Newsletter

20th June 2025

Attendance

National: 94.8% Our Target: 95%

Our whole school attendance this week: 95%

Infant School: 94%

Junior School: 95%

Our School Winners are: 1E - 95% & 5E - 96%

Well done to the children and parents in these classes!

Attendance

Senior Pupil Leadership Team

Check our Instagram page for updates throughout the week!

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope all the men in our community had a wonderful Father's Day thank you to all of you who joined us this morning for our Father's Day Breakfast. It was heartwarming that so many of you came and seeing the children's faces that you had given of your time was truly amazing. Our Deputy Head girl, Jael cried tears of joy because her dad could make it and was in her school. At St. Joseph's we are truly blessed that we have males in varying forms, present and working with us for the betterment of their child's development. Thank you all for all you do and I pray that God continues to uplift, reinforce and strengthen you all as you teach life lessons and are role models to the next generation of children. A huge thank you to Father James for attending too.

We always have so many enriching educational experiences going on. This week and last we celebrated Science week and Mrs Steen-Plomer organised for The Bird Man to come in! I almost forgot I had a poorly foot when an eagle unexpected came towards me. The children(and staff) burst into laughter as I grabbed my stomach in surprise! Fun and memorable learning experiences are what we are all about! In addition some years groups took part in Sky's Art week too, more information is below.

As you all know, I suffered a serious injury to my leg. I have been at school increasingly more (much to the leadership team's relief). I am gradually building up to full time so I am working at school and home so that I can make a full recovery. 3 months down, 9 more left. Kimya and Ruben Y1 took the time to remind me that they have been praying for my leg. Their sweetness made my day. Thanks to all the children for their prayers and cards they made.

In the Easter holidays, I had the pleasure of meeting The Honourable Mark Brantley, Primer of Nevis, whilst I was in Toronto, Canada. He gave an inspirational speech about the importance of heritage and progression. It made me reflect on how I cultivated a culture of belonging for all at St. Joseph's and question how we continue to ensure that all stakeholders can show up as their full selves. On a personal note, it made me reflect on how I ensure my son knows and has a thorough understanding of his cultural background. We will be having discussion about this in the new year as we enhance our curricula offering.

Thanks for all of you who sent in messages for all the team in Thank a Teacher Day on Wednesday. Messages are still coming in and I know it has uplifted us in a challenging week of staff sickness. Thank you all so much!

There are several bugs going around which has seriously impacted our staff this week. if your child is vomiting you must keep them home for 48hours after the last time they vomited. They should be able to tolerate food and be recovered. I would like to thank our support staff for their flexibility this week. Without them St. Joseph's wouldn't be able to achieve the excellence we do.

Lastly, as you know SEMH (Wellness) is very important to us at St. Joseph's hence I brough in service to promote, develop and support our children's and staff's emotional and social needs such as Relaxation Therapist, Bereavement Support, Play therapists and now Off the Record Mental Health service. If you want to discuss your child's wellness with us please contact your child's class teacher in the first instance in person or via the office.

I am an advocate for mental health and wellness and as such I put myself forward to be the Mental Health Service Cluster Leader for a collective of 16 primary and secondary schools across Croydon. I am delighted to let you know that I was successful and now the Cluster lead for this group. This is great news for our Federation as it has secured us much needed funding and also promotes our excellent practice. We will as share expertise and practice with our schools in Croydon and beyond!

I hope you and your family have a lovely weekend in the sunshine,

Mrs Ashley and the Team

Senior Pupil Leadership Team

My name is Jael and I am the Deputy Head Girl.

On Friday, 20th June, we had a special Father's Day brunch. The chefs prepared a lovely English breakfast for the dads and their children. It was a very smart idea because it was a great time to spend together. It was a very memorable morning.

Thank you to the team, especially Miss Johnson, Chef Mo and Mr Teles for making this such a special event.

Jael.

Safeguarding

Kik Messenger

What is Kik?

Kik messenger is another direct messenger app available for young people to download for free.

It has more than 300 million registered users. The app allows the sending of text, video and GIFs. You can also play games in Kik and access a number of internal apps.

The risks around Kik

Kik makes it very easy for unknown users to contact each other and even has an internal dating app where you can find a list of all users in your age range. This makes it very easy for adults, posing as a teenagers, to contact children. Explicit images can be sent through Kik which can lead to young people sharing inappropriate images of themselves, as well as adults sending sexual abuse imagery.

Parental controls

Kik does not have any specific parental controls but it does have some chat privacy and blocking settings which can be accessed. Chat is only stored on the phone and cannot be accessed by Kik.

Early Years

It has been a very exciting week for all children at St Joseph's this week. All children has the opportunity to attend a talk with a very special visitor- The Bird Man. Who shared his beautiful birds with the children. He brought a hawk, an eagle and an owl. The Bird Man told the children what the birds eat, what they like to do and their names. Our favourite was the owl called Sparky.

Key Stage 1

This week KS1 have been enjoying Science week enormously. We have had a lot of fun experimenting with bubbles as we were tasked with trying to make the biggest bubble we could. Our question was, do larger objects make bigger bubbles? The first test we did in year 2 looked as the best material to make a bubble wand either a pipe cleaner or a plastic straw. We took turns trying to blow through the wands we had made and found that even though the plastic did not get as wet as the pipe cleaner, it was not as good because we could not bend it into a good enough circle. Next, we tried seeing if adding sugar to our bubble mixture would make our bubbles stronger. Surprisingly, it did!

Lower Key Stage 2

Science Week has been bubbling with excitement in Years 3 and 4! We explored how the concentration of bubble mixtures affect the bubble size. We also had a thrilling visit from the Bird Man, who brought along a hawk, eagle, and owl. Some of our children were also able to have individual and sibling photos. Year 3 have also been busy learning about human and physical features in our local area, ready for our trip to Crystal Palace Park in a few weeks.

Upper Key Stage 2

Year 6 children have been busy in English, creating humorous hotel brochures and amusing ‘bad experience’ reviews inspired by travel brochures and Tripadvisor posts. They’ve explored literary devices such as puns to enhance their writing. One pupil commented on how enjoyable writing negative reviews can be. Meanwhile, excitement is building as students audition and rehearse for their end-of-year performance, aiming to make it their best yet. In PE, the focus has shifted to swimming, with noticeable progress across the class. Alongside improved breathing techniques, some children have started learning the breaststroke.

Arts

Last week, some of our students took part in Sky Arts' Access All Arts Week, a nationwide celebration of creativity in schools. The children explored a range of artistic activities from drawing, rapping, poem writing and dancing. Their enthusiasm and imagination shone through as they embraced each new challenge with curiosity and confidence. The week encouraged self-expression and helped the children discover new talents and interests. Both teachers and students enjoyed the online master classes given by a range of artists. It was wonderful to see some of the beautiful pictures, poems and songs created.

If you are interested in accessing some of the resources from home you can sign up for free at:https://accessallarts.skyarts.uk/