St Mary's Weekly

Aspiring, nurturing, flourishing; 

together shining a light


 ‘Encourage one another and build each other up'(1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Friendship

This week in Collective Worship we launched our value for this half-term: friendship.  Focusing this week on encouraging one another, we talked about how to 'build each other up' through our words and actions. We instigated our new 'Value spotters' and were inspired by the actions of Year 6 who two days later were already spotting plenty of opportunities where they themselves had been encouraged. Below are some of the comments children wrote. The photographs are of this week's 'Value Spotters' display.

To Tilly in Year 5, "You never upset anyone in the school. You are a good friend and someone that cheers everyone up when they are sad."


To Albie in Year 1, "He was playing with me and was kind."


To Amber in Year 4, "Spent morning break making Audrey feel welcome on her first day."

Here are some thoughts on how we can continue to support our children - 


Words of Encouragement: Take a moment to offer kind words, whether its a challenging homework task, a sports event or a personal struggle. Our words can make a significant difference to children's confidence and perseverance.

Supportive community: We are an incredibly supportive school community. Let's continue to work together to create an environment where everyone feels valued and supported. Reach out to fellow parents, lend a listening ear and offer assistance when needed.

Lead by Example: Children learn by observing the adults around them. By modelling kindness, empathy and encouragement in our interactions with others, we teach our children valuable life lessons about how we treat those around us.

Start of Year Service


On Tuesday morning, Simon led our 'Start of Year' service in the school Hall. Unpacking our new vision statement further, he encouraged us to come close to Jesus so that our light would shine out. He used the visual example of a flammable dust near a flame - it sparked, causing a ripple of gasps around the Hall!


Shining a light on... 

House Points for this week

Effort & Progress in Learning Certificates

Congratulations to the children below who received a special certificate on Friday for 'Effort and Progress in Learning'.

Year 1 - Gianna

Year 2 - Iris

Year 3 - Lily D

Year 4 - Reggie

Year 5 - Louie

Year 6 - Owen

All the children that received certificates will be celebrating with Mrs Maxwell over a hot chocolate and marshmallows on Monday.

Above & Beyond 

We have introduced weekly 'Above and Beyond time' to celebrate children that consistently go above and beyond our school's expectations. It is an opportunity to have a one to one conversation with Mrs Maxwell to share how proud we are of them. Children are selected by staff each week and can attend as many times in a term. 

This week's children that attended Above and Beyond time -

Rosalind, Lola-Rose, Sylvie, Aleyna, Jagger, Lois, Emmie, Fletcher, Amber, Victor, Rosie, Jake


  Year One

This week in Year One, we explored the book "The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer". The children loved exploring the different imaginative ideas in the story and then created their own story map in response to the book.  In Maths, we have been focusing on ordering numbers 1- 10 in a range of activities. They also had their first computing lesson where they learnt how to log on to a Chromebook by themselves. In P.E. we started our new topic 'Locomotion', focusing on running and jumping. The children enjoyed playing games that helped develop these skills and then participated in some team races. 

Miss Devlin - setting her sights on running the London Marathon

After only a few months of training, I decided to set a challenge of a half marathon as part of training for the marathon.  Training has included sessions before school three times a week and dedicating time during the weekends. It has been tough and has required a lot of determination. 

The event on Sunday 3rd September took place in scorching temperatures with highs of 26 degrees. The event was called The Big Half in London. 

The Big Half is a vibrant, inclusive half marathon with a fun, festival atmosphere. The 13.1 mile course weaves through London from Tower Bridge to the iconic Cutty Sark in Greenwich. There were over 15,000 people who took part including Sir Mo Farah. 

Click here to find out more about The Big Half

Lucy in Year Two

This week, children in Years 1 and 2 found out about the concept of being 'bucket fillers and bucket dippers'. This is a metaphorical way to help children understand how their actions can either fill someone's emotional bucket with positivity or dip into it with negativity.

Lucy was so inspired with the concept that as soon as she got home she made a 3D bucket out of paper and made all the small tokens to put in it. Her family then filled it with lovely things.

 Information 

Parent Meeting/Workshop


Thank you to everyone that attended the workshops this week. Please use this link to view the presentation.

 

Please use the google form to give us some feedback on the workshop as well as any areas that you feel would be interesting to include in the Enrichment Programme that we are developing. We are also interested to find out about any areas/skills that you could offer us to inspire our children, eg, come and give a talk in an assembly or to a year group, read with some of our children in school, support a workshop, help us with our plans for a community garden, support FoSMS, help on school trips etc.

If you didn't attend the workshops, we would still love to hear from you!

Clubs

Below are a couple of non-sport afterschool clubs that are available.  You will need to book your child's place on Gateway.  Unfortunately, there are limited spaces available at this time.  We are looking at ways to increase the types of clubs that are on offer in our afterschool provision. This will develop over time and more information will be sent later in the term.

JD Art / Craft 

Thursdays up to Half Term - £5 per session. Children will be split into two groups - Years 1 to 3 and Years 4 to 6.  Children must be able to attend all of the sessions below - 

     21st September, 28th September, 5th October, 12th October, 19th October 


Children will be released at 4.15pm from the Annex.

Tuesday Threads

Tuesdays - dates are on Gateway. Years 4-6. It will cost £12 for resources. Children will be released from the door at the front of school at 4.15pm.

Key dates for Weeks 3 & 4



Community

MacMillan Coffee Morning - Friday 29th September

We will be hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning on Friday, 29th September supported by FoSMS.

By joining Macmillan’s biggest fundraising event, we'll be collecting funds to provide medical, emotional, practical and financial support for people facing cancer, as well as campaigning for better cancer care. There are now 2.5 million people in the UK living with cancer. By 2030, it is estimated to be 4 million people, and Macmillan’s goal is to be there for each and every one of them. All cake/ cupcakes/ biscuits contributions and monetary donations are highly appreciated. The funds raised will all be sent to Macmillan. If you are unable to attend the coffee morning and would still like to donate, please send in any donation to school with your child in a sealed envelope, labelled with your child’s name, class name and ‘Macmillan donation’.

FoSMS

Thank you to FoSMS for helping this morning with meeting and greeting parents attending the ‘Meet the Head’ meeting. 


Please support our school's PTA by reading the information and noting the dates in your calendar. They do amazing work to support all of our children.

FoSMS Flyer Sept 23 (3).docx.pdf

St Mary’s needs your votes to get a share of Tesco’s Community Grants fund

St Mary’s needs your votes to get a share of Tesco’s Community Grants fund

We have been successful in our application for the Tesco Community Grants initiative. Tesco works with community charity Groundwork to run its community funding scheme, which sees grants of up to £1,500, £1,000 and £500 awarded to local community projects. Any grant received from Tesco will go towards helping children learn about the importance of looking after our environment.

Voting is open from the first week in July until the end of September and customers will cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out each time they shop. Please vote for St Mary’s when you shop at:


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