St James's Catholic Primary school serves the parishes of St Margaret's (East Twickenham), St James (Twickenham), St Francis de Sales (Hampton Hill), and St Theodore's (Hampton) and we warmly invite applications from practicing Catholic families in these parishes. In recent years, we have been able to offer places to all practicing Catholic children from these parishes.
At St James’s we strive to ensure that every child receives a broad, balanced curriculum. We want our children to achieve the highest possible standards in reading, writing, and maths, but believe it is equally important that they enjoy learning in a range of other subject areas.
St James's is a Catholic school in which each individual grows in the knowledge and love of Christ. In partnership with parents and the whole community, our purpose is to provide a high standard of education, giving the maximum opportunity to realize each person’s potential. We follow the National Curriculum but enhance it with imaginative planning around topics to make the learning experience more coherent and meaningful. We enrich our curriculum through visits out of school, planning themed days around topics, and arranging visitors to come into school. We are fortunate to have specialist teachers for Music, Art, French, and Sport.
Our teachers plan in year group teams to ensure there is parity of planned learning experiences. The curriculum is enhanced by the use of a wealth of resources. Each year we plan special theme weeks when we focus on a specific subject and give the children the opportunity to apply the skills they have learned in reading, writing, and maths throughout the week. For example, we have Arts week and Science week. Each half term we also plan challenge days where children have the opportunity to apply their thinking skills and learning behaviors in different learning contexts (puzzle mornings, a talent show, a class debate, or team-building activities).
Children come to St James’s with a very wide range of skills and experiences and we aim to make the transition from your child’s previous setting as smooth as possible. The duration of the school day is gradually extended during the children’s first few weeks in school. The children are introduced to the full school day, assemblies and lunchtimes as they become more familiar with school routines and procedures.
Our curriculum in the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) is planned with the children's interests at the heart and we endeavor to introduce new and exciting learning at every possible opportunity. Much of our work is topic-based and we have a theme that runs for each half term. We will share details of these topics with you over the year. We provide purposeful activities and promote learning through experience and by the encouragement of independence.
Candidates have to deliver a speech and give reasons as to why they are the best candidates to represent their class. Pupil Council membership runs from Years 2 – 6. Classes vote for a boy and girl representative. This system of elections is held every year with an opportunity for new members to run for a position. We build a foundation of understanding how a meeting runs, and how a Council can be effective. From this children elect a leadership team to guide and direct meetings, the agenda, and aims throughout the coming year. This leadership consists of Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer, which are shared by two members each from Years 5 or 6.
We are committed to improving Online Safety within the school but also at home as well. If you have any issues, concerns, or questions please talk to a member of staff. We highly recommend that at-home parents set up web filtering on their home internet.
All adults at St. James’s Catholic Primary School are committed to the well-being of our children. We see our school as an inclusive community. The development of the whole child is at the heart of our mission as a Catholic school community. The spiritual journey our children and adults travel brings with it the responsibility of using our gifts to the full, living side by side with each other as Christ would expect us to, with an understanding of truth, justice and peace.
There is an ethos of challenge and a sense of purpose in children’s learning coming from high expectations in the learning and teaching throughout the school. We welcome a broad curriculum, and we prepare our children for their role as citizens of the future.
There are three main forms of assessment: in-school formative assessment, which is used by teachers to evaluate pupils’ knowledge and understanding on a day-to-day basis and to tailor teaching accordingly in-school summative assessment, which enables schools to evaluate how much a pupil has learned at the end of a teaching period and nationally standardized summative assessment, which is used by the Government to hold schools to account.
Every child’s progress is individual and unique. Tracking begins upon entry, through to exit, to show progression over time. We use Sheffield STAT Online as our internal tracking system. Following the new expectations of ‘developing, secure and exceeding’ allows teachers to input and track pupil’s progress against the New National Curriculum. This begins at Nursery, through to Year6.
