Christmas Fair

Don't forget it's our Christmas Fair on Saturday 10th December at 2.00pm. See you there!

Share your school memories

Were school days the happiest days of your life? Maybe they were, maybe they weren't - but there's usually something that stands out in our memories about our school days. Why not share your stories here?
Anyone who submits an entry will be in with a chance to win a prize - all names will be entered into a draw and a winner chosen.

Looking forward to Christmas?


The CJS School Choir have been invited to sing at the following venues:



Chellaston Junior School Hall on Friday 9th December. We will provide a large part of the Christmas Service to pupils, parents and friends.

Chellaston Junior School Hall on Saturday 10th December.
We will entertain customers at our Christmas Fair.

Frankie and Benny's date to be confirmed.
We will entertain customers. All donations collected will go towards our school funds for music.

It may be possible that we may be invited to sing at other venues during the Christmas period, depending on our availability.

Our Christmas programme will include:

Let it Snow!

I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus

Winter Wonderland

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (with special appearances from the boys!)

Santa Baby

Rocking around the Christmas Tree

Do you hear what I hear?

Jingle Bell Rock

Sending text messages to parents' mobile phones

We are taking part in an initiative to improve the way the school communicates with parents, and we hope that with your support, we will make it work. As you can appreciate we need to send you lots of information about your child, their class and the school in general, throughout the year.

We will shortly be able to send text messages to parents’ mobile phones directly from the school’s management information system. This means that we can pass a message to groups of parents quickly and easily. Nothing can replace a telephone call when it is needed and so mobile text messaging will only be used in appropriate situations. Examples of this might be:

*Changes to school meetings or events
*Cancellation of after school activities
*Class trip reminders
*School closures of any kind
* Reminders for notes when pupils are absent

It will now be much easier for us to get information directly to parents and be confident that the information has arrived. Also, the facility allows us to check whether the message has been received by your mobile phone. If it was switched off and the message could not be delivered, we would attempt to contact you by other means.

All parents should have received a letter explaining this system - if you have any comments or questions, please post them here or contact me at school.

Learning Mentor Hotseat

The role of Learning Mentor is to help children to overcome barriers to learning through one-to-one contact, group work and regular contact with families.
I am not a teacher or teaching assistant. I hope to work with children for a set time until they have overcome their problem. Sometimes children will ask to see me to talk about something that is worrying them, other times their teacher might have concerns that they would like me to help a child to overcome.

A few problems that I can help with are as follows:

* Children who would like to tell me about a problem that is worrying them.
* Children who are finding it hard to get along with other children or staff.
* Children who are always getting into trouble.
* Children who find it difficult to settle in school.

I will see children during lessons for half an hour, sometimes once a week for others it may be more. We will chat about their concerns and work on some worksheets that will help them.

I also run some lunchtime clubs that I encourage children with barriers to learning to take part, at the moment these include: Homework Club, Drawing Club, Games Club, ICT Newsletter Club, Lego Club.

Breakfast Club starts on Monday 7th November for a limited number of Children, as well as Friendship Groups and Circle of Friends.

I would like to arrange a termly Coffee morning after Christmas for parents to come and have an informal chat with me regarding any concerns that they may have or just to see what is happening in school.

Children are having to deal with so many barriers to learning both at home and at school, for some this may prevent them from enjoying school, they have nobody that they can talk to and gradually feel more isolated. By having a Learning Mentor in school, children know they have somewhere to go, someone to talk to and someone to support them. A Learning Mentor is able to talk to them about areas that they can improve on, about anger management and help them to increase their self esteem.

With the pressures that are on children and schools today, Learning Mentors help them to overcome these problems, as well as supporting families. Children that do not have this support in school have no-one to turn to and more likely to misbehave, be low attenders and find it harder to make friends or achieve to the best of their ability. Sometimes just being able to talk to someone independently can be enough.

Please feel free to ask me any questions about my role.