Weekly Update 9

UPDATE 9

20TH NOVEMBER 2017

St. John’s RC Primary School WEEKLY UPDATE

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY NOVEMBER 21st - Ghyll Head meeting for Year 4 parents. (3.45pm & 5.30pm ) Year 4 classroom

24th - International Day (all classes) 25th - Reconciliation Y3GO’N (church)

All DIFFERENT - ALL EQUAL On Friday we celebrated Children in Need day in school and some of our children joined singers from around Manchester to be a part of the BBC Children in Need choir. The children were live on BBC1 and millions of viewers watched them perform superbly in support of a great cause! Thank for all of your donations on the day; we collected £203.40 which will go towards some very important charity work.

Anti-Bullying Week 2017 was a great success! It presented an opportunity to remind everyone that God created us ‘All different – All equal’. We began the week with a poignant assembly and continued with themed activities in class. Our children learnt that bullying isn’t saying something unkind to someone once when you are angry but that bullying goes on deliberately, on purpose, over a period of time. We investigated the 4 main types of bullying; physical, verbal, silent and cyber.

We examined the effects bullying had on people and why some children might turn to bullying in the first place.

Many Key Stage 2 children designed an anti-bullying poster or wrote about the issue. The quality and quantity of response has been truly overwhelming! In recognition of this hard work we will be handing out some very special awards this week. A selection of our Year 6

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27th - WAA camp meeting for Y3 parents (3.30pm & 5.30pm) Y3 classroom 29th - chaplain commissioning at the cathedral DECEMBER 1st - Thumbs up Friday followed by PTA coffee morning.

3rd - PARISH FAIR (1-3pm) St. John’s parish centre 6th - Marist (Y4) 6th - Loreto cluster carol concert (St. John’s church)

WEEKLY UPDATE 9

20 NOVEMBER 2017

children were tasked with choosing a winner from each class and the winners will be announced in next week’s newsletter. Some children also had the chance to use their coding skills to produce some anti-bullying animations.

Thank you for your continuing support, Mrs B. O’Donoghue

INTERNATIONAL DAY

The teachers have been busy planning creative and fun activities to celebrate our International Day. The children will be moving around the different classes learning about other cultures in a variety of ways - through art, music, dance and literature. Children may come dressed in traditional costumes or in the colours of their chosen country’s flag

PRESENTATION PROJECT

Having looked at the children’s books over the last few weeks, it is clear that we have children who write creatively and with flair. We are now keen to make sure that the presentation in books matches the content produced so have launched our ‘presentation project’ We will be teaching the children a new handwriting scheme (all children are practising this using new, sharp pencils) We have bought new English workbooks that are made up of handwriting paper. This will help all of our children to write neatly and precisely during every lesson. If you would like to know more about our project, copies of our new expectations and the new handwriting scheme will be available to look at during ‘Thumbs-Up’ Friday on the 1st December.

This picture shows the change one child made in just 1 day!

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YEAR 3 VISIT TO THE JEWISH MUSEUM At St. John’s we love learning about the faiths and cultures of others. Both Year 3 classes visited the Jewish museum last week. They went to find out more about Jewish customs and how these ceremonies relate to our Catholic faith. They learnt about the synagogue, Shabbat and the Passover as well as finding out about what happens on the Sabbath. The children had the opportunity to discover and discuss Jewish artefacts including the kipped and tallit. They were very respectful and learned a lot during their trip. Well done Year 3.

SPANISH EXCHANGE 2018

We’ve had a lot of interest this year from Year 5 families hoping to join the annual exchange to Nigran. Could anyone who has already booked their flights, please let Miss Robson know by emailing her at n.robson@stjohnsrc.net Looking ahead to the return leg, the school in Spain have requested to delay their return till June 2019. That will mean that our children will host when they are in Year 6. However, this is on the understanding that we can provide 20 host families that month, as there are a predicted 40 children interested in visiting us! This number may fluctuate but it would be useful to gain interest now, so that we can prepare! If we do not have enough host families, there will be a smaller cohort visiting this academic year, June 2018. The return leg is an opportunity for those children and families not going to Spain to be a big part of the exchange process and so we welcome hosts from across the year group. If you are interested in hosting please email Miss Robson at the above address.

GOLDEN JUMPERS This week our golden jumpers go to; 1NG - Lana & Julian 1MMK -Lois & Pablo 2LH - Isabella M & Connor C 2SM - Amelie & Sonny 3GON- Evan & Hannah 3JW/EB- Sasha & Daisy 4DS - Joe & Emma 4DM - Klara & Krystian 5SMC - Eduardo & Niamh 5NR - Emily & Cillian 6RG - Dylan & Harriet 6CS - Elliot & Mia

REFLECTION

Our children are learning to appreciate that God created each one of us and made us unique. He wanted us all to be different and to accept each other just how we are. We were reminded of the words Jesus taught us, to ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ We pray for the courage to help us do this.

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Dear Lord, We know that you have given us the freedom to choose.

We can choose whether to treat others with kindness and respect or to scorn, bully and abuse them.

Help us to choose rightly.

Help us to recognise the divine image in each one of us, however different we may be as individuals.

Help us to resist the pressures of others who want us to join them in making someone a victim of their cruelty.

Help us to know that in hurting others we are harming our better selves and hurting you.

Amen

St. John’s Mass times; Saturday - 6pm Sunday - 9am and 12pm ( Family Mass)

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