The new school year started with great excitement from the children when they saw our new playgrounds. The old junior playground has been resurfaced and we have made a new infant  playground which joins the school building to the swimming pool. Our school kitchen has been refurbished and our cook is enjoying new ovens that reach the right temperature and she now has a dishwasher! We have also built a children's cookery room and we are just now waiting for the equipment to be fully installed before we can open it officially. Our wonderful deputy headteacher Mark Smith has gone to St Edmunds RC School in Godalming as acting headeacher this term. This was arranged at the very end of last term because they had been unable to appoint a head. This is a great opportunity for him, but we miss him at St James. We have several staff new to the school this term, including Mrs Debbie Dent, who has been appointed as the centre manger for our proposed new Children's Centre, which will be attached to St James School. We await the result of our planning application but hope the centre will be open in March 2010.

We are very excited by this new initiative which was introduced by the Government to improve the effectiveness of their services for families and early years children (0-5 yrs). This initiative was born out of the report into the appalling death of Victoria Climbie, which highlighted the dreadful lack of communication between the various agencies involved. Our Centre will be responsible for providing services to ten villages in West Waverley, from Rowledge and Dockenfield in the west across to Elstead.

What's the purpose of a Children's Centre?
We aim to help local families access affordable, high quality early years and family support services which actually meet their needs. So, rather than putting on courses and hoping people will turn up, we are spending the next few months visiting toddler groups, Pre-schools, parents and child-minder groups (to name a few) to find out what would help them.

Who runs the Children's Centre?
The Governing Body of St James Primary has overall responsibility for the CC but it is run by a Steering Committee that includes our Headteacher, the CC Manager, governors, a representative from the Local Authority, and a range of representatives from parents, childminders, health, pre-schools, local councillor, police, voluntary and public organisations.

What kind of services will be offered?
We will not be running child care services because we are very well served in this village by Peter Pan and Rainbows, and other villages have their own groups. Services we offer could include: parenting skills; breastfeeding support; speech and language therapy; improving family health - immunisation, dental hygiene, nutrition and cooking; employment support, depending on the need, and these would be run by appropriate professionals.

How will the Children's Centre provide all these services?
The Children's Centre (CC) is the organisational hub that will link together all the different agencies actually providing the services. Our CC Manager is the 'facilitator' - making sure all the different elements join together effectively to give families in our area what they need: fundamentally a coordination and administration role.

Why should families from the surrounding villages come to Elstead?
The short answer is that they shouldn't! We will use Surrey's mobile Children's Centre to take the services to their villages - and hire their village halls for groups and activities as appropriate. The Centre in Elstead is primarily the administrative hub with the CC Manager travelling out to meet families wherever they live.

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