This week in school, amid all of the excitement of the preparation for Christmas, we have also been looking forward to the new term and I wanted to share with you some of the exciting new things which will be happening:
Day in Nature: From January, all classes will have an opportunity to have a day’s Forest School Experience, including some drama and some age appropriate outdoor adventurous activities onsite. The days will be led by Mrs Coleman, an experienced teacher who is joining us part-time for two terms initially. The first theme of these days is “Nature’s Lost Words” based on the book “The Lost Words” which focusses on the 50 nature words (e.g. acorn, bluebell, kingfisher) removed from the Oxford Children’s Dictionary due to lack of use. https://www.thelostwords.org/book/ The days will be based outdoors (in all weathers!) and will give the children the opportunity to rediscover the nature in our own backyard. Children should be dressed in mufti for these days and will need wellies, waterproofs and extra layers! You will receive some information about what is involved when it is the turn of your class, but the Christmas holidays might be a good time to look for wellies / walking boots and waterproofs in the sales. The school has a small supply of waterproofs to borrow, but if you have any outgrown wellies in good condition, we would welcome spares of these.
Intro to Lourdes Pilgrimage – July 2020: After a wonderful school pilgrimage to Rome in October, we are hoping to take a small Cardinal Newman group on the diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes in July next year (23rd/24th to 30th / 31st July). This might be whole families or just individual adults or older children who would like to join the group, either as helpers or just to travel there and enjoy the experience. The Lourdes pilgrimage always has more “Assisted Pilgrims” wanting to come than it has helpers who are able to help them, so new volunteers are always welcome. If you’re wondering whether you would be a good helper, there’s a good “Qualities of a helper” interview which gives a good flavour of the Lourdes experience here: http://www.ablourdes.org/content/qualities-helper
Fr David King (Chaplain to the Redshirt young people’s group in Lourdes) is coming to talk to us about Lourdes on Monday 20th January at 4pm. If you think you’d be interested in finding out more, without any obligation, please do come along – or contact the school office for more information.
Life Bus: To support our PSHE Curriculum, we have a visit from the Life Bus in the second week of January, as we did last year. Sessions are age-appropriate and delivered in a fun and child friendly way on topics such as All About Me, Feelings and Friends. The full overview of sessions can be found here: https://www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk/downloads/CoramLifeEducationProgrammeOverviewLeafletupdated2019-20.pdf We don’t use the Life Bus to support our Relationships teaching as this is delivered through approved resources from the diocese: Journey in Love and TenTen.
Children of the Eucharist: This charity https://www.catholicireland.net/children-eucharist-new-growth/ will continue their work in our school this year, working once again with Year 3 to support their preparation for First Holy Communion by teaching them how to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Y4 completed this programme last year and have been enthusiastic about continuing the practice of Adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist half termly during this year too. It is a beautiful way of praying and we hope to give parents an opportunity to join the children in adoration in the chapel during Lent. Watch this space.
Improvement Works: We have a few ongoing works taking place over the next few weeks -
Work in the Y1 corridor (carpets, decoration, new doors) – Christmas holidays
New doors (KS1 playground main doors) – end of January
New playground markings (KS1) – February
Uniform Reminder: Our children look incredibly smart in their winter uniform but it has been noticeable over the last week or two that some are wearing their uniform with a little less pride! If you get chance over the holidays, please could you check that your children have smart black school shoes, school ties and hair accessories in school colours. It would be worth checking the children’s plimsolls too – their feet may have grown over the course of the term, especially the little ones! Thank you for your support in maintaining high expectations of the children’s appearance. If there are financial barriers to supporting this request, please get in touch with me and school can help out.
Christmas Round-Up:
Thank you for your support of the Parent Association “Carols Around the Christmas Tree” – it was a really lovely community-spirited event and so well-attended, including by some of our Arch Rd neighbours and by Fr Bill! Our thanks to Trisha O’Brien and her team for all their hard work in arranging the evening! It was a great success and many have suggested we should repeat it next year!
The children have had a very festive week preparing for Christmas, with the fantastic pantomime funded by the Parent Association and a delicious whole school lunch! It was really heart-warming to hear the children in both key stages singing along to Jingle Bells as they enjoyed lunch with all their friends! What a great occasion!
Finally congratulations to Key Stage 2 (Y4/5/6) who provided a very thought-provoking and inspiring Carol Service on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. There were beautiful singing performances from all year groups and some impressive solo and duet singers. In the “Year of the Word” 2020 (which started on the 1st Sunday of Advent) we were fortunate to have so many clear and confident readers proclaiming the Word of God to us as we reflected on the wonder of the Nativity.
Thank you all for your support for Cardinal Newman Catholic Primary School throughout this busy term. I wish all of you a well-earned rest over the Christmas break and a very happy time you’re your families. We look forward to seeing you all in 2020!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Catherine Burnham
