Headteacher's Blog
At St. Joseph’s, our children are at the centre of everything we do.
We value the support and input of our families hugely and place great importance on the collaborative effort between school and home, in ensuring our children achieve the best they can.
I believe in working in partnership with parents to create a welcoming school community that is inclusive for all.
The idea behind my Head Teacher Instagram page, our school Facebook page and my weekly parental newsletters is to promote partnership between the school, our children and all parents and to highlight our engagement in whole school community activities, which support the education and welfare of the pupils.
I will be updating this page with the latest newsletter each week. You can also find copies of our past newsletters on our newsletters page.
I will also be uploading our Wednesday Word newsletter each week. You can find copies of this newsletter in our Catholic Life section.
Miss D. Buckley, Head Teacher
World Smile Day
Today is World Smile Day. In school this week, we have been thinking about what makes us smile. The children have shared lovely memories. How will you make somebody smile today?
Class Bubbles
In the event of a class bubble needing to isolate due to Covid 19, we will provide daily online lessons for pupils from home. Pupils will use Microsoft Teams and we will ensure they have minimal disruption to their learning.
Drop off and pick up
I would like to thank all parents and carers for their consideration regarding the staggered drop off and pick up times. Have a lovely weekend—wrap up warm!
School Uniform
After half term, pupils will be expected to wear full Winter uniform. Second hand winter uniform is available if you wish to buy anything before half term. Please contact Mrs Downton on rebeccadownton@hotmail.co.uk 2 October 2020
Open Evening
Open Evening in October has been moved from the 14th October to the 18th November from 4.00pm to 7.00pm. Pupils are not required to attend. Attendance is by appointment only. People sign up at the office.
Parent Consultations
Parent Consultations will be online using MS Teams during the week commencing 9-13th November. You can log in using your child’s log in details. Class teachers will be in touch with the details.
Wednesday Word
The latest Wednesday Word can be downloaded here:
https://www.paperturn-view.com/uk/wednesday-word/messenger?pid=MTA101634&v=5.5
Pre-Prep
This week during circle times, the children in Pre-Prep have been talking about the different things they like to do with their family at home and the places they like to visit. They then painted their favourite toy for display on our gallery wall. In Maths, the children have been learning to accurately and consistently touch count groups of objects. They all enjoyed counting the number of pasta tubes they were able to thread onto their necklace. Reception Reception class have been working so hard this week, particularly during their daily phonics lessons. We introduced the phonemes /d/, /g/, /o/ and /c/ and have been learning to read and write simple words. In Maths, we have been learning repeat, continue and create our own repeating patterns using objects, shapes and colours. In Speech and Drama this week, the children discussed their favourite stories and acted out the story of Goldilocks and he Three Bears.
Year 1
In Maths, Year 1 have been learning about 2D shapes this week and they went on a hunt in the classroom to find them. In addition, they have been writing number words and matching them to the numerals. In English, the children have been sequencing a familiar zoo story and learning relevant key word spellings. Year 1 have remembered bedtime routines and composed and written sentences to match each stage. Also, they have been learning the ng, qu and short oo digraphs in Phonics lessons. In Cornerstones, the children became familiar with the location of areas within the school and used different resources to recreate a plan of it. They went on a tour and labelled the different buildings whilst noticing their features. Finally, Year 1 heard the story about Jesus being lost in the temple in RE. They discussed the feelings shown by Mary and Joseph and related the love shared in their own families to end the topic. Well done Year 1G!
Year 2
In English, Year 2 have rewritten the ending to the Gingerbread Man story. They used their imaginations and we had some wonderful alternative endings where in the majority of the stories the Gingerbread Man survived. In Maths, they have worked on counting forwards and backwards in steps of ten and two from given two-digit numbers and they have looked for patterns. In RE, they have thought about the way that God wants us to live our lives and written prayers to ask God for his help in living this way. During Cornerstones, they have looked at timelines and constructed their own timeline, investigated different materials to see which can bend, stretch, twist and squash and the reasons why certain materials do and others don’t and in art they have observed the works of Mark Rothko, have experimented with colour mixing before designing their own Mark Rothko styled piece of art. Sporting News Our Year 5/6 football team played in the Riverview 7's football tournament at the weekend. Having had no practice as a team, the boys played really well. They played 6 games and scored 7 goals! Some great goalkeeping, solid defending, free kicks that led to goals and attacking runs saw the boys gain confidence in their play as the tournament went on. Well done team St J's!
Year 3
This week, Year 3 have been rehearsing and applying their times tables by learning patterns and thinking carefully about the inverses. They have also started to look at methods for doubling and halving larger numbers. Their stories have taken shape this week, with their characters falling back into the Stone Age and going on their own wild adventures! In Science, Year 3 learnt all about the properties of rocks and how to test them. They realised why it is important to make buildings and some furniture out of specific rocks so it doesn't break down. Cornerstones was very exciting this week as they delved into the Bronze Age learning about how this made a difference to prehistoric lives and also explored the work of the beaker people by creating their own pots.
Year 4
This week, Year 4 have been creating our own myths, merging together all of our knowledge of Roman myths and Gods for inspiration. In Maths, we have been working hard to improve our formal methods of multiplication. In Cornerstones, we have meticulously been working with tessellating shapes to create detailed mosaics. One group worked on a section each of a mosaic that when we have put it together has created a picture of a fish. We then learnt about the different types of Gladiators and some of us even designed our own to be the ultimate champion in the coliseum. In Science, we were tasked with creating an experiment to find which temperature water would be the best to melt chocolate at. We discussed what equipment we would need and how to make it a fair test before completing our experiment. From this we found that 20 degrees was not hot enough to reach chocolate’s melting point but that 38 degrees and 47 degrees were. We then repeated our experiment and made changes to test further temperatures. From this, we estimated that chocolate’s melting point is between 35 and 40 degrees.
Year 5
Our Maths this week in Year 5 has seen us improve our ability to multiply and divide. We have learned how to multiply and divide with integers and non-integers and although we have, at times, been extremely challenged, we have persevered and improved our ability to apply these skills to solve word problems. Our Adventure stories are now looking very good! We have planned numerous stories and have begun writing them. We are ensuring that we include a range of punctuation, speech, varied sentence openers and also making sure that all the ingredients of Adventure stories are included. We continue researching the planets within our Solar System and have, this week, completed artwork based on the artist, Peter Thorpe. Finally, Thursday was the beginning of Black History Month. There was a lot of information that we learned through our assembly and also through our Black History Month activity.
Year 6
Year 6 have been working hard this week when writing our WW2 evacuation narratives. We have thought about trying to vary the types of sentences that we are using and have been adventurous when choosing interesting vocabulary. In Science, we learnt about how refraction is used in the creation of a rainbow and considered how a prism can replicate this. In our Cornerstones this week, we thought about the Dig for Victory campaign and then had ago at creating our own mascots, propaganda posters and scripts for our own dig for victory campaign. We have also started to celebrate Black History month by creating posters of black sportsmen and women.