St John Vianney School Newsletter 16.05.2025

Assistant Headteacher's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you are enjoying the glorious weather we have been experiencing over the last few weeks, it certainly feels as if summer is arriving earlier or maybe it’s just the weather for exam season!

GCSE examinations started at SJV this week with the non-calculator maths exam. Our year 11 pupils worked with great focus and commitment in what is a challenging environment. Exam stress can be very difficult to manage for both parents and pupils, please find below two website links that include advice and coping strategies to support at this intense time:

We continue to develop our work experience programme, ensuring that all pupils get a unique and bespoke experience every year. This week Year 9 went to the Holiday Inn where they participated in one of three opportunities; working on reception checking customers in, assisting the housekeeping team, checking rooms and ordering supplies, or working in the kitchen preparing pizza.

Our Key Stage 4 history pupils went to Ordsall Hall, a Tudor manor house in Salford. Pupils participated in a range of interactive activities to support their learning of what life was like in Tudor times. They learnt about food, living and class during this period in history. All pupils behaved impeccably and were a real credit to the school. Well done to all involved and thank you to the staff who organised and supported these really important events.

Can I remind you please that we have rearranged the annual Parents Evening for this Tuesday, May 20th from 4.30pm to 6.00pm. This will provide you with an opportunity to meet with the teachers and staff to discuss the progress in learning made by your child, since last September. The evening will also provide a great opportunity for you to have a look around the new school to see the amazing facility we have been provided with. Please keep the date in your diary and make every attempt to attend. Additionally, we are preparing for parents 3 different x 15-minute workshops on key areas of school business; ADHD Awareness, Zones of Regulation and Online Safety, which will be led by senior staff from 4.45pm. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 20th May.

Best wishes for the weekend,

Mr G Damant, Assistant Headteacher

Key information and Dates for your Diary

Dates for your Diary

• Tues 20th May 4.30pm-6pm - Parents Evening.
• Fri 23rd May @ 3:15pm - School closes for the half term break.
• Mon 2nd Jun @ 9:00am - School re-opens for the last half term of the year.

Key Info

Allergies

Please be aware that we have a number of pupils in school with severe nut allergies. To reduce the risk of exposure for these young people, we aim to keep the school nut free. In order to support us with this we kindly ask that you:

• Do not give children nuts or nut products in their packed lunches.
• Do not give nuts, nut products or snacks/bars containing nuts for break time snacks.
• Do not send cakes or food items, containing nuts, in to school for birthday celebrations, cake sales or events.

Thank you for your support.

Lunches

Stars of the Week

Congratulations to our Stars of the week:

• Class 1 - Oskar - For doing amazingly well on our residential and sleeping in his own bed all night.
• Class 2 - Jaylen - For helping others and always being ready to learn.
• Class 3 - George - For doing well with his friendships and being a peacemeaker.
• Class 4 - Adnan - For building resilience and trying tricky things.
• Class 5 - Joe - For improved attitude and behaviour.
• Class 6 - Matilda - For being an 'always' pupil.
• Class 7 - Scarlett - For working hard in maths.
• Class 8 - Szymon - For coming into school everyday this week and last week when his class were away at Calvert.
• Class 9 - Kyan - For having a really settled week.
• Class 10 - Alfie - For trying really hard at Calvert and showing massive resilience.
• Class 11 - Mia - For being an 'always' pupil and for being extra helpful all week.
• Class 12 - Nesrine - For her continued effort and consistency in behaviour.
• Class 13 - Andrew - For a very good week and helping his peers.

Employee Of The Week

Highlights of the Week

Our Catholic School

Our prayer focus this week from our new pope:

'Jesus was not a charlatan but an upright man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things.'

- Pope Leo IVX

This week the Chaplaincy Team have decided to dedicate the rest of the year to Pope Francis' legacy. They will be looking at ways in which we can help to look after the environment in 'our common home'. They will also be reflecting on his love of animals.

In Key Stage 3 and 4 RE lessons this week, we have been discussing 'life after death'. This interesting topic has encouraged some excellent discussion and reflection. Within Post 16 we have continued our work on 'peace and conflict', researching and brainstorming ideas on how we can help to bring more peace to the world.

Mrs Garfin

Poetry Corner

Every teacher who works in a SEND environment will testify to the wonderful, profound, and often hilarious classroom experiences that come from working with such amazingly unique and individual young people. Here at SJV we always embrace and celebrate this individuality and have developed bespoke, autism friendly, poetry workshops that have had an impact on a national scale. Our poet in residence, Oliver Lomax, has been taking these workshops to the wider SEND community and sharing best practice to inspire new writing and poetry performance. In this week’s poetry news we are sharing a poem by Oliver that was written in response to delivering one such workshop.

Oliver said, ‘There are many sublime moments in my role as a school’s visiting poet, but this ranks pretty highly. Last week I hosted a workshop in a school and a boy passed me a live baby chicken to hold whilst he made his way quite brilliantly through various dance routines, including NSYNC's Bye Bye Bye, Beat It, and Smooth Criminal. It was such a beautiful and funny moment; it was like watching a prayer. I wrote him this poem on the train home.’

If you would like to listen to this poem read by Oliver and set to an original classical score, please click 'play' on the video below.

Oliver Lomax

Useful Information

The ABC Model for Digital Safety and Wellbeing

The ABC model for creating a safe online environment includes three key steps: Access, Boundaries and Communicating.

Access involves implementing safety setting, parental controls and privacy measures on devices to ensure safe online access.

Boundaries include creating a family tech agreement, setting clear rules for online behaviour, and having screen routines to manage device usage, emphasising both positive and negative consequences.

Asda offers a Kids Eat for £1 deal at their cafes, which is also reduced to 60p for the entire month of May, including the May half-term week. This means families can feed their children a hot or cold meal for just £1 or 60p per child, with no minimum spend required and no need to purchase an adult meal. The deal is available at over 205 Asda Cafes.

- Mrs J Griffin, Family Liaison Officer, Deputy Safeguarding Lead.

Click on the following link to open a directory of useful links and information about facilities, activities and support available to you and your young person: INFORMATION DIRECTORY