Weekly Update 27th September 2024
Read our newsletter to find out what has been happening in school this week and upcoming events ...
Dear Parents and Carers,
Highlights of this week
Macmillan Cancer Support Cake Sale
The Pupil Chaplains did an amazing job of organising the Macmillan Cake Sale on Wednesday afternoon. Thank you to the very talented pupils (and parents!) in Y5 and Y6 who baked the cakes. Altogether, they raised over £300 for Macmillan Cancer Support: https://www.macmillan.org.uk/ Thank you so much for your support.
Beginning of the New School Year Mass
We celebrated our ‘Beginning of the New School Year’ Mass this afternoon. Thank you to the Y6 pupils for writing the prayers and preparing the readings. Thank you too, to Fr George, from St Thomas Aquinas parish for celebrating Mass for us. It was a lovely opportunity to come together as a school community to pray for the year ahead and also to present our new Y6 Pupil Chaplains with their badges which were blessed during the Mass. Parents and family members are always welcome to join us for our Masses – please do see the dates at the bottom of this Weekly Update for details of our Harvest Mass.
RE and Catholic Life
Gospel 'Celebration of The Word' assembly Key Scripture Mark 9:30-37
In this week’s Gospel, we heard Jesus’ disciples argue about who is the ‘greatest’. Jesus responded by saying to be great in God’s sight we must put others first. Jesus set us an example to follow. During the assembly we discussed that ‘greatness’ isn’t about winning or being the best.
The children discovered that the most important things in life are not winning, being the best or most beautiful. Instead, Jesus taught His disciples that to be the greatest in God’s sight, we must put others first. The children shared examples of how they could put others first at home and in school. Please do encourage your child to find ways to put others first at home.
Next Week
National Poetry Day
On 3rd October, we will be celebrating National Poetry Day and the theme for this year is "Counting". We would like to encourage children to bring in a poem to share with their class; this can be a poem that they have read in a book or one that they have written themselves. Each class will then vote for their favourite poem, which will be read out in assembly.
Y3 and Y5 will also be taking part in an online poetry workshop with poet Laura Mucha to co-write a poem about "What Counts" with around 60,000 students from around the country! This is an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest poetry lesson ever (multi venue). The poem will be shared with the school during assembly and displayed all over the country when completed. How exciting!
Coats in school please
The weather is set to become colder next week and all children will need to bring a coat into school with them every day from now on. Please make sure that coats are clearly named so that we can return them if they get mislaid. Thank you.
Parents’ Meetings Bookings
Parents’ meetings will be taking place on Tuesday 15th and Thursday 17th October from 3:30 – 6:30pm. Information about how to book your appointment time will be sent out to parents next week before the booking system goes live.
CAFOD Harvest Fast Day
CAFOD Harvest Fast Day is taking place on Friday 4th October (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development). If you would like to make a donation to CAFOD’s work in supporting those in need around the world, you can do this through your parish, as well as online: https://cafod.org.uk/education/primary-teaching-resources/harvest-resources-children?form=harvest24. Alternatively, children can bring a small cash donation into school on Friday which we will collect and send to CAFOD.
‘Children’s Mental Health Wear Yellow Day’
On Thursday 10th October we will be celebrating ‘Children’s Mental Health Wear Yellow Day’. There will be a focus on how we can look after our mental health and children are encouraged to wear something yellow to show that ‘we are brighter together’. Children are invited to wear something yellow on this day, such as a hat, scarf, socks, t-shirt or a badge etc. Any yellow item you have at home will be fine; please do not feel that you need to buy anything new for your child. We look forward to a bright yellow day in school!
Values Awards
Congratulations to the following children for receiving a Values Award this week:
Y1 – Caitlin and Sara
Y2 - Evelyn
Y3 – Alfred
Y4 - Ian
Y5 - Alianna
Y6 – Freddy
Millionaire Readers
Congratulations to Aidan and Sophie in Y4, and Benjamin in Y5, who have read 1 million words. Well done everyone.
Upcoming dates – please do check these each week as new dates are added
October
Thursday 3rd a.m. Reception to Y6: Nasal Flu Immunisation
Thursday 3rd All day National Poetry Day
Friday 4th All day CAFOD Harvest Day – please bring a small donation to school for CAFOD
Thursday 10th All day ‘Children’s Mental Health Wear Yellow Day’
Friday 11th 9:00 a.m. Parents’ Coffee Morning (details to follow)
Friday 11th a.m. Class photographs to be taken for the PTA calendar
Tuesday 15th Parent / teacher meetings
Wednesday 16th All day Borough Tag Rugby tournament (Y6 & Y5)
Thursday 17th 9:30 a.m. Harvest Mass
Thursday 17th Parent / teacher meetings
Thursday 17th a.m. Last swimming lesson for Y6 & Y4
Wednesday 23rd p.m. PTA Bingo
Friday 25th 3:15 p.m. Half term holiday begins
Attendance this week
Whole school attendance this week is 98%. Congratulations to Y2 for having the highest attendance this week with 99.3%. This is closely followed by Y5 which has 99% attendance.
Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Jane Hines