Dear Parents and Carers,

Happy St David’s Day to our Welsh children and families!

Thank you all for coming to the Parents’ Evenings this week. We hope that you enjoyed looking at your child’s work and found the meetings useful.

Blessing of the new Food Technology Room

This morning we held the blessing of our wonderful Food Technology Room. This is our new dedicated space for nutrition and cookery teaching, which was funded by the PTA May Fair and the Parent Cyclists. It is a fantastic space which is already benefitting our children’s cooking experience as well as providing an ideal space for Breakfast Club and NSSport after school club.

Monsignor Bill led a liturgy and blessed the room, which had been decorated with balloons and flowers, with holy water. The Schola sang, some of our Pupil Chaplains read prayers, and two of our Pupil Chaplains, Lily and Alex, cut the ribbon to officially open the room along with our Chair of Governors, Dr Stannard. This was all followed by beautiful pastries kindly donated by Gail’s and Chiara Milanesi.

This was a great opportunity to thank our PTA Committee and the PTA cyclists for all their hard work and creativity in leading our fundraising activities. We would also like to thank all our parents for supporting our events so generously.

Please do look at the photographs of the blessing attached to this email and huge thanks go to the PTA Committee: Liza Maxwell and Susannah O’Leary, our co-chairs, Philine Pohlhausen, Alejandra Mendoza, Emily Richardson, Vicky Mulry, Margaret Stoikovich, Adriana Conte, Tracey Jones and Antoinette Wilkinson-Keane.

Maths Problem Solving Day

On Monday it was Maths Problem Solving Day when all the children were given large scale problems to solve in groups in the school hall. It was so wonderful to see the children so excited and determined to find solutions to puzzles. Antonio and Alexander in Y1 said, “We enjoyed working in groups and handling all the large shapes. We also learnt a new shape called a parallelogram.”

In Y5, all the children said how much they enjoyed the session because it taught them to work well in a team and it really stretched their thinking.

Sports Update from Mr Sagar and Mrs Knowles

This week, the Sports Committee led a second Sports Assembly to finish celebrating the range of medals, certificates and trophies that your children have gained outside school. These achievements are wonderful examples of our pupils living many of our school values and demonstrate enthusiasm and ability in a huge variety of activities: swimming, gymnastics, football, basketball, horse riding and capoeira to name just a few! We also heard from Lily in Y6 who has taken part in a sponsored walk to raise money for a local charity - a great example of alms-giving to inspire us during Lent.

This week also saw the Y5/6 Girls football team play two matches against other schools. It was lovely to see some new faces gain some competitive experience in football with a view to building the squad for next year. Well done to all the girls who took part!

Next Week in school

Reconciliation Service and Sacrament of Reconciliation - Thursday 7th March

On Thursday next week we will be holding our Lent Reconciliation Service. This is a pupil led liturgy for children in Y3 to Y6 in preparation for Easter. After the service children in Y5 and Y6 who have made their First Holy Communion are invited to receive the sacrament of reconciliation with Father Peter Andrews and Monsignor Bill. We will be reminding children about this sacrament in school and this would also be a good time to talk about the sacrament at home.

Y6 PGL and SATS Meeting - Tuesday 5th March 9:00am to 9:30am

There will be a meeting for Y6 parents to find out about the residential visit to PGL Osmington Bay at 9am on Tuesday 5th March in the school hall. Mrs van den Driessche will also be sharing information about the upcoming Y6 SATS tests.

Y1 Phonics Parents’ Workshop – Thursday 7th March 9am to 9:45am

Miss Bolger and Mrs Diver will be hosting a Phonics workshop for Y1 parents on Thursday 7th March at 9am. This meeting will explain the Phonics Screening check that Y1 children take in June and also suggest ways that parents can support their child’s phonics at home.

Information for Parents

Allergies in school

We have a number of children in school with food allergies. We would like to remind parents that we are a nut-free school. Packed lunches must not contain foods with any nuts in their ingredients and all snacks for mid-morning break or before a club, should be fruit or vegetable only.

March

Tuesday 5th 9am Y6 Parents’ Meeting: PGL residential

Thursday 7th 9am Y1 Parents’ Phonics Workshop

Thursday 7th am Reconciliation Service for KS2 children only, followed by the sacrament of reconciliation

11th – 15th Book & Arts Week

Monday 11th Book Character Dress Up Day – start thinking about your costumes now

Wednesday 13th Whole School Author visit: Cath Howe

Thursday 14th pm PTA Quiz Night – Save the date! Details to follow.

Friday 15th 9:30am Y6 Junior Citizen Safety Event at Holly Lodge

Friday 15th Parents’ Coffee Morning in school with visiting speaker from the Mental Health Support Team – all parents invited

Tuesday 19th Y3 E.V. to Chiltern Open Air Museum

Wednesday 20th to 22nd Y5 School Journey to Sayers Croft

Thursday 21st 9:10am Assembly led by Y2 – parents invited

Tuesday 26th am TBC Holy Week Mass prepared by Y5 – parents invited

Tuesday 26th 2:00pm Well-being Workshop for Y6 pupils only

Wednesday 27th 9:30am Passion Play prepared by Y4 – parents invited

Thursday 28th Term ends. Children to be collected at 2pm

Values Awards this week

Congratulations to the following children who have received Values awards this week.

Reception Clara

Y1 Max

Y2 Bernard and Alfie

Y3 Ali

Y4 Beatrice

Y5 Naomi

Y6 Roman

Million Word Readers

Congratulations to Freddie in Y5 who has read an amazing 1 million words. Well done.

Attendance this week

Whole school attendance this week is 96.76%. Congratulations to Reception and Y4 for both having the highest attendance this week at 98.67%. This is closely followed by Y5 with 97.93% attendance.

Kind regards,

Jane Hines