nursery or Reception, check out their Class News page.)

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term, we’re historians. We’ll develop our understanding of the past, both in Britain and the wider world.

Each phase has age-related specific knowledge, skills and vocabulary. See pages 26 and 27 of our Topic Curriculum Guide.

Each phase also has key historical concepts which will feature within most lessons. These historical concepts are themes that are revisited, strengthened and deepened during your child’s journey through the history curriculum. See page 23 of the Curriculum Guide.

Years 1 and 2

In this topic, children will learn about a significant British historical event: The Great Fire of London. Children will learn about life at the time of the Great Fire of London. They’ll learn where the fire started and how it spread so quickly and the innovative ways that it was extinguished. Importantly, they’ll learn about the different sources of evidence that have helped us answer these questions, including Samuel Pepys’ diary. Finally, they’ll learn about the significant changes that occurred as a result of the fire, such as legal changes about the way houses were built and the beginning of a fire service in London.

Years 3 and 4

Children in Years 3 and 4 are learning about Ancient Greece. They began by sequencing periods of British history and seeing where the ‘golden-age’ of the Ancient Greek civilisation sits alongside. They’ll then learn about two contrasting city states: Athens and Sparta. Children will learn about the type of government these states had and what the lives of the people living there were like. They’ll then debate which city state was the best.

Importantly, they’ll focus in on the influence that Athens has had on the world: democracy, mathematics, philosophy, literature, culture… Finally, they’ll learn about how the civilisation ended. 

Years 5 and 6

In this topic, children learn about Stone Age to Iron Age Britain and contrast it with Ancient Egypt. They begin by looking at and creating timelines which sequence the periods of British history and also placing Ancient Egypt on this timeline. They’ll learn about the advances and innovations that occurred during the New Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. They’ll learn about and understand that the sources of evidence we have are limited to archaeological evidence. They’ll then learn about the Ancient Egyptian civilisation and contrast this with what was happening in Britain at the same time – it’s a stark contrast!

The key concepts for this topic are innovation and power.

How can you help?

Check out the links above. They’ll take you to BBC Bitesize webpages with some really good pages about the different units being studied this half-term.

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. The Class News pages of the school website are a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

Find some books from the library which match what your child is learning. I’m sure there will be plenty of books about the history your child will be learning about.

Watch television shows about history. Horrible Histories is great (regardless of your age!).

For KS1, there’s an excellent website about the Great Fire of London. As well as a game for children to play, there’s information for adults as well.

If it’s a rainy weekend and you’re looking for something to do, why not spend a morning or afternoon in a museum? A visit to Leeds City Museum (next to Millennium Square) would be great for all children but especially for Y3,4 and Y5,6 children as it has some Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian exhibits, including Nesyamum, the 3,000 year old Leeds mummy!

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Summer Competition

During the summer, we challenged children to recreate our school logo in any way they liked.  The only rules were that we needed to be able to see the trees and train track and that we could display their entries.

Today, in assembly we announced the winners.

Take a look at these masterpieces!

Well done to everyone who entered – you’ll be able to see your work up in school very soon.

Our weekly message: Friday 04 September 2026

It’s been great to see you at the school gates and to welcome the children back to school – and to welcome new children joining us, too. We’ve loved hearing children greet us happily each morning!

Summer competition

Did you enter our Summer competition this year?

Thank you to those of you who did. We invited you to re-create our school logo in some creative way. Today was the deadline to send in a creation featuring our trees logo – we’ll be deciding the winner on Monday.

Attending school

We know the Autumn term can be a time when younger children pick up a bug or two. Check out our Attending School page for advice about when you’re child might be too ill to come to school.

Last year, our attendance figure was 94.2%. Let’s aim for better this year. Watch this short clip (only a minute long) about why attending every day matters in primary school.

Dates

Here’s a list of key events across the year.

For a fuller and up-to-date picture of what’s going on, check out our school calendar.

(Have a look at our weekly Living and Learning theme at the start of each week in the calendar, too – this week, our theme’s been ‘I follow the school rules’ so please talk about these at home.)

A few updates

We’ve updated a some policies recently…

Our Homework Guide includes an update about spellings to learn and a couple of other tweaks (the actual policy on pages 2 and 3 hasn’t changed).

We’ve updated our Positive Relationships Policy to reflect a change in language when adults in school use ‘3, 2, 1, stop’ – check out our new expectations on page 2.

Our policy for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) now includes a policy around resources to support pupils (things like fidget objects).

Finally, we reviewed our Uniform Policy in the Summer term, but it might be worth a re-read to check our expectations, especially for PE days.

Our website

As it’s the start of a new school year, we thought it might be a good time for a quick ‘tour’ of some of the key pages of our website.

The Find Out section is there mainly for the key information you need to know about. Particularly useful pages are:

• the Calendar: at the start of the year, we send home a list of key events across the year but for a fuller and up-to-date picture of what’s going on, check out the calendar (have a look at our weekly Living and Learning theme at the start of each week in the calendar, too – this week, our theme’s been ‘I follow the school rules’ so please talk about these at home)
• Policies and Other Points: this page contains lots of information, including our Positive Relationships policies and our Uniform policy – important ones for you to know about

The Join In section describes lots of different ways that you and your child can get involved, from wraparound care and clubs to any job vacancies we may have. There’s information about our Governing Body in this section, too. (On the subject of governors, please contact us if you know of someone who might be interested in becoming a governor.)

The Learn More page is where to go for ways to support your child’s learning. The Class News pages are always the some of the most visited pages – they help to keep you up to date with what your child’s learning. Other pages give you information about different subjects – Reading, Writing, Maths and other curriculum subjects. If you’re a parent of a child in Nursery or Reception, check out the Early Years page, too.

Next week, we’ll talk about our new topic for children in Years 1-6. It’s a History topic – start asking your child now what they’ve been learning in History! In the meantime, have a happy and healthy weekend.