Dear Parents and Carers,

We had a beautiful Advent Carol service yesterday evening. We celebrated the story of Jesus’ birth with readings and carols by each KS2 class. Our Junior Choir, the Schola Choir and the school Orchestra performed on the evening too. Thank you to the children for sharing their talents, the school staff for preparing the service and the Y2 parents for the mulled wine and mince pies!

Our collections for the Catholic Children’s Society after all of our Advent performances have raised an amazing £1,084.80. This money goes directly to families in crisis within the London area. Thank you so much for your generosity.

This week in school

Theatre Visits

It was panto time on Wednesday! Our KS1 children enjoyed a production of ‘Pinocchio’ in the school hall while our KS2 children travelled to the Rose Theatre in Kingston to see ‘Peter Pan’. Thank you to the group of parents for accompanying the children to the theatre, without whom this visit would not have been possible.

Sports News

This afternoon a Y5 and Y6 team took part in a Sportshall Athletics competition against local primary schools. The children participated in a number of different track and field events and after an intense afternoon finished as the overall winners! Congratulations to the whole team – we are very proud of their excellent achievement! Thank you to Christ’s School for hosting.

Upcoming Events

There are now just two more Christmas events before the end of term:

Christmas Lunch

On Tuesday 19th December we have our Christmas lunch. All children are invited to come into school wearing a Christmas Jumper or a colourful jumper of choice. Antlers, Santa hats etc are also welcome on this day! The children will sit together as a whole Key Stage to enjoy a Christmas lunch and they will have crackers and a film to follow. This is also a time to thank our fantastic catering staff, on their busiest day of the year, for all their hard work.

Advent Mass

On Wednesday we have our Advent Mass, prepared by Y5 class, with Fr Peter Andrews. All parents are welcome to join us for Mass, which begins at 9:30am.

Values Awards this week

Congratulations to the following children who have been recognised for living our School Values this week:

Rec: Margherita, Freya and Noah

Y1: Evelyn and Lewis

Y2: Emma and Daisy

Y3: Clodagh and Keira

Y4: Emily Boo and Peggy

Y5: Layla

Y6: Zoe and Juan

Attendance this week

Whole school attendance this week is 97.13%. Congratulations to Y4 for having the highest attendance at 98.86%, closely followed by Y3 with 98.23% attendance, followed by both Y1 and Y5 with 97.03% attendance.

Please remember that every day in school is a valuable experience that cannot be repeated. It is important that children are in school until the last day of the term and are back ready to learn on the first day of the new term. Assessments are carried out at the end of term and new topics will be introduced on the first day of the new term.

NSSport Holiday Club

In addition to after school provision, NSSport run holiday camps in each of our school holidays. Please read the attached brochure from NSSport about their December and January programme; 21st - 22nd December and 2nd - 5th January. If your child receives the Pupil Premium Grant and you would like to access the holiday camp or after school care, please speak with Mrs Diver.

And finally, this will be the last Weekly Update of 2023. On behalf of all the staff, I would like to thank you for your support this year. It has been a busy, fun and productive term in school and I am sure the children, as well as the staff, deserve a good rest over the Christmas period! The staff are very grateful for all the cards, kind messages and gifts that they receive and we would like to wish all our school families a very happy, holy and peaceful Christmas.

We look forward to seeing the children in the New Year on Monday 8th January 2024!

With best wishes,

Jane Hines and all the school staff