St John Vianney School Newsletter 25.10.2024

Assistant Headteacher's Message

Dear Friends and Family of SJV,

As we come to the end of our first half term of the year I would like to thank you for your continued support. The SJV community thrives on its relationship approach and it is heartening to see that some of our new pupils, who had initial struggles, are now feeling more confident and engaging with the ethos of our school where we encourage all pupils to be ‘Ready, Safe and Respectful’.

This week Miss Hunter and I delivered assemblies on ADHD, as November is ADHD Awareness Month. As a school we have made a commitment, as part of our School Improvement Plan, to improve our knowledge of, and provision in, supporting our young people with ADHD and we will be working with the ADHD Foundation to become an ‘ADHD Friendly School’.

Building work continues to be going well; please see the notice, further down in the newsletter regarding plans for us moving in during April and the impact this will have on holidays etc.

We do hope you enjoy some quality time over the next week and we look forward to returning on November 4th for Autumn 2, which is always a busy but joyous half term preparing for the Advent Season.

Please can I remind you that if you have any worries or concerns please do contact us here at school, via admin, and we will endeavour to help, where we can.

Best wishes & God bless,

Kirsten Nesbitt, Assistant Headteacher & SENCo

NB Building Information

We have now been given a provisional date for the handover of the new build to the school, which will be during the Easter Holidays, 14th April 2025.

We will need to plan with the builders, Kier Construction, on how we will manage this move and it is highly likely that we will need the days after the published Easter break, (which is Friday 4th April to Monday 21st April), to manage the move. That will mean that all pupils will not be able to return to school after the Easter break until Monday 28th April 2025. We are writing to inform parents of these dates, which I will confirm officially with you at the start of the spring term, in January 2025.

If you have any concerns with these plans please do let us know.

Key information and Dates

Dates for your Diary

• Fri 25th October @ 3:15pm - School closes for the Autumn Half Term break.
• Mon 4th Nov @ 9am - School re-opens for Autumn Term 2.
• Tue 26th Nov @ 9:30-10:50am - College Morning for key stage 4 & 5 parents/carers.

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

Week commencing 4th November 2024:

Stars Of The Week

• Class 1 - Hassan - For working hard in our PE lesson this week.
• Class 2 - Ava - For being a positive personality around school and working hard in lessons.
• Class 3 - Neo - For being a good friend this week and very supportive.
• Class 4 - Adnan - For developing his football skills in PE.
• Class 5 - Riley - For improved attitude and work.
• Class 6 - Charlie - For behaving in an appropriate manner.
• Class 7 - Scarlett - For great work in English.
• Class 8 - Sana - For a great week and being an 'always' pupil.
• Class 9 - Cormac - For his positive attitude.
• Class 10 - Callum - For being brilliant in lessons and an excellent ambassador for our school.
• Class 11 - Reece - For working really hard in lessons and having a positive attitude.
• Class 12 - Katie - For trying hard to communicate with staff/pupils and sharing her biscuits.
• Class 13 - Dylan - For a great start to school.

Employee Of The Week.

Congratulations Miss Wilkinson!!

Highlights of the Week

Our Catholic School

In our Catholic school this week, we focussed on the following message:

'Doing little things with a strong desire to please God makes them great'

- Saint Francis de Sales

Oh, my goodness! How it is half term already? It seems like a few minutes ago that I was writing ‘welcome back’. I can only assume that it comes down to the idea that time flies when you are having fun and that is certainly true at SJV.

In our Catholic community, the GIFT/Chaplaincy team have been reflecting on ways in which they can help fight child poverty; they have written to the Mayor of Greater Manchester with their ideas and we will let you know if we get a response.

Class 13 took part in a retreat this week at The Spiritan Centre led by Father Nick. They all had a wonderful time reflecting on change, particularly how they have grown and progressed since they first joined us at SJV.

Within RE this week, we have been learning about Moses and the Ten Commandments. We have been discussing the reasons that there are laws and how many of our civil laws are based on religious teachings.

This week's Wednesday word is 'Courage'

Mrs Garfin

Poetry Corner

This week at SJV we celebrate the start of our entry into this year’s Poetry By Heart Competition, and what better way to do so than by learning this amazing poem by Ted Hughes. The PBH timeline is an amazing online resource that allows our pupils to foster a deeper connection to the poem, explore how to perform it live, and learn more about the life and experiences of the poets. Why not try reciting this fabulous poem at home, please see some tips below.

Explore the poem

We love reading this poem all about Bert’s out-of-control pet hobby. While he starts off with just a teeny mouse tucked into his school shirt, before long Bert is bringing home Gorillas and even stashing Aardvarks in his bottom drawer! Understandably, a lot of these wild animals refuse to sit still. They “dance” and “caper”, and some of them even end up “fighting” making the house shake. With so much action it can be tempting to speak this poem really quickly and loudly. However, if we slow down a bit, we can really let our audience enjoy the funny image of all these exotic animals packed into the family’s home.

Can you see how the poem is organised into verses of two lines? These are called ‘couplets’ and each one features a few animals. Working with some friends, choose a few couplets and try acting out the animals’ actions (you might need to look some of them up!) and the speaker’s shocked responses. Really take the time to bring out the humour and energy contained in just a few lines. When you’ve finished acting the poem out, try reciting it again. This time think about how you can bring to life all those actions and movements using just your voice.

About the poet

Ted Hughes was born in a small village in Yorkshire in 1930. As a little boy, he loved animals. He would spend his free time in the countryside that surrounded his home, observing the wildlife that lived there. As a teenager, Ted knew that he wanted to be a poet. His teachers gave him poetry books to read and by the time he left school he’d published poems in magazines. Ted won a scholarship to study at university and, although he did well, he didn’t really enjoy it. He particularly didn’t like the way he was asked to “dismantle” poems in essays. He thought you could just as easily show your understanding of how poems work by creating them instead.

After university Ted met and married the American poet Sylvia Plath. They lived together in both the UK and the USA, writing and publishing their poetry. During this time, Ted published his first few books and became pretty famous. Following Sylvia’s tragic and untimely death, Ted didn’t write for a while. Eventually Ted did start writing again. His poems won lots of prizes, were featured on the BBC and in 1984 he was made ‘Poet Laureate’, the poet who is expected to write poems to commemorate important national events. Ted died in 1998, aged 68 years old.

Oliver Lomax

Useful Information

Workshops

Family fund offer a range of workshops delivered by specialists and Family Fund staff. Workshops are a safe space to learn new skills with other families raising disabled children.

• Tuesday 29th October - iPad workshop: 'Pop up Pictures' - Creative Session
• Tuesday 29th October - Badge Buddies - Design your own digital badge to show the world what makes you special
• Wednesday 30th October - iPad Workshop: 'Halloween pop up pictures' - Creative Session
• Wednesday 30th October - 'Halloween badge buddies' - in this special Badge Buddies workshop, you can design your own digital Halloween Badge!
• Tuesday 5th November - 'Supporting your young person into adulthood' - Find out how to plan for changes to your young person's benefits as they approach adulthood
• Wednesday 6th November - 'Checking your benefits online' - Learn how to use a free online benefit checker to make sure you are getting all that you could be entitled to
• Thursday 14th November - iPad Workshop: 'Make a social story' - Learn how to make a social story on your iPad
• Saturday 23rd November - Coding Saturday #3 - 'Whack-A-Sprite'. Become a coding pro and learn how to create your own game based on the popular Whack-A-Mole game
• Wednesday 27th November - iPad workshop: 'Make it work for you'- Learn how to use the accessibility features of the iPad
• Tuesday 3rd December - iPad Workshop: 'Staying safe' - Learn how to set up your iPad so your child can explore online safely

If you would like to find out more or book one of the virtual workshops click on the link: https://www.familyfund.org.uk/support/discover-digital/workshops/

Activities in your local area during half term break

The Children and Families Act requires all local authorities to publish and maintain a ‘Local Offer’. A Local Offer is a wide range of information about all the support and facilities which families can expect to find in their area, for children and young people who have special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities. The information should cover education, health and social care support and services for children and young people. For more information take a look at our Information Directory

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