Newsletter Wed 8th December 2016

Dear Parents and Carers,

Over the last week I hope Reception parents who came to the ‘Stay and Play’ morning enjoyed themselves. We are very keen to engage parents in the learning and work of their children.  Over the year we have had and we will be having a series of meetings where you can learn more about what your children are doing in class.  Look out for invites in your children’s book bags!  On this note our ‘Dads@StJosephs’ group are meeting on Thursday this week at 6pm.  If you are interested in joining this group please come to the next meeting.

As we begin to approach the end of term and leading up to Christmas we begin a period of school festivities.  Over the next couple of weeks your children are involved in a variety of wonderful activities.

    

On Thursday, Red and Rainbow are visiting the National Gallery and Year 5 have a trip to the Royal Observatory. On Friday 9^th Year 2 are off to see The Gruffalo and Yr 1 are going to see ‘Boing!’ at the Unicorn Theatre. During next week the children in KS1 and Yr 4 are presenting their performances.  They are very excited about this and so are we!  This is the time the children get to apply their speaking and listening skills and this wholeheartedly contributes to the broad and balanced curriculum your children are receiving.

Come and listen to St Joseph’s children on Thursday 15^th December at Sacred Heart Church 6pm. At least nine Catholic schools in Southwark have signed up to give one of the best musical evenings of the year.  There is so much talent within our schools!  Followed by our own St Joseph’s Music Concert on Friday evening – which, undoubtedly, will be THE best musical evening of the year.

Attendance for each class to date:

This term we had a very positive Teaching and Learning Review in November.  Five members of the Local Authority came over two days to scrutinise everything the school does. Here are just a few examples of what the report says:

• ‘Pupils are positive and proud of their school’.
• ‘Teachers provide interesting contexts for learning.’
• ‘Teachers have good subject knowledge and this enables them to plan effective sequences of teaching and learning and to challenge and extend pupils.’
• ‘Parents were very positive about the school. They commented on the approachability of the Executive Headteacher and on the positive relationships in the school. One parent said that the staff were ‘passionate about what they do’. Behaviour welfare and safety are good and pupils’ spiritual, Moral, social and cultural development is strong’

We would like to thank you for all your support. Please do not hesitate to raise any questions or concerns you may have about the school.  We can’t sort them out unless we know about them.

Year 2 parents would have attended the meeting with Ms Jameson about transferring from the Infant to the Junior School.  Although we are ‘one’ school, technically we are two schools ‘in federation’.  This means we have two Department for Education unique reference numbers and because of this you have to apply separately to the Junior school.  Please check our admissions criteria on the school website and you will see how our policy has changed for 2017-18.    

Congratulations to our new Parent Governor, Mr Christian Ntiamoah, father of Joel in Year 6 and Angela in Year 1. The response from parents throughout the parent governor process was really pleasing.

The Governor Voting Results are as follows:

I’d like to refer you to a really good website that gives lots of information about the local area and support that is available to parents of children with SEN but also more general support:  http://localoffer.southwark.gov.uk/    Please check it out – it’s an informative read.

Hot off the Press! St Joseph’s have won the Healthy Schools’ Bronze Award.

Dates:

Tuesday 13^th December: Infant Christmas Play ‘It’s a Party’ 2pm

Wednesday 14^th December: Infant Christmas Play ‘It’s a Party’ 9.30am

Thursday 15^th December: Year 4 Christmas Play 2pm

Thursday 15^th December: Musical Evening at Sacred Heart Church 5.30pm for 6pm

Friday 16^th December: St Joseph’s Music Concert, at the school, 6.30pm

Tuesday 20^th December: Own clothes day and school Christmas dinner

Wednesday 21^st December: Break up from school at 1pm

Reflection

We pray to our merciful Lord,

‘To you, I lift up my soul, O my God. In you I have trusted; let not me be put to shame. Nor let my enemies exult over me; and let none who hope in you be put to shame.’