Belonging to Christ

As we looked ahead to the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A), we heard Jesus’ powerful message that, if we know and understand we belong to God, then we don’t need to cling to earthly possessions. 

Of course, special treasures are important - every child benefits from the warm sense of attachment to people, places and things that are precious. However, as we grow older and more conscious of God’s presence in our life, we can lean into that sense of belonging to Him and start to let go of our need to own and possess earthly belongings.

We have been making a special effort this week to celebrate and praise children for being ready to share and sacrifice possessions where they can see that others would benefit more.  

Seriously Religious Science!

Over the past couple of weeks, Year 6 have been considering the ways in which Science and Religion can be compatible and we've been addressing some big questions about the Catholic faith and the scientific explanations for Creation.  To support us in this, we were thrilled to welcome Dianna Gwilliams, retired Dean of Guildford Cathedral.  Dean Dianna came to her faith through the Catholic church and also studied Physics and Chemistry at university - so she was perfectly placed to help us answer some of those puzzling questions.  Following the session with Dianna, our classroom activities took on a twist when the children became the teachers, researching influencial Catholic scientists and teaching the rest of the class about the impact they had on our understanding of the world.

Celebrating St Ignatius

In 4I we celebrated our class saint - Tuesday 17th October is the day St Ignatius is remembered for being one of the five Apostolic fathers and a student of John the Apostle.  He wrote a series of letters about the Church on his way to Rome to be martyred.  In keeping with this theme, 4I wrote letters to Year 2 to give them advice on how to be a Junior in St Joseph's.  We then shared these with Year 2.  The children wrote fantastic letters which offered useful advice to Year 2 on how they can be successful next year when they move up to Year 3. 

Fossilising Year 3

Science has been great fun in Year 3 this week.  First, the children discovered how to make a mold fossil using baker’s clay to represent the ground.  They thoroughly enjoyed pressing a variety of objects in to see what design they made before settling on their final choice.

Once the mold had been created, they were baked (and the impression of the objects remained intact, just as it would millions of years ago!)  

After that, Year 3 explored how a dinosaur fossil was formed. We learnt a lot of new words like erosion, weathering, sediment, paleontologist and decomposition. 

Finally, each child made an information leaflet demonstrating their understanding of the six-step process. What an amazing afternoon of scientific paleontology it was!

Oh help, oh no!

n English, Year 1 have been looking at the well known text, 'The Gruffalo' by Julia Donaldson. To help describe the Gruffalo, we have been learning this song. We have then been using the vocabulary to help us with our sentence writing, remembering to use adjectives to help us to describe. 

Reception Seasons

Reception have been learning all about seasons and how we are currently in autumn. We went on an autumn walk to find conkers, acorns, leaves of different colours and even mushrooms growing! This walk inspired lots of art work - look at the different colours they mixed with paint. 

We have also been looking ahead to winter and learnt a very special word: hibernation. Do you know what it means?  The children had a go at hibernating themselves.  Where would you hibernate? 

Improvisation is the key

In Year 4 Music this week, we have been learning about the skill of improvisation. Using the evocative song of Blackbird by The Beatles, the children practised the art of creating their own passage of music on the glockenspiel. We were pleased to find out that one of the benefits of improvisation was that it is impossible to make a mistake! If you don't like it, just move on and find a different set of notes that you do like! It was interesting to see that some children chose to write down the notes of the tunes that they particularly liked. This leads beautifully on to our next lesson of composition. 

Belonging in 5B

Our thanks to St Bernadette's Class for leading an inspiring class worship on the theme of belonging.  We learnt all about the precious treasures that offer the children the feeling of comfort, safety and joy - like pets, football kits and medals.  We also heard that Jesus wants us to be ready and willing to give up the earthly belongings we cling to in order to meet the needs of the world around us.   

What a profound and challenging message to take away, thank you 5B! 

Witnesses to Belonging

Congratulations to these wonderful young witnesses, all of whom have demonstrated in their words and actions this week that they are ready to share and sacrifice their belongings because they know that everything we are blessed to enjoy comes from God.  Well done to you all!