St James' Church of England Primary School

Our News and Special Events Archive

Remember to look at our fabulous showcase of all that is brilliant at St James' on our Twitter feed @StJCEPrimary.

Robinwood 2022

Members of class 5 and 6 are starting the new year off in style on their Robinwood residential: three days of adventures!

Day 3

Day 2

Day 1

2021-2022

We really enjoyed our Talent Show. What a way to end the term and celebrate the Jubilee together! 

We have been awarded Picture News Champion of the week!

Easter Egg Competition 2022

Once again you have impressed us with your eggcellent entries to our annual competition! And the winners are...

2020-2021

With the sun shining, we  had a smashing end to a very busy and very different year.  

Thankfulness Week 2021

It has been an incredibly challenging year for everyone.  Even within these difficult time, we have seen and experienced much to be grateful for.  Across all the schools in our Forward as One CE Trust, we are taking time to stop and say thank you to our school community: our children, our staff and governors and our parents and carers.  

We asked them for their thoughts too... 

Archbishop of York Young Leaders' Award

Class 4 worked hard to improve our local area this summer... click here to find out more.

Congratulation St James'!

We are very proud to have gained the Gold Philosophy for Children (P4C) Award. This is a huge achievement for the whole school. Well done everyone!

Easter Egg Competition 2021

Wow, look at these brilliant competition entries! 

And the winners are...

Thank you to everyone for your kindness and generosity in supporting our charitable events this term: Harvest Appeal, Poppy Appeal and Willow Wood Hospice.

2019-2020

Wishing all our mums, aunties, grandmas, step mums, carers and big sisters a very happy Mother's Day. Class 4 performed their assembly beautifully on Friday morning. Here are their lovely messages.

Singing is good for the soul. Fact. Please forgive the video quality (it's dark so we can see the screen), but enjoy the singing and passion behind it. 

What an amazing afternoon Class 6 had! They walked into Ashton town centre to stage their own climate change protest carrying the placards they had made in class and shouting slogans! They certainly made an impression and made their point! We're all very proud of our wonderful children. #fridaysforfuture  And here's the newspaper article from the Tameside Reporter!

We had a great afternoon at St James Church.  Class 2 showed us their fantastic bell playing and treated us to some super singing too.  How lovely to share a super maths game with our grown ups and church members too! Thank you to Rev. Farnworth for his pictures.

We had a great day dressing up as our favourite book characters and reading with each other.

Class 5 helped us to celebrate the end of Fairtrade Fortnight with a special assembly and a tea party.

What a tweet! Class 5 have hatched and looked after 8 fluffy little chicks in their classroom.

The chicks are too big to stay now so they've gone off to the farm. It has been lovely watching them grow. 

We had a great time when Key Strings came to visit us! More videos on our music curriculum page.

Congratulation St James'!

We are very proud to have gained the Silver Philosophy for Children (P4C) Award. This is a huge achievement for the whole school. Well done everyone!

Wow! What a fabulous celebration of reading across Tameside. Look out for our star pupils.

Harvest Festival 2019

Thank you for your kind donations of food and money towards our two local charities: Infinity Initiatives and Pauline Town's work with those in need at The Station Hotel. Every one will make a difference.

School Council member had a fantastic day in London sightseeing and learning more about democracy and parliament.

Click here to find out more about this fabulous partnership project that we were proud to be part of.  We are now excited to be part of the Hallé Inspire Project.

2018-2019

End of term treats and time together to celebrate St James' Day and reflect on another lovely year.

RHS Tatton Flower Show 2019: Class 4 created a beautiful 'Shield Bug' garden for this year's flower show. Admired by all who came to see. Well done.

Scheherazade: incredible performances from all Year 1-6 in this year's summer show. Well done!

Sports Week 2019: Be active, be healthy!

HalléInspire Concert at St James Church

What a fabulous performance! Class 3 and Class 6 have worked with Hallé musicians Anna and Paul this half term to compose and perform pieces around their PSHCE topic themes. It's such an exciting project and we are very lucky to have had this opportunity to work with world class orchestra members.

Lovely to spend time with our friends and families. Good food, good games and good company (and the weather behaved too!).  We raised an incredible £1011. Thank you for all your support. We appreciate it enormously!

Thank you for your support!  We raised a fantastic £426.27 for charity. Amazing.

Carols round the tree: what a lovely way to finish the term together and wish everyone Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We really enjoyed our Christmas Nativity Service at St James Church and it was lovely to see so many of our families and friends there to watch us.

We had a fantastic night with Tameside Music Service at the annual Brass and Carols Concert at St Peter's Church. Such wonderful singing from all.

Our Friends of St James' Christmas Party was a huge success. What a wonderful afternoon.

Thank you for supporting our Christmas Fair!

We decorated our Christmas tree at the start of advent. It looks beautiful. 

Are you going shopping in Ashton Town Centre?

Keep your eyes peeled for our fabulous Nativity Scene - it's part of the Ashton Town Centre Nativity Trail.

Cake sale for Willow Wood

THANK YOU!!

We are flabbergasted by your support and your love and generosity. Together, you have raised £486 for Willow Wood Hospice.

Class 5 and 6 performed their Hallé Inspire Concert superbly at St James Church. We are very proud of them all.

We've made a great start to the new school with KS1 and 2 classes working with local artist Gillian Parish to create a series of five canvases to display our school Golden Values. We think they look amazing. 

2017-2018

We're very proud of our fantastic achievements this year. Together we are a winning combination!

Class 6 had an amazing time on their leavers' trip to The Anderton Centre in Chorley. What an exciting way to end the year and their time at St James'. We wish them well on their onward journey and hope for many more adventures to come.

What glorious weather for our annual St James' Day picnic!

Class 4 led the way and had a fantastic time getting ready for the Royal Horticultural Society Flower Show at Tatton Park. They planned, designed, planted and grew their garden around the theme of Vincent Van Gogh. And.... the good news is...

We won!!

St James' were awarded the best primary school garden and also earned second place in the People's Choice Vote. Well done everyone!

We had a great Sports Week! Be active, be healthy!

  Mystery at Magpie Manor.  Well done everyone for another fabulous summer show.

Thank you everyone for your support and generosity! We had a great time in the sunshine and the raffle winners are all very happy with their prizes.

St James has got TALENT!

 And the winners are... 

Well done to all our runners up as well.  All your Easter Egg competition entries are eggcellent!

Our beautiful nativity scene has been installed in the front window of the Anthony Seddon Fund Shop on Stamford Street. It is part of the Ashton Town Nativity Trail and we hope that lots of people will see it.

2016-2017

Click here to read Class 5's lovely end of year poem. 

Year 5 had a fabulous time at Robinwood. 

Preparation for the RHS Tatton Flower Show started many months ago. The children from Class 4 have worked hard planning and creating their garden. They have grown plants from seeds, and nurtured their plants ready for the challenge they faced.

This year, the school competition was ‘Wild about wildlife’. Our class garden was based on the traditional story book ‘Bambi: a life in the woods.’  The back-drop of Tatton Hall, a home for the deer, seemed like a clear choice.

‘Twig Twisters’, a professional willow artist, visited to work with the children of Class 4 in the planning and making of 3-D sculptures for their garden. In keeping with the theme of the garden, children made a roe deer and butterflies out of willow all by themselves.

The result is amazing! The children from Year 4 have shown commitment to the task and real enthusiasm. We are so proud of their entry to this year’s Tatton Flower Show; it was well worth a visit! 

Thank you to everyone who supported our Summer Show this year. Tuishi Pamoja - A tale of friendship under African Skies. 

Fabulous performances from everyone involved.

Class 6 had a fantastic time at their Diocesan Leavers' Service at Manchester Cathedral. They were asked to present a piece about the value of Wisdom.  You can see their fabulous performance in our videos on the RE page (through the Curriculum speech bubble).

Easter Egg Competition

Thank you to everyone who scrambled around, got cracking and made eggcellent competition entries. Here are our eggstraordinary winners!

We had a great Book Day! 

We enjoyed Science Week.  What did you investigate?

 Congratulations to our fabulous basketball team. Silver medal winners! Kamron, Muhammad, Emma, Emily, Amina, Joseph and Elie

We received two lovely thank you certificates for our fundraising in the autumn term. Your kindness and generosity are very much appreciated.

Parent/Carer Workshops

Thank you to all who attended the Health Forum and the Online Safety Workshop.  It was great to see you!

Thank you to our fabulous Carol Service singers:

Bobby-John, Vanessa, Hadia, Klaudia, Layla, Isabelle, Annaiel, Theo, Sara, Libby, Evie, Michal, Abigail, Emma, Amina and Mia. We are very proud of you all. 

Christmas Tree Festival

This year we decorated a Christmas tree to represent our school for the Tree Festival at St John's Church.  Every child in school decorated their own tag and, hanging side by side on our tree together, they looked beautiful.  

Another exciting community project that we were involved in...

If you looked carefully in the shop windows in Ashton town centre during Advent you would have spotted our fabulous nativity scene.  Each class made one of the characters or animals from the manger scene. We think they look fabulous.

Congratulations to our Year 5 and 6 musicians who performed their 'Flying Dutchman' composition alongside their 'adopted' Halle Orchestra musicians, Rachel and Joy, at a concert at St Damian's College. You were amazing!

Emma, Elie, Kadir, Emily, Isha, Uzair, Faye, Muhammad, Danial, Mia, Merphy, Conor, Sam, Sienna, Kai and Abigail.

 Click here to hear their fantastic composition - recorded during their final rehearsal just before they went on stage!

Well done to our super (finalist) Hockey Team!

We had an unusual visitor to school today...

Thank you for visiting us Craig Heap!

In a career spanning 20 years, Craig has won 14 British championship titles, competed in 5 European and 5 World championships. In 1998 he became the first person in history to captain England to team Gold at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. Four years later in the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games, he captained England again to Gold. Wow! What an inspiration. November 2016

11th November 2016  Click on the date to read Year 6's poignant remembrance poem.

Well done Class 4. Our Learning Logs and RE floor books have been displayed at St George's Church, Hyde. 

End Hunger UK event - organised by Faiths United 

Our outdoor learning garden has now been officially named by the School Council.

Welcome to the 'Garden of Vitality'! 

The School Council would like to thank our Chair of Governors, Shelagh Walton, for all her help. 

We are very proud of our outdoor learning and no wonder with this fantastic crop of goodies.

Harvest Festival

Thank you everyone for your generous gifts of money and food.  Your pennies and small change added up to £183.40 (that's 833 Magic Breakfasts!) and there was lots and lots of food taken to church. “I am only one, but I’m still someone.  I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  Just because I cannot do everything does not give me the right to do nothing.”

  Well done to our intrepid cross country runners!

Royal Horticultural Society Tatton Park Flower Show

Year 4 created and grew their Jungle Book inspired garden for the annual Tatton Park Flower Show. We think it is fantastic.  Well done to all of you.

Robinwood 2016

Year 5 had a fantastic time at Robinwood.

Click here for pictures and videos of their adventures.

Thank you and well done!

We are very proud of Mrs Sykes and Mrs Bashir who spent Sunday representing St James' by running in the fantastic Hyde 7 Tour of Tameside. This seven mile charity run took them on a tour of the local area - up and down lots of hills! They don't even look tired!

Thank you to all those who got cracking and entered this year's eggcellent Easter Egg Competition.

Class 4 created a beautiful 'Wakes Week' inspired garden for the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park and were presented with a 'Commended'  award for their magnificent efforts.  The children's hard work and imagination in designing, planting and growing the garden was admired by many.  Many thanks to Mr Faithfull and Miss Kennedy.  

A huge thank you to you all. Your kind donations have enabled us to raise a fantastic £332.22

Click here for more info from Comic Relief 

Good News!

In our most recent SIAMs inspection - this is an inspection of Church Schools -we are very pleased to tell you that the inspector was very impressed with our Church School ethos and graded us as a good school, fully recognising all the good progress we have made since our Ofsted inspection.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support. Click here to read the report in full.  

This is a huge achievement for our school and we are very proud of all the hard work, from staff and pupils, that has gone into achieving the award.

 Go to artsmark.org.uk to find out more and see our school on the Artsmark map!

 Well done to all the children who achieved their  level 1 'Martial Arts around the world' award:  Maddy, Joseph, Esa, Jessica W, Owen, Adam,  Jessica  S,  Caitlin, Daniel, Mariam, Hana,  Taybah,  Callum and Kamron. Click here to take  you to the  EPL Blog. 

 Well done to: Aleena, Harris, Esa, Iyla, Joseph, Maddy, Jessica, Amanda, Sam, Alisha, Zainab, Usman, Alisha, Halima, Amina and Dilesh.  

Our summer reading superstars! 

Well done and thank you to: Oliver, Abigail, Lucie, Sienna, Molly, Bradley, Owen, Alisha, Maddy, Lucy and Jessica for your fantastic performance at the Michaelmas Songs of Praise at St Michael's Church on 29th September. 

A great start to the new year with many families from Class 1 to 6 coming to our 'Meet the Teacher' meetings on Thursday 5th September.  Parents and carers (with their children) came to meet their child's new teacher in their new classroom to find out about the learning challenge topic and new reading diaries.

What a great end to the year...  so so busy!

All week: open mornings for FSU parents

16th July 9am Guitar Group performance in assembly  

16th July 2:30pm  Year 4 Clarinet Concert

16th July Year 3 visit the library

17th July Teddy Bears Picnic for new reception and nursery parents 

18th July Good to be Green end of year reward trip - well done to all those who have stayed green all year!

19th July Year 3 and 4 visit Cannon Hall Farm

19th July Year 6 go swimming

19th July Presentation of Class Attendance and Good to be Green awards

22nd - 24th July Year 5 and 6 visit Robinwood for their 3 day adventure residential 

24th July Year 2 visit the library

25th July 9:15am Whole school end of year service in Church followed by St James' Picnic

25th July 2pm Year 6 Leavers' Assembly

25th July 3pm Art Exhibition in Church - fabulous art work (painting, sculpture, digital art, drawing etc) from all classes on the theme of 'Windows on the Soul' will be displayed

26th July Year 6 visit Burrs Activity Centre

26th July Year 1 and 2 to visit the park

Congratulations everyone on your fantastic Jack and the Beanstalk performances on the 11th and 12th July.

Thank you for all your hard work. We are very proud of you all.

Thank you for joining us at our annual Big Breakfast on Tuesday 2nd July. Year 6 were marvellous hosts and made sure everyone was full up and smiling.

 Thank you all for making our Summer Fair absolutely fantastic.  We have raised lots of money (over £900) for school funds.  It was great to see our St James' friends and family all together - including our current and past pupils and staff.   

 Congratulations Evie for correctly guessing the mass of Mrs Lowe's fabulous cake.  

Thank you to everyone who came to support us at 

St Gabriel's Church. Eastertide Songs of Praise.

Well done to all our singers... Sienna, Abigail, Owen, Bradley, Jessica, Iyla, Aisha, Kye and Katayaha. You were brilliant!

Once again we had some quite egg-stra-ordinary entries in our annual Easter Egg competition. 

We're not yolking...  they're eggcellent! Congratulations to everyone who entered and to our smashing winners.

Family, friends, staff and children of St James' were all invited to a party!

The Party in the Park to celebrate the success of the smoke free school gates and parks campaign was held at Stamford Park on Sunday 17th March from 11am to 3pm.

Better still, Matthew Cooper from Year 6 received a certificate and runner up prize - well done Matthew.  Click here for the invitation.

Click here for the Mancunian Matters news report

We supported Red Nose Day for Comic Relief on 15th March 2013.

The School Council would like to thank you all for bringing your pounds and coming to school in your pyjamas.

We raised over £240!   Click here for Red Nose Day fun and games.

We celebrated World Book Day. It was lovely to see everyone dressed up as their favourite book character and to see the children from each class reading to one another.

The costumes were fantastic!  Click here for World Book Day fun and games.

We have taken part in a Guinness World Record attempt!

We joined thousands of other schools in the UK and around the world who took part in SignHealth's fundraising and deaf awareness day.

At precisely 2.45pm on Wednesday 6th February we sang and signed a song together called 'Sign2Sing'.

Thank you for your donations and wearing a scarf just like Olli the Monkey for our record breaking attempt. 

You can still explore Olli's Monkey Manor and find more songs and signs to learn by clicking here.

Many thanks to those who joined us at St Michael's Church on Sunday 3rd February

for the Candlemas Songs of Praise service.  

Well done to Sienna (Class 1), Jessica (Class 4), Poppy (Class 5), Katelyn (Class 5) and Poppy (Class 6). You were all fantastic!

All our children took part in a Smoke Free School Gates and Playgrounds Day on the 18th January; you probably saw all the balloons at hometime and hopefully the children came home and told you all about it.  It was a great learning day and we have had some lovely feedback from Annette the organiser from Tameside Council.  She said:  "Thank you for welcoming us into your school for the recent smoke free day.  The sessions at your school were a real delight.  You have some lovely bright children there and they really gave me some food for thought.  I'd like to express my thanks to them all for taking part and behaving so well."

     As a result of the day and the children's responses Annette has helped us put together a letter to explain to you why we want our school gates and local parks and playgrounds to be smoke free.

We hope you will be able to take the time to read it by clicking here.  Thank you.

We have sent your kind donation of £44.15 collected after the FSU Nativity to Willow Wood. Thank you very much.

What a superb last week of term! 

 On Monday Class 6 performed their Brass Concert with aplomb and Nursery and Reception delighted us with their acting, singing and dancing in their Nativity.

On Tuesday we all sat down together to share our Christmas dinner and were lucky enough to have a special visitor in the afternoon.

On Thursday the whole school went to Church for our Nativity and Carol service.  All the children were incredible.  Thank you to all who came and supported us - it was standing room only!

 On Friday the FSU celebrated Christmas with a Party and also had a special visitor with presents aplenty.

We ended the term together by singing our favourite songs and carols round the tree.  

We also said goodbye to Mrs Iqbal and wished her lots of luck in her new school.

Thank you to everyone who helped and supported our Christmas Fair on 13th December.

It was a great success and we raised over £900 for school funds.

Just so you can see how close (or not!) you were...  There were 256 sweets in the jar. The cake weighed 2.277kg.

Class 6 hosted our very special annual

Friends of St James' Christmas Party on 6th December.  

Invitations were sent out to family, friends and governors; tables were decorated and fingers were crossed that it wouldn't snow.

It was a splendid afternoon.  Class 6 were magnificent hosts, serving our guests food and drink and playing bingo before the whole school entertained everyone with their wonderful singing. We all really enjoyed it!

 Thank you to everyone who joined us.

Congratulations to the winner of our 'Name the Ship' competition!

Come aboard the St James' Friend Ship.

Advent Songs of Praise at St James' Church

Thank you to all our parents and carers who supported us at the service

on Sunday 2nd December.  

Sienna from Class 1.  Emma, Conor and Kamron from Class 2.  Elisabeth from Class 3.  Lucy, Iyla and Jessica from Class 4.  Amber from Class 5.  Chloe, Charlie, Andrew, Kye and Jolie from Class 6 along with our special guest Katayaha. The children were brilliant!

Thank you for your kind donations towards the Poppy Appeal.