Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Letter from Mrs O'Rourke

  Mon 27 Jan 2025

  Dear Families,

  I want to start with a huge 'Thank you' for your support and encouragement with our new approach to allowing children to have access to high quality daily play. I will revisit  my vision for our school to be the guardians of childhood.  All the staff team are fully committed to ensure child have access to a safe environment and choices as to how and where they play every day.  

   

  The OPAL (Outdoor Play And Learning) scheme has now been delivered for a full week and there has been much laughter, joy, learning mixed with rain and mud! Each Friday morning the school family join to celebrate our week and listen to the health and safety messages that are essential to making  our play offer successful. The children have been reminded to live out our Catholic Social Teaching themes of 'Stewardship' and 'Rights and Responsibilities' whilst playing. Knowing that we are the stewards of our common home and that we must be responsible for our choices. We will continue to support the children in an age appropriate way and are so impressed with how they are embracing our new approach to the school day.

   

  We have had the most wonderful couple of weeks of learning. I hope you enjoy reading about the high quality experiences the children have had the opportunity to engage with. The team at St John's are working incredibly hard to ensure the curriculum and wider school offer is challenging, fun and engaging. 

   

  Today schools in the Clifton Diocese have launched the 'Jubilee Year of Hope' and we are very excited to learn more about how we can live out our faith during this special jubilee year. We look forward to welcoming you into the classrooms so that the children can share their work marking the launch of the Jubilee Year.  

   

  Finally, a reminder we will be celebrating Children's Mass together on Sunday 26th January at 10.30am at St John the Baptist Catholic Church, everyone is very welcome.

  Wishing you a peaceful weekend,

   

  Mrs O'Rourke

   

• Letter from Mrs O'Rourke

  Fri 10 Jan 2025

  Dear Families,

  Happy New Year to all our children, families, governors and friends! This year we enter the Jubilee Year of Hope - which we will be launching on Friday 24th       January. 

  It is wonderful to welcome all the children back to school and they have looked   incredibly smart in their school uniform - a big thank you to the parents for their continued support. Please ensure all winter uniform is labelled which reduces the chances of coats/scarves/hats/gloves being lost. 

  We ended Term 2 with the most incredible Carol Service in St John the Baptist Catholic Church. It was a truly inspirational way to celebrate the joy of Christmas and unite together as a school family. The singing was simply beautiful - in particular a huge well done to Alex in Year 3 who opened the service with a stunning solo. Our readers again were reverent and allowed us to reflect on the important message that the season of Christmas brings. Our closing carol of the twelve days of Christmas sang by each class brought joy and the festivities alive! Huge thank you to all the adults that made this possible including Fr Richard, the families who attended, Catherine and Richard O'Mahony by supporting the fantastic music and the Friends of St John's who provided much welcomed coffee and mince pies after the service. We look forward to repeating again in 2025! 

  We are officially now an OPAL school and I am confident your child/children will be talking to you about the opportunity for quality play everyday - please do read and action the letter we have sent out today.

  On a safety note please can adults remember that when they are parked outside of the school building that they switch off their car engines. I appreciate the   weather is cold during January but we have many cars omitting dangerous fumes outside of the school gates on a daily basis. Please also remember that parking inside of the care home car park is not supported by the school. We are all responsible for our actions and please consider the needs of our community - in particular the frail and elderly who need medical support with limited mobility. 

  Wishing you all a relaxing weekend and look forward to the children returning to school on Monday for another challenging and exciting week of learning.

  Kind Regards

  Mrs O’Rourke