Wellbeing Walk

Over recent years, we have introduced our Wellbeing Walk to Spire Junior School's annual events calendar. Each class takes a different route and destination around our local area, taking songs, art work, poems and positive messages out into the community. The children visit a range of businesses, care homes, local schools, NHS services and other locations to spread a bit of joy as part of our SMILERS work. This year, we are visiting the Mayor and Mayoress in the Town Hall too!

Litter Picks

Each year, linked to our curriculum, the children, staff and sometimes parents of Spire take to the streets to take part in a local litter pick around our school. We work with the council to hire the appropriate equipment and do our bit to make our local area a nice place to live. This year, Years 3 and 4 wrote to our local MP about the environment in the hopes of getting more bins in our local area!

Gussies Kitchen

Each year we support the work of Gussies Kitchen through our Harvest Festival donations. 

Gussies Kitchen is a community eating cafe in normal times open to everyone which opened in 2016 operating on a Tuesday between 4 p.m - 5:30 p.m. 

A team of volunteers lovingly cook and serve a 3 course meal using food that is surplus to supermarket requirements and would in past years have gone to landfill but is still perfectly good to eat.

A meal can be purchased with a suggested donation of £2.50 for adults, 50p for children aged 5 -15yrs and FREE for unders 5's. 

Greggs 

We work very closely with Greggs Bakery, who have funded some excellent initiatives for our children. They are sponsoring a summer school trip to the beach for some of our children, they provide breakfast supplies for our children and they recently sponsored our board game library. Each week a child from each year group is allowed to choose a  board game from the library to take home. This initiative is aimed at encouraging communication, sharing, fairness and quality family time. It has been a huge success so far!

Red Nose Day

We will be supporting this in school by inviting the children to dress down and wear red to show their support, we would also appreciate donations towards the charity for dress down. In addition to this, we will have a few competitions and events running throughout the day.

Your child will be bringing home a 'Design a Nose' activity sheet tonight which will be judged by Mr. James and Mrs. Harrison next Friday. Please ensure that all entries are handed to them, in Nurture, before Friday lunch time (20th) along with a 50p donation for the competition. Please ensure that your child writes their name and class on the back. There will be Easter Egg prizes up for grabs!

Careers Week 

Here at Spire we strongly believe in raising children's aspirations and providing them with life skills to be equipped for the future. To help broaden horizons and open our children's eyes to opportuntiies we held our very own aspirations week where a variety of occupations held inspiring assemblies for our children.

In the past, we have included nurses, firefighters, cruise theatre performers, dog groomers and dog handlers, authors, florists, football CEOs, a surgeon and the police and it was a great opportunity for children to ask questions and learn about the required skills for the role. 

This year, we met a successful business-woman and entrepeneur, representatives of the Fire Service, First Aiders, Rolls Royce engineers and our lcoal MP!

Chatsworth Estate 

We are very fortunate to have formed a partnership with Chatsworth Estate. They have supported us with resources for our 'Create' art and D.T.topics. The children across school completed a two week local studies project, focussing on Chatsworth. For example, our Year 6 children, who as part of their 'Discover' topic studyied the Ancient Greeks, looked at the ceiling murals at Chatsworth which contain many Greek Gods. 

In 2026, our Year 5 and 6 children have visited Chatsworth thanks to their funding scheme as part of their Discover (Geography) topic. 

Here are a few pictures of the mermaid sculpture our children helped make at Chatsworth as part of their Radical Horizons sculpture trail. 

Mini Police 

We are really excited to be the first school in North Derbyshire to be working with Derbyshire Constabulary in launching Mini Police with our Year 5 children. The aim of the programme is to introduce children to a positive experience of policing and to get them involved in the local community. 

Click here to view our Mini Police Graduation Ceremony. 

The Mini Police programme has wide reaching aims: to improve relationships between the police and young people; to build trust with communities; to promote responsible citizenship; and create a sense of social responsibility.

The core sessions include:

• Role of the Police
• Crime
• Fatal 4
• Knife crime/Kinsella trust
• Heritage crime
• Different roles in the Police
• Cyber crime
• Pedestrian safety

Shoe Aid 

Spire Junior School took part in an event run by 'Shoe Aid' a Nottinghamshire charity. We did 'our bit' in helping 'STEP UP' to footwear poverty. Over the years we have now donated over 300 pairs of shoes to the charity!

Links with the local Care Home

We have a strong link with a local care home in Chesterfield. Usually, at Christmas time, our school choir visits the home to sing carols to the residents. 

 

 

Magazine articles and Podcasts 

Click here  to read an article published by Promethean about our use of technology to enhance learning at Spire.

Click here to view an article published in the Derbyshire Times about our Year 6 end-of-year photo gallery. 

Click here to read about our work with the local council to ensure our children are protected from bike theft. 

Click here to view a recent article published in the Education Today magazine and written by Promethean about our use of technology in the classroom to engage learners. 

Click here to view a video produced by the BBC commending Spire Juniors on their innovative approach in ensuring the happiness and healthy well-being of our children during exam periods. 

Click here to read an article in the local newspaper celebrating Spire Junior School's approach to 'plastic pollution', describing them as 'leading the way'. 

Click here to access a newspaper article thanking Spire children for litter-picking in the local area and taking care and pride in their environment. 

Click here to watch a 'School Case Study' video produced by Promethean. 

Click here to read an article in The Derbyshire Times about Spire's recent award nomination. 

Click here to read a post from Derbyshire and Proud about the sculpture 'Coralee' made with the help of Spire Junior Pupils.