Team Christ

The first Sunday after Pentecost is Trinity Sunday. This week we looked ahead to the celebration of the Most Holy Trinity - Father, Son & Holy Spirit. We discussed with the children what a perfect team these three make, "Everything the father has is mine." We believe in one God who we encounter in three different ways: our father and creator, his son - our messiah and the spirit who gives us life.

In the same way, we are called to mirror the harmony of the trinity through the service and sacrifice of our own teamwork together in families, class groups and parishes. The children have amazed me this week with their commitment to working well with others to build God's Kingdom. We've seen happy group games in the playground, compassionate paired work in classrooms and engaging whole school worship throughout the week.

C - Trinity

Farm Prep

In Nursery we have been learning all about life on the farm in preparation for our upcoming trip! The children have shown great interest in farm animals and how to care for them. We’ve enjoyed singing songs like, “Old MacDonald,” and exploring small world play to act out life on the farm.

Together, we’ve learned about cows, pigs, sheep, horses, goats, and chickens—what they eat, where they live, and how farmers care for them. We’ve also talked about tractors, barns, and crops, and what a farmer’s job involves each day.

This trip is a chance to bring our learning to life. The children are excited to see real animals, ask questions, and explore the sights and sounds of a working farm. It’s a fantastic way to support their understanding of the world, build new vocabulary, and spark even more curiosity.

Finding Common Ground

To get our ‘Living Things and their Habitats’ topic off to a flying start, children in Year 4 were given a range of living things to classify. The children had to work in groups, using our Gospel theme of 'sharing' to group animals in different ways. The children came up with wonderful ideas such as 'producers', 'predators', 'animals with antenna', and 'animals who give birth to live young'. It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to work on their collaboration skills as well as using their scientific understanding from drawing on their previous knowledge.

Something to write about...

This week, Year 1 have been busy learning all about a lady called Florence Joyner (Flo Jo). We found out that she broke a world record for being the fastest female sprinter in the world and was well known for her long, colourful nails and bright clothes. The children have been working very hard on writing sentences about her, remembering their capital letters, full stops and finger spaces.

Geography on the Go: Year 6 Map Their Way to Success!

Our Year 6 pupils had a fantastic time during their recent Geography lesson, which focused on developing their mapping skills through a series of fun and engaging activities. First, they explored the school grounds using maps to locate hidden letters, which they pieced together to spell out a secret word. Next, using Digimaps, they carefully planned and plotted a 2km route around the local area, building confidence in scale and distance. Finally, they put their orientation skills to the test by using their maps to crack a coded message, reinforcing their understanding of direction and positioning. It was a wonderful hands-on learning experience that brought Geography to life!

Quizzing and Collaborating in Computing

This week in Year 5 we’ve completed a computing project involving programming in Scratch to create a quiz. This was harder than it might seem at first, requiring us to think about a computer’s binary functionality and understand that a question can only have two possible outcomes. We designed conditions, if statements, outcomes and actions and we also got to add some cool design features too! As always, when computing, we collaborated really successfully and showed fabulous teamwork skills!

Egyptian Tech-Know

The children in Year 3 this week, have had the chance to visit, ‘The Around the Room’ Museum. As part of their Egyptian project, they discovered some of the inventions and technologies that the Egyptians created once they had settled near and on the banks of the River Nile. We discovered, obviously, they invented pyramids, papyrus, and a shuduf.

But did you know they invented breath mints, as their mouths smelt so foul that they needed to hide the smell!? Kohl eyeliner was made to prevent eye diseases and make them look amazing. Well, we do now!

Bocketts Farm

What a joy it was to spend the day at Bocketts Farm earlier this week! The children had an unforgettable experience, enjoying a tractor ride and getting the opportunity to touch and feed a variety of animals, both big and small. Their enthusiasm and energy carried through to the end of the day, where they had a fantastic time in the huge play park. Most importantly, they listened exceptionally well and represented our school beautifully.

Shining for the Diocese

St Joseph's was delighted to be selected as part of the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton's choral singing programme to sing for a national Mass of directors of Catholic Education Services from across England. The Mass at St Joseph's Church was celebrated by Bishop Richard and offered our Junior children an opportunity to share some of the repertoire they have been working on with Diocesan Choral Director - Fraser Ellson. My personal favourite is the Jubilee Year Hymn - Pilgrims of Hope.

Following the river

This week Year 2 have been learning all about how water flows downhill. We put this to the test when we created 'rivers' using foil trays. The children moulded some channels out of foil and then placed them in the trays with some soil and stones. We learned how every river flows inside a channel and it can be straight or meandering. Gravity ensures the water flows downhill.

St Teresa's Teamwork

Congratulations to St Teresa's Class for a beautiful worship yesterday. Reflecting on the theme of the Holy Trinity, the children explained how we too must work together - as they say, "Teamwork makes the dream work." We were inspired by the children's singing, dancing and acting, as they worked together to deliver their worship message. The children explained how Jesus taught his disciples, "The Father and I are one - everything the Father has is mine." We also heard the story of the Squabbling Squirrels and how they had to learn to work together to make their lives better. Well done and God bless you RT!

Witness Wonders

Congratulations to this week's Witness Award winners. These three impressive young people have been working hard in their class teams to improve their outcomes and make their lessons happy and harmonious environments in which everyone can study. Well done you!