St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School

Dear Parents & Carers,

We are particularly proud this term of the manner in which our Year 6

pupils have prepared for and conducted themselves during the SATs week.

They have worked incredibly hard and approached the tests with a maturity

and a seriousness which we hope will be rewarded in their results. They

will be visited this week in school by teachers from BGN and it does not

seem possible that they now only have seven weeks left at St Joseph’s. This

week they will also represent us all at the Good Shepherd Mass in Oxford

at which we will present a cheque for £342.83 to go towards the work of

the Father Hudson Society. Thank you for your generous support of this

Lenten collection.

We have celebrated two great Feast Days this term. Our own Feast of St

Joseph the Worker was celebrated with a lovely Mass and every child

received a piece of millionaire shortbread as a treat. The talent show in the

afternoon was a great success with the pupils and the staff and we

discovered some new talent amongst our children which was very exciting.

We also held our Ascension Day picnic as planned although unfortunately

we had to have it indoors due to the weather that day. The children

thoroughly enjoyed the ‘picnic plate’ lunch provided by Mrs Judd and her

team and our spirits were kept high by the summer themed music playing in

the hall. We have decided that this really ought to be an annual event now –

although next year we hope for some sunshine so that we can picnic

properly on our field. It was a fitting way to mark the end of the SATs tests

for Year 6 as well and they kept the party going in the afternoon, and the

next day…

We welcome two new members of staff to the school this term. Mrs

Limbert has joined the office staff and she will be there every morning. I’m

sure many of you have already met her, but if not please do pop in to

introduce yourself and say “hello.” We also welcome Miss. Martin who

will support Mrs Davies in Year 1 in the mornings and will be in Nursery in

the afternoons. In another change to staff deployment, Mrs Poncini has

taken up the role of Attendance and Engagement Officer and Mrs Ski is

taking up a new role in the mornings as SENCo Administrative Assistant.

As the final term approaches we look forward to First Holy Communion

and Confirmation celebrations as well as Sports Day and the Year 6

camping trip to Horley – let’s hope for some sunshine.

The Prayer of St Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where

there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be

consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are

born again to eternal life.

9am Wednesday June 3rd—Early Years and

Foundation Stage Coffee morning with family link

Worker Sally Doran

9.30 Sunday June 7th - Confirmation Session and

rehearsal in St Josephs the Worker Church

Thursday 9th June—Mayan workshop for years

5 & 6

Thursday 9th June—Reception class sight tests

Wednesday 10th June-Year 4 planting day at

Peoples Park

7.00pm Thursday 11th June

Confirmation

Wednesday-Friday 17th-19th June—Year 6

camping trip to Horley

9.30 am Saturday 20th June—First Holy

Communion

Wednesday June 24th Life Education Caravan

Friday June 26th Year 5 Day of Recollection at

Blessed George Napier School

9am Wednesday July 1st Early Years and Founda-

tion Stage Coffee morning with family link Work

Sally Doran

Thursday 2nd July—Years 3 & 4 trip to Birming-

ham Museum

Saturday 11th July—Summer Fete

Tuesday 14th June-Wednesday 15th June—Year 5

& 6 Performance

9.30 am Thursday 16th July –Leavers Mass

1pm Friday 17th July END OF TERM 6

TERM 6 STARTS: MONDAY 1st June 2015 at

8.40am

Term 5

April 13th —May 22nd 2015

Newsletter

On 5th May some children in Years 3 and 4 attended a Writer’s

workshop with author, Stephen Davies. Stephen writes adventure books

set in North Africa where he lived for 13 years.

Jakub from Year 4 especially liked hearing about Burkina Faso and what

it was like to live there.

During the session the children learnt how to plan an adventure story

using actions. Rose Year 4 thought this was a clever way to remember

how to plan a story. They all said that using

photographs of children and their bedrooms helped

them to create their main character. Faith in Year

3 said, ‘I liked using the pictures as it helped me to imagine the

character more clearly.’ And Aimee said, ‘It was fun, especially

making up our characters!’

They also enjoyed mixing with the visiting pupils. ‘It was a good way

of making new friends,’ said Rose and Aimee agreed; she enjoyed the

mix up as it was a change from usual.

We have purchased a set of his books to use in the future for our

Guided Reading sessions with the classes in Years 3 and 4.

Page 2

Writer’s Workshop

On Wednesday year 4 went on an exciting trip to Oxford. First of all we visited the

Ashmolean museum where we saw a wonderful range of Egyptian artefacts including

real Egyptian mummies. We also saw a beautiful array of stone statues, talismans and

precious jewellery.

In the afternoon we attended Bookfeast

where we met the famous comic book author,

Gary Northfield. He read an excerpt from

his new book ‘Julius Zebra’ and taught us how

to create our own comic book character.

Finally we participated in a story trail around

the museum. We had an amazing day!

Year 4 Meet the Author at Bookfeast

Page 3

Feast of Ascension Picnic

And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord

Literacy Work

Key Stage One

Our topic this term has been Island Life. In our Literacy

work we have been enjoying the Katie Morag stories of

Mairi Hedderwick. As you can see from these pictures,

this has prompted

some fantastic writing

and map work. We

love Katie Morag!

On Thursday 14th May we celebrated the

feast of Ascension with a whole school

picnic. Unfortunately the rain fell but we

still enjoyed eating together in the hall to

celebrate this special time. Sharing food

was a fitting way to remember this

important feast, and fun was had by all.

ST JOSEPH’S CAT HOLI C PRI MARY

SCHOOL Fiennes Road

Banbury

OX16 0ET

Importance of good attendance

For every child to fulfil their maximum

potential in school it is important that

they attend each day .

Our registers adhere to the Department

of Education who inspect them and we

are expected to achieve an overall

attendance rate of 96% at least.

In order for you to ensure that your

child’s attendance is within acceptable

levels, he/she will be bringing home

their individual attendance statistics

each term.

Should there be cause for concern, we

will contact you directly to discuss your

child’s attendance in further detail.

Requests for Leave of Absence during

the School Term

Parents sometimes ask to take their

children out of school in term time so

that they can go on holiday. You will

understand that as a school we are not

permitted to authorize such absences

unless there are exceptional

circumstances. We would like you to be

aware that when unauthorized holidays

are taken, parents can become liable to

pay a fine. There are in the region of

thirteen weeks of school holidays every

year and we ask that you book your time

away during these periods. Thank you.

The term’s attendance figures show the

following positions .

Total TERM 5—96.75%

YEAR %

R 97.03

1 95.61

2 97.69

3 96.51

4 96.55

5 96.35

6 97.50

Attendance & Achievements

We are updating our records - If you DO NOT want photographs of your

child/ren to be used in school communications or on the website, please collect

and complete a form from the school office. Thank you

School Uniform

If you wish to order school uniform ready for the next academic

year, please give your order into the school office by Friday 5th

June.

May we remind you that children must have a

jumper with the school logo on and boys in Key

Stage 2 should wear a school tie.