Newsletter 06 11/10/24

It has been a busy week at Sacred Heart with our Year 6 pupils enjoying their 2 night residential at Skreens Park. They enjoyed a wide range of activities including canoeing, raft building, axe throwing to name a few. We feel these experiences really enhance our children's learning here at Sacred Heart and they always come back full of stories and excitement. These wonderful experiences would not be possible without the commitment of our staff here and a big thank you to all staff that supported this residential and allowed the pupils this wonderful opportunity. Year 2 have also visited the beach along with Year 1 going next week, it is great to see pupils making the most of the local environment. 

This week we have participated in with World Mental Health Day by wearing yellow into school on Thursday. All pupils in KS1 and KS2 have participated in an assembly to help increase their knowledge and understanding around this subject and all pupils have participated in activities in class.

We have our Aspirations week fast approaching and we are so excited for the pupils to meet so many professionals from a wide variety of working environments. As a school we feel it is really important to inspire our pupils and show them the many wonderful opportunities that are out there for them to pursue as they journey through education and make decisions about their future careers. To empower them from a young age in gaining knowledge about a variety of careers we have joined the project My Future My Southend, which also exposes the pupils (Year 2 up) to a wide variety of careers and this week has seen them meet professionals from the world of Health Care, separate information has been shared with you to encourage conversation around the dinner table about what your child has done at school. They will join these session each half term and we will keep you informed about who they meet each time so you can ask relevant questions. 

We have this week been able to hold a preloved uniform give away and we hoped we helped as many families as possible, a thank you to Mrs Avis and Mrs Kelsey. We have had a vast amount of lost property since our return in September and this could easily be avoided if everyone wrote their names on their child's uniform. Unfortunately we have had some incidences of parents becoming frustrated with staff over these matters, all  of which could be avoided if the name of the child was written on the lost items. We want our pupils to be responsible for their belongings and we are their to support them in doing this at all times but it becomes very difficult if items are not named. All lost property at the end of half term with no name on will either go into preloved uniform for the next giveaway or if not uniform will go to a charity shop, we do not have the capacity to keep all items on a long term basis.

On Tuesday 22nd we plan to implement our Street School scheme and I know from talking to many of you that people are keen for this project to work. We have had enough people volunteer for the scheme to be implemented in the mornings but we are still looking for volunteers in the afternoon. If you feel you can help with 1 or 2 afternoons then please come and speak with me. As a polite reminder the scheme means the entire road will be shut from 8:10am until 9:10am and only people with a blue badge or a residence permit will be permitted through the barrier.  Can I take this opportunity to remind everyone that we are a community that cares for each other and this should continue when we are behind the wheel of our car and to please take care when driving around pupils and families . The ethos of the scheme is to give the street to the school children for the hour, as the new road signs at each end will indicate. You will have also seen new signs up outside school relating to the Cough, Cough, Engine off that Southend City Council have implemented this term. If you are sitting waiting for pick up then please turn your engine off to help improve the air quality around our school for all the community. 

To follow what we have been up to in school, then please follow us on Instagram or Facebook to see the latest events and also details about upcoming events. Last week we saw parents come into school for our sleep workshop and we hope you found it informative. If you were unable to attend the event then please find the power point here. We have also now completed all our parent information meetings for year groups Reception to Year 6, again we hope you found these useful, as they were well attending. If you were unable to attend then please find the information that was shared at these meetings here. 

I hope you have a restful weekend and start to discuss with your child who they aspire to be when older and how they may dress up as this for Friday 25th October. 

Mrs Crabb

• 15/10/24 - 18/10/24 - HARP Food Collection

• 15/10/24 – Boys Football at Hamstel 3.00pm – 5.00pm – Selected team

• 16/10/24 – Lion King Trip – Year 5

• 17/10/24 – Beach Art Trip – Year 1

• 18/10/24 – Netball League Games – Selected team

• 21-25 Oct – Aspirations Week

• 23/10/24 – Girls Football Tournament at Our Lady of Lourdes – Selected team

• 24/10/24 – Southend United Boys Mixed U11’s – Selected team

• 25/10/24 – Dress as who you aspire to be

• 28/10/24 to 01/11/24 – HALF TERM WEEK – School Closed

• 04/11/24 – Children return to school

Our Amazon Wishlist is live!! The idea is that friends and family of the school can donate directly to the school library. We’ll still accept preloved copies from home that you may also wish to donate. The selection of books are chosen by the staff as texts that may benefit the pupil's reading comprehension, engagement with the curriculum and foster an interest in reading. The current list is reflective of this and will update as and when donations come through.  The link to our Wishlist is here.

A big thank you to those that have bought books for the school, we truly appreciate it.

Year 6 have spent the last three days having a great time at Skreens, taking part in activites such as Archery, Kayaking, Climbing and Crate Building.  For lots more pictures please see our Social Media Channels.

Year 2 visited the beach to collect natural items for their art work next week.

Year 5 has started their new Science topic about Space and enjoyed researching the planets for a non-chronological report

Cooking club enjoyed making fairy cakes and themed them ready for Hello Yellow day. 

Our class enjoyed our team building games in PE with balloons. We used speaking and listening skills to help our partners complete challenges.

In R.E the children have been learning about the significance of the white garment during baptism. The children enjoyed being creative and designing their own baptismal garment.

Year 6 have been learning about square and cube numbers in their maths lessons.

Application forms are now available in the porch of both churches to apply for your child’s place on the First Holy Communion Course 2025. Your child should be in Year 3. It is best if your child joins the course while in year 3 as they will be amongst likeminded children of a similar age and with their friends. However, if your child is a little older they may also join the course. The forms must be returned to Sacred Heart Presbytery by Sunday 3rd November. You will be informed if your application has been successful before the Parent’s Meeting on Wednesday 13th November. We will ask to see your child’s Baptism certificate.

Key Stage 2 students have an assembly with Fire and Rescue on Tuesday 22nd October if you want to discuss further with your child the facts in the poster below. 

Sacred Heart Craft Fayre

Saturday 12th October

12 Noon – 3pm

Sacred Heart Church Hall

Tea and Cake

Model Railway

Crafts to buy

Raffle

Repository

Fun and games for all the family

If you have unwanted gifts for the raffle or bottles for the bottle stall please see Marie Lang.

LOST PROPERTY

Please can all parents check their child’s clothes -  All items should be clearly labelled and your child needs to ensure they can identify their own property.  Staff are wasting too much time searching for children’s clothing and dealing with frustrated parents.

Any unlabelled items will end up in our pre loved uniform event on 7th October so please take the time to label their clothes accordingly and check they have the correct uniform every evening.

Thank you for your co-operation.

We would like to remind all our families using breakfast club of the importance of booking in advance.  We have noticed an increase of children not booking in advance and this effects our staffing ratio.

Breakfast club bookings also includes the tea club (£9 per session) - again all bookings must be booked and paid for in advance.  Failure to pay will result in the child not being able to attend future sessions.

All bookings must be made at the beginning of each week so we can ensure we have enough staff available.  Priority will be given to children who have booked in advance and those who have not booked may not be able to stay.

If you need assistance making a booking please email annemariedriscoll@sacredheart.southend.sch.uk

We would like to remind all our families that we are a nut free school to protect some of our pupils/staff and therefore request that no items of food containing nuts are brought in.  We have noticed an increasing number of children bringing in snacks and spreads containing nuts ie cereal bars, chocolate spread etc.  We hope you all understand the importance that some of our community have epi pens for their allergies and we need to ensure their safety at all times.  Thank you for your co-operation.

The Ben Kinsella Trust are running an online 2 hour session in October for all parents, carers and anyone who supports young people.
Join this FREE online workshop to learn more about topics such as the influence of social media, the signs and stages of exploitation, and how we can prevent young people being affected by knife crime as parents, carers and as a community.

The Ben Kinsella Trust - Parents and Carers - Helping our Children Stay Safe | 15th October 6:30 - 8:30pm (beaconforms.com)

In the next coming weeks, the teachers will be sharing  the summer Individual Support Plans (ISP) with all the families, who have children with special educational needs. I hope the plans devised will show the successes in their new year groups. Your input is greatly appreciated as we know that children with additional needs need a high level of support at home too. Your class teacher will be in contact with you for a meeting  and provide you with a new password. The ISPs will be online, please log onto https://edukeyapp.com/parent/login to communicate and share your views. Please speak to your class teacher if you need further support with this process. 

To find out further how we support children with special educational needs, at Sacred Heart Catholic school please click on this link: 

Thank you 

Mrs White - SENCO 

Parentkind – the charity that supports school PTAs - have teamed up with Asda, who are making millions of pounds available to donate to primary schools across the UK through their ‘Cashpot for Schools’ initiative –  all you have to do is, opt in through the Asda Rewards app, choose our primary school and shop and scan in store or shop online at Asda.com, between 2nd September and 30th November 2024

Asda will donate 0.5% of the value of your shop to our Primary school. Also, every time somebody opts in, Asda will give an additional £1 to the school Cashpot. Plus, it doesn’t stop there – Asda are also giving £50 to every school to get them started.

Please follow the link to the Ten Ten collective Worship Newsletter this month www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/parent-newsletter/