Generous God
As we looked ahead to the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard challenged us to be responsive to God's call, at whatever time we hear it. This can naturally lead to feelings of resentment or jealousy when others appear to benefit more than us, despite our hard work. However, we are asked to be conscious that putting ourselves last and meeting the needs of others is its own reward.
This reminded us very much of our inclusive approach, which could easily be misinterpreted or misunderstood, especially by children. Teaching the children that God made us differently and blessed us with different strengths means that we are well equipped to see and respond to the needs of others who require extra time, different resources or more help to achieve the same goal. We are making a conscious effort this year to help our children understand that our inclusive approach is a direct response to our Gospel values.
You can find further details about our priorities for the year ahead in our Mission & Vision presention below...
Feel the force!
This week in Science, Year 5 have been investigating friction. The children were asked which material makes the best brake pad and why. Using a bike and various materials to test the friction, it was concluded the sandpaper would make the best brake pad due to causing the most friction. The children were able to tell us, "The smoother the surface, the less friction."
Happy Families
This week in RE, Year 3 have been focusing on what makes a happy family in our unit of Homes. The lesson started with us looking at the story “Not Now Bernard” and we concluded that it did not seem to be a happy family. Next, we read some letters from St Paul: two to the Ephesians and one to the Romans. Within these letters we saw love being referred to in different ways. Following this, we used those qualities as ingredients for a recipe for “The Ideal Family”. We thought carefully about how much of each ingredient we may use and ways to get ingredients into the mixture.
Mission & Vision
It was a joy to see so many parents attending our Welcome Back meeting this week. We know that children do much better in school if their parents are engaged and supportive - thank you! Our mission as a school is part of the Church's call to introduce our young people to the person of Christ Jesus - The Way, The Truth, The Life. Our particular vision for what that will look like this year can be seen in the slides attached. In short, some changes coming to St Joseph's this year include:
Refreshed Behaviour and Teaching & Learning Policies, based on feedback from stakeholders.
More opportunities for children to hear from children about what they think, feel and believe.
Greater emphasis on retrieval in all lessons - helping children to hold onto their learning.
Exciting developments around the school site: new MUGA and garden spaces.
Embarking on the Catholic Social Teaching certificate - The Oscar Romero Award.
Immersion... in jelly!
As part of our Guided Reading curriculum, the children always start the week with an immersion task. As this week's focus was on a party theme, the children enjoyed making some jelly at the beginning of the week. Immersion tasks support better memory and attention so therefore they are a great way to really get the children involved in what they are learning. Some children even went home and made more jelly at home!
Taste Test
After learning about our five senses, Year 1 have been busy exploring their sense of taste this week. We tried a variety of foods that tasted sweet, sour and salty. There were lots of mixed reviews! Some children said the olive was their favourite, some the chocolate and some enjoyed dry bran flakes!
We noticed that, although we could all taste the foods, we all had different opinions on our favourites!
It's raining, it's pouring...
Reception have been loving the rain! Raincoats and wellies on and they're off exploring... How many spoonfuls does it take to full a cup? How can we make the water travel down the pipe? Can we make it go faster or slower? Curiosity never ends with all the open ended opportunities we have. We have some budding scientists in our school!
Getting to know all about you
Over the past few weeks we have welcomed our new families and children into the Nursery, as well as our returning children. They have been getting to know the staff and each other while exploring the environments inside and outside. The term got off to a great start with some beautiful sunny weather, the children enjoyed the large sand pit and the water play. The bikes and the pirate ship have also been a firm favourite.
Testing our predictions
In Year 4 this week, we have been learning more about the skill of prediction and how important predicitons are in Science. Some children were able to link the learning objective to our guided reading VIPERS questions and they knew that predicting would involve making a sensible suggestion using knowledge that they already have together with some clues about new learning. We had great fun creating catapults out of skewers and marshmallows and predicting which object would travel the furthest when flung! We were so impressed with one prediction in particular: "I predict that the bead will travel furthest because it is light, small and has a hole for less wind resistance". Then, the children went out in the rain to test their predictions and work out why they were right or wrong. Next week, we move on to the scientific skills of measuring and recording.
Geography Gets Fruity!
This week during our Geography lessons, we’ve been continuing to develop our understanding of the world we live in. At the beginning of term, we enjoyed a visual story-telling session in which we saw how the Earth was formed from dust and gas, and we used an orange as a representation of planet Earth. This week, we continued with the metaphor of the orange, which we peeled to create tectonic plates and filled with jam to represent the partially melted layer of the upper mantle. The jam allowed the orange peel to move around more freely, and when this happened the jam squeezed out between the gaps - or the tectonic plates! - thus revealing to the children how mountains and volcanoes are formed. It was a hugely engaging way to explore the formation of the Earth with the children and they were mesmerised!
6J lead the way
All aboard! St Joan's class took us on an unforgettable journey to Selfless City. On the way we learn about what it means to behave in a selfless manner and our stop at Inspiration Station helped us to recognise some famous examples of this quality in action. We heard about the life of Esther and how her selfless intervention with the king saved the Jewish people.
Well done 6J for getting us to our final destination in safety and style!
Putting ourselves last
Congratulations to this wonderful group of young people for their generous, selfless love this week. All of these individuals have been put forward for a Witness Award because of the manner in which they have embraced our worship theme. Well done and God bless you children.
What's on locally?
2023 Christmas Card Competition.pdfSchools volunteers poster_AB 23.pdf