B - Pentecost

Christ's Spirit

Our worship theme this week looked ahead to Pentecost Sunday, the moment that marks the birthday of the Church as Jesus' promise is fulfilled, "The Spirit of Truth will come." We are reminded through the events of Pentecost that we are called to be people of action! We are not bystanders in the building up of God's Kingdom - we should be ready and willing to serve our communities with the help of God's Holy Spirit. The account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles reminds us of the energy, courage and conviction needed to embrace that call.

Staff have been making a special effort this week to notice and celebrate children whose behaviours and attitudes demonstrate that they are working with the enthusiasm and vision that stems from God's spirit within us.

Called to Serve

Our thanks and admiration to the Year 5 Altar Serving Team for leading a special worship for Years 3 & 4 this week. The children explained how they responded to the call to serve on the altar at Mass each Sunday, supporting the priest and the people to celebrate the Holy Liturgy. We heard how altar servers have special jobs, including: bells, book, acolyte and cross. We also saw their special albs and cords (which have a clever colour-coded meaning so everyone knows who's doing which job). The children spoke with confidence and passion about their experiences and encouraged others to listen out for the call to serve.

10 little ducks...

The Nursery children have been filled with excitement with the arrival of 10 special visitors...our ducklings! We were lucky enough to have all 10 eggs hatch and we welcomed the little ducklings. The children have loved watching them and we will all enjoy cuddles with them over the coming days.

This is a wonderful first-hand experience for the children, not only have we been learning about the hatching and life cycle process, the children have also been learning about caring for animals and using our gentle hands.

Sprite Sounds!

This week, Year 3 have returned to computing and have been using the program Scratch. We have looked at different elements of the layout and how we can get our sprites to start, move and make a sound (or a series of sounds). Twinkle, twinkle little star was played and we tried to complete the next line of sound before coming up with our own projects involving movement and sound. We really enjoyed the different sounds that we found!

Sir David

In Year 5 this week the children have become knowledgeable experts on all things David Attenborough: his childhood, his achievements, his career highlights and more! All of this information has been written up in the form of a non-chronological report. Earlier in the week, the children even made their own fossils as a way to demonstrate how it was David's first discovery of a fossil that sparked his passion and intrigue for all things natural, thus leading him to the remarkable career we all know today.

Prickly News in Year 1

It was a very exciting week this week in Year 1 as we got to meet some real life hedgehogs! Linked to our English learning on Global Goals, we have been learning about how to protect animals and keep their habitats safe. Graham from St Francis Animal Care brought in two of his hedgehogs, Harry and Henry, for us to meet. He spoke to us about where they live, what they like to eat, when they sleep and hibernate, and what to do if you see a hedgehog out in the daytime.

The children were filled with awe for these wonderful creatures - for some of them it was the first time they had seen a hedgehog in real life!

Faith in Action

Reception have been very busy in their RE lessons, learning all about the Ascension and the Holy Spirit. We enjoyed making some wonderful creations to show how the Holy Spirit makes us feel. We also loved taking a trip to St Mary’s Church to find out about why it is such a special place. We were so respectful and said our School Prayer in front of the statue of St Mary.

To the rescue!

Year 2 have been busy making toy emergency vehicles this week for their DT project. This involved a whole process of designing their vehicle for a purpose (to carry two toy people and a pot of water), to generate and develop ideas, make their vehicle and then evaluate the product. The children had great fun with this and you can really see where their imaginations kick in. We had emergency animal rescue vehicles, emergency fire engines, emergency police cars and even emergency ice cream vehicles!

Through the wardrobe...

Year 4 have been working hard, completing their portal story unit in English this week. Having studied the C.S. Lewis classic, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and discussing the extraordinary world of Alice in Wonderland, the children had a go at writing their own portal stories.

Throughout the unit, the children thought about the variety of portals they could travel through, a particularly unusual favourite being "sucked into a packet of crisps"! They then went on to explore how their character would approach their portal, and what the new world within it would look like. We had some fantastic sketches of their ideas, including a land where the portal was a piece of art and the new world was filled with talking paintbrushes, and another that was filled with bouncing rabbits AND jumping carrots!

To quote beloved author, Roald Dahl, "Those who don't believe in magic will never find it!" With imaginations like these, we certainly think our Year 4 children are pretty magical!

Our Incredible (and now colourful) Year 6!

It was a wonderful end to the week for our incredible Year 6 cohort. They showed such resilience every day this week, as they tackled their End of KS2 SATs and their conduct really made us proud. Such a lot of hard work was rewarded with the arrival of their Leavers Hoodies which they are now wearing with pride!

Well done Year 6!

RD with the Spirit

Our thanks to St David's Class for a beautiful worship this morning. The children recounted the events of Pentecost and explained how the evangelising work of Christianity began. They filled us all with the energising, motivating joy of God's Spirit that led us to recognise we can all respond to the call to build God's Kingdom here at St Joseph's. Well done St David's Class!

Spirit-filled Witnesses

Congratulations to this week's Witness Award winners - all these fabulous young people have shown through their words and actions that God's Holy Spirit is alive in their efforts to make our school an even better place. God bless you children!

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