Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been a very busy couple of weeks!  We hope you enjoy looking at some photographs of our activities in this newsletter.

It was lovely to see so many children and staff dressed up to mark the World Cup on Monday. We shared in the celebrations for Spain with Miss Lopez teaching us how to sing ‘Somos los campeones!’

The holidays are here!

As we break up for the summer holiday, on behalf of the school staff, we would like to sincerely thank you for all your support this year.  Thank you, too, for the gifts which are greatly appreciated and the kind words that mean so much.  We wish you all a relaxing holiday and we look forward to seeing the children back in school on Thursday 3^rd September.  Learning starts on the first day of term and so it is most important that your child is in school on this day.

We are most grateful to our PTA members and Solange Ronfini, our PTA Chair for a fantastic year of vital fundraising.  You can read all about their successes and plans for next year at the end of this newsletter.

Goodbye and good luck!

To our Y6 children who are moving on to their secondary schools in September, we wish them all happiness and success.  They have been a fantastic class who have been great role models to our younger children.  They have also worked extremely hard which is shown by their excellent SATs results.  We know that they will go onto great things in the future and look forward to hearing all about their new schools!

We say goodbye this week to our Teaching Assistants, Mrs Saday and Mrs Singh.  We would like to thank Mrs Saday and Mrs Singh for their great care and dedication to our pupils and all that they have brought to our school community.  We wish them all the very best for the future.

We also say farewell to Mr Askin who leaves us to take up a permanent teaching post in Ireland.  We feel fortunate to have had Mr Askin with us once again this term and we wish him luck in his new role.

This week and last week in school

Y6 Production of Oliver Jr

The Y6 production of Oliver Jr last week was absolutely wonderful!  The acting, singing and the staging of the show were all fantastic  The children have loved the experience and most importantly had so much fun rehearsing and performing in front of family and friends.

Thank you! 

Huge thanks go to all the Y6 parents who gave their time and talents so generously to create the amazing scenery and costumes.  We would like to thank all the Y6 parents for the cheque they presented to the school after the show.  What a wonderful surprise!

Thank you too, to our school staff and especially to Mrs FitzGerald for directing the show!

KS2 Vocal Concert

On Thursday 9^th July our KS2 children had the opportunity to sing in front of an audience of parents and carers.  It was a hot evening and so the concert was moved outside which only added to the night.  Well done to everyone who performed!

Y6 ‘Come Dine With Me’

As part of their Design and Technology learning our Y6 children took part in a ‘Come Dine With Me’ challenge.  The children worked in groups to design a three course meal which they cooked from scratch.  They then tasted each group’s meals and judged which they liked the most. 

St Elizabeth’s Feast Day

Our St Elizabeth’s Feast Day began with Mass celebrated by Fr Stephen, with prayers and readings led by Y3 children.  The Y3 children then joined together for a photograph, dressed in their First Holy Communion outfits.

St Elizabeth’s Feast Day Picnic

The celebrations then continued with a whole school picnic lunch.

Y1 and Y2 Drama Production

Yesterday the Y1 and Y2 children showed the school their productions of ‘Chicken Licken’ and ‘Hat’s Off!’ to the rest of the school.  The children have been rehearsing these plays in their drama lessons with Mrs FitzGerald this term and they did a fantastic job, singing and speaking with great confidence.

Sports Assembly

On Tuesday, we celebrated a year of sport at St Elizabeth's in the annual Sports Assembly. The assembly opened with a montage of photos of children enjoying sporting activities and success outside school; we love hearing about the variety of activities our pupils enjoy!

We recognised and celebrated all the pupils who have represented the school from Y3 to Y6 in many sports including football, netball, tag rugby, basketball, swimming, tennis, cross country and athletics - over half of KS2 have played for a school team this year! We reflected on the inter-house competitions in netball and tag rugby that enable all our students to take part in match play and showcase our school values. We thanked our Y6 Sports Committee for their fantastic work over the year engaging the school in sporting activities including the Mini Marathon at playtimes, fund raising events and organising playground leaders in KS1.

We recognised the importance of our extra-curricular clubs in offering children further opportunities to practise their sporting skills; this has contributed to our successes in swimming, cross country and especially hockey, where St Elizabeth's won 1st and 4th places in the borough tournament.

St Josephine Bakhita were crowned the winners of both KS1 and KS2 Sports Days - well done to all the children! Congratulations to the following children who were presented with individual all rounder Sports Day awards: Raielle, Emma, Aidan, Kateryna and Alianna. Congratulations also to Keon, who equalled the Y4 vortex record, and to Aidan and Alianna, who jointly broke the school long jump record. We also recognised Arietta for her outstanding achievements in international Dance competitions.

Every year, we recognise the contributions of our Y6 leavers and present the Sports Personality of the Year award. This year, we have had amazing contributions to sport from many of our Y6 class and we were delighted to present Sporting Endeavour awards to Kate, Ola, Teddy and Oliver. The runners-up for the annual Sports Personality of the Year were Beatrice, Dylan and Mateo. Our Sports Personalities of the Year were Jack, Mia and Alianna.

Congratulations to all and thank you to all our pupils, staff and families for their enthusiasm and support in making this another memorable year of sport at St Elizabeth's!

Awards this Week

Values Awards

Congratulations to the following children for living our values these last few weeks.

Reception: Noah and Sofia

Y4: Valentina

Y6: Ujaan

Congratulations to Oliver in Y6 for excellent achievement in Maths, earning a Gold Award in the Primary Maths Challenge Bonus round.

Congratulations to:

Reception: Julie

Y1: Mateo

Y2: Lara

Y3: Justin

Y4: Oliver and Gael

Y5: Presley

Y6: Oliver

And well done to:

Reception: Remy, Isabelle, Cora and Jesse

Y1: Nicholas

Y2: Zofia and Jonathan

Y4: Eli and Peter

Y5: Aidan and Ian

Y6: Dearbhla and Mateo                              

Attendance and Punctuality

Thank you for your efforts to make sure that your child is in school every day whenever possible.  This makes such a difference to their academic and social development.  Please keep this up next year!

Well done to the children who have 99% or 100% attendance this year.  It is particularly pleasing to see so many children with 100% attendance in Y6.  This puts them in a very good position for success at secondary school.

Wishing you a very happy holiday,

Jane Hines and the staff of St Elizabeth’s