In Christ's Team

We are thinking about teamwork in this week's worship, as we look back to last weekend's celebration of The Most Holy Trinity. We hear Jesus explain that, "Everything the father has is mine." We come to understand that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together make one awesome God and one awesome team we call The Trinity.

In the same way, we want the children of our school to recognise that they are all members of one special school team. Together, bringing our unique gifts, talents and perspectives, we can help to build God's Kingdom in this corner of Guildford. We want our children to see and believe that their individual contribution does matter, that we need them to make this endeavour work and that they are called to play an active role.

Year 4 investigate

This week in Science, 4C and 4L got together to create catapults made of marshmallows. The skill we were focusing on this week was predicting, which followed on from last week's questioning focus (did you see our helicopters?) Most of the catapults were successful and the children were able to see how far a mini marshmallow, a bead, a paper ball and a coin were able to travel. However, we had one extra variable which highly influenced the outcome of our experiment...THE SUN!

Theme Park Fun

Following the theme of team work in this week's worship, Year 6 had great fun working together to design a theme park. Not only did they have to create a well-considered plan for their park, but they also had to keep track of costs and make sure they weren't over-spending! They also calculated running costs and how much money they could make from entrance fees.

Smelling Good!

The children in Nursery enjoyed sensory exploration and fine motor opportunities as they made beautiful lotions, potions and perfumes. They used pipettes to draw up the liquid which they mixed with flowers petals and herbs. The children were delighted with their fragrances, and evaluated how different scents changed their creations. Some of the comments included, “This smells more spicy now!”, “It smells like summer” and “ It smells fresh with the mint!” What a good smelling bunch!

The Art of Design

Year One have been busy experimenting with colour and patterns and exploring the work of Cath Kidston.

Last week, we mixed paint together to produce new colours. We then used this information to create and print our own patterns this week.

Watch this space! St Joseph’s children might be making an Autumn collection for Cath Kidston before we know it!

Team Player

We enjoyed a beautiful Witness Worship this week, led by Mrs Barrett. She introduced for us the remarkable story of Ken Mattingly, a NASA astronaut who was preparing to join the Apollo 13 mission to the moon. Heartbreakingly for Ken, he contracted a virus weeks before the mission and was unable to join the team - he had to sacrifice his place and watch the rocket launch off without him.

However, as many of us know, the fated mission ran into trouble and Ken found himself at the forefront of the problem solving team back at NASA HQ who were working furiously to find a way to bring the stranded astronauts safely back to earth. What an awesome example of teamwork at its best!

Power of persuasion...

In English, we have been looking at advertisements and how they persuade the reader to purchase a product. We identified features such as snappy slogans, exaggeration, adjectives, rhetorical questions, wordplay, colours and pictures and then planned and designed our own advertisements for a healthy drink. There were some wonderful names for new drinks! Do our adverts persuade you to try one?

Research into action

To help immerse pupils in their work around nature, science and David Attenborough, Year 5 took it upon themselves to conduct their own research on fossils and examples of organisms (plants and animals) which have been fossilized. They then brought this research and knowledge into school and created their own fossils! Great fun was had guessing the type of animal that belonged to the fossil!

Reception Teamwork

The children were inspired by this week's gospel reading and teamwork shone through in Reception - most of their continuous provision time is spent working together on their own group projects. They love to complete challenges with their friends! This week they had fun with a parachute game where they had to work together to keep the ball in the centre. They enjoyed painting an enormous rainbow and each class worked together as part of our topic lesson to make our own large scale dinosaur out of the construction bricks. The children worked together beautifully to find bricks that represented each bone. Triangles for the teeth and claws were epic! Take a look at the amazing teamwork. Can you guess which dinosaur skeletons we have created?

Team Kolbe

Thank you to St Kolbe's Class for the most exceptional class worship this morning. It was a powerful reminder that, no matter how small or insignificant we might feel, we are all part of the Body of Christ. This means we are all called to find and use our gifts and talents in the service of his Kingdom. There are so many excellent examples of how we can achieve this - RK showed off some of them through their brilliant use of drama, art and song. It was a joy to be a part of this morning's worship. Well done RK!

Witnesses to Teamwork

Well done to this exceptional group of children for their contribution to the St Joseph's team this week. All of them have made compassionate choices and demonstrated self-sacrifice in order to ensure the whole school team can operate effectively. God bless you all!

Reading Chest Offer

Reading Chest - the children’s book rental service – is offering a great schools incentive scheme. For every parent who joins Reading Chest from our school using the discount code ‘STJOSEPHS22’ Reading Chest will donate 15% of monthly membership fees to our school funds. In addition, every parent will get £2 off their first month’s membership. There is no tie in period, so it is possible to join Reading Chest for a couple of months over the summer holidays if desired.

Reading Chest is a book rental service for children learning to read, specialising in book banded reading schemes. Parents pay a monthly membership from £9.95 and children will then receive through-the-post personalised deliveries of books tailored to individual reading levels and interests. Reading Chest complements learning at school by making it easier for parents to help with children’s reading at home, particularly during school holidays.

For more information and reading advice, visit www.readingchest.co.uk.