Dear Parents and Carers,

The last day of the school year is here and both staff and children are looking forward to a well-deserved rest over the holidays!

Goodbye Y6

Today we are saying goodbye to our Y6 children as they leave us to start their next stage in their education. They have been a fantastic year group who have contributed so much to our school as monitors, leaders and chaplains and they will be missed. We wish each child happiness and success in their new school and look forward to hearing great things about them in the future!

We would like to thank our Y6 parents for their support of the school and also for the amazing donation of £1,500!

End of Year and Leavers’ Mass

Thank you to Mgr Bill for saying Mass for us yesterday when we gave thanks for the year and prayed for the intentions of our Y6 leavers. Thank you too, to the Y5 parents for providing the wonderful refreshments.

Sports Update

Our KS2 sports day was a great success. All children took part in a carousel of athletics events, scoring points for their houses, and the event finished with sprint relays and two highly competitive parents' races! There were some great performances! Many thanks to our parent helpers, young leaders and all the staff involved.

On Thursday, we celebrated St Elizabeth's sporting year at the annual Sports Assembly. The assembly was opened by Arietta and Alianna from Y3 with a dance routine from their recent gold medal winning performance competing for Dance England at the 2023 Dance World Cup Finals. Well done, girls!

We reviewed the successes of our sporting teams, including our swimming team, the hockey team, who came 2nd in the borough tournament, and the boys football team, who won the borough tournament and were semi-finalists in the league finals. As well as these successes, a remarkable half of KS2 have represented the school in sports against other primary schools throughout the year, a trend we are keen to continue next year.

During the assembly, we announced the winners of our two sports days. Congraulations to St Maximilian Kolbe, winners of KS1 sports day and to St Josephine Bakhita, winners of KS2 sports day. Combining the points from KS1 and KS2 resulted in the overall winner of the Inter-house trophy being St Josephine Bakhita - well done to all!

Finally, we celebrated some individual performances - congratulations to Aaron and Leo (Y6T), Joseph (Y5) and Arietta (Y3), who broke school or year group records, and to Nyore (Y6T), who received a special award for sportsmanship. We recognised exceptional contributions to St Elizabeth's sport by presenting the Sportsman and Sportswomen of the Year awards. Congratulations to the runners up, Katherine and Ciara, and Ciaran and Benjamin, and to the winners Eloise and Mattia.

Keeping children safe and supporting families over the holidays

We would like to share the following links with parents, sent to us by our local Safeguarding Children’s Partnership. The first is a link for parents about keeping children safe in the water over the summer holiday water safety information (https://capt.org.uk/drowning/). The second is a link to information and support for families during the cost of living crisis https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/cost_of_living_hub

We would also like to remind parents of the importance of keeping children safe online during the summer holidays, as children often have more time on devices during this time. Please check that you have effective parental controls on your child’s devices and check that they only have access to apps and websites that are suitable for their age. Talk to your child about the sites they visit and monitor their internet use and history. We have been made aware of a chat website and app called Omegle or Ometv that is easily accessible by primary age children. For more information visit https://www.childnet.com/blog/what-is-omegle-key-things-parents-and-carers-need-to-know/

Values Awards

Congratulations to the following children who have received a Values Award today:

Y1 Margaux

Y2 Ian

Y3 Dylan

Y4 Freddie and Alicia

Y5 Matthew

Y6A Gianna and Lance

Y6T Zara and Nyore

Annual Parent Survey

Thank you to those who have completed the annual parent survey. We appreciate that this is a busy time but please do complete the survey if you have not done so already. The link to the survey is https://forms.gle/G5JYBSU2rrnewCgK9

Message from the PTA

The PTA wishes to thank all parents, carers and staff for their support this year. The fundraising from this year has been a staggering £40,000. The May Fair alone, including the cyclists fundraising, has raised enough money to fund the new Food Technology Room, with work being undertaken in the summer holidays.

Our final BBQ event run by Y1 raised £2,266.66 and it was such a well-attended event, even with the rain! It was an amazing evening with great atmosphere.

Our Y3 class fundraising sale raised £160.19 and our Reception class fundraising sale raised £278.92.

Thank you for your continued support of our PTA and we look forward to new parents joining the PTA in September.

Thank you to our staff

And finally, as we finish the school year, I would like to thank the whole staff team for all their hard work this year. We are very fortunate at St Elizabeth’s to have such dedicated and talented staff in every role within school. Thank you parents, for the kind gifts, cards and messages – they are truly appreciated.

We would like to wish all of you a restful and safe summer holiday and we look forward to seeing the children back in school on Tuesday 5th September.

Kind regards,

Jane Hines and the staff of St Elizabeth’s