St John Vianney R.C. School Newsletter 10.11.23

Headteacher's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

Week two of the second half term has thankfully, been a good week. Our children are quickly understanding the new routines for this half term and are continuing to benefit from a range of exciting enrichment activities, many of which are offsite, which help bring learning to life for them.

For 4 of our classes Christmas preparation has already begun!! On Thursday they were invited to Gulliver's World for a Christmas themed party, organised by the Variety Club of Great Britain. The children had a wonderful time at the park with their friends, supported by our staff. The Variety Club are a fantastic organisation who use charitable donations to organise wonderful events like this. Today, our KS4 cohort have been visiting the Maritime Museum in Liverpool, to look at the history of the Port and it’s influence on the North West of England. Another wonderful experience organised by Miss Wilkinson. It is great to see our children and young people engaging in these activities in such a mature and responsible way.

Once again, can I remind you please that if you need any support with your child at school or at home, please do contact the admin office and we will do all we can to support you.

Best wishes for the weekend.

Mr A Moloney

Please note the School term will finish at 1.30pm on Friday 22nd December and that we have an INSET day for staff (school closed to pupils) on Friday 1st December.

Dates For Your Diary

• Friday 1st Dec, All day - School closed to pupils. INSET day for staff.
• Friday 22nd Dec @ 1:30pm - School closes early for the Christmas Break.

Stars of the Week

Congratulations to our Stars of the Week!

• Class 1 - Aidan - For a positive response to the fire drill.
• Class 2 - Alex - For doing well in swimming and trying his best in all his subjects.
• Class 3 - Adnan - For good listening and contributing in class.
• Class 4 - Ryan - For fantastic behaviour and putting in lots of effort in class.
• Class 5 - Bailey - For setting a great example in the fire drill.
• Class 6 - Aiden - For trying hard to stay focussed in lessons and communicating well in Lego therapy.
• Class 7 - Charlie - For having a more mature approach to staff and his work.
• Class 8 - Heaven - For consistently brilliant effort in all lessons.
• Class 9 - Andrew - For his 100% effort in all of his lessons.
• Class 10 - Harley - For amazing patience and fantastic work.
• Class 11 - Joseph - For improved engagement and communication this week.
• Class 12 - Megan - For being a good role model and a very supportive friend to her peers, encouraging positivity.
• Class 13 - Leon - For a great start to his work experience at Green's restaurant.

Employee of the Week

Congratulations to Miss Yar!

Miss Yar has been providing some great Teaching Assistant work with increased confidence, she is really resilient and always proactive in finding solutions to problems in class. Well done Miss Yar!

Introducing....

Troy

1. What have you been doing this week? I read in our Remembrance day Assembly this week. I've enjoyed my Drama lesson and reading the Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman in my English lessons.
2. What is the best thing about being in SJV? The best thing this week was the school dinner. We had hotdogs on Tuesday.
3. How could SJV be even better? I would like for everyone to get along and be the best person they can be each day.
4. What are your hopes and dreams for the future? My dream is to work in musical theatre and I would love to explore different cities in the UK.

Mr Goodwin

1. What is your role in school? Site Manager
2. What have you been doing this week? I started the week making the Horticulture area safe; clearing the moss so there's no slippery areas and I created a new fence around this area too.
3. What is the best thing about being in SJV? The staff, children and young people make this place a fantastic place to work.
4. How could SJV be even better? It will be even better once the New Build is finished. The school community will have a whole new experience with modern and up to date buildings and facilities.
5. What are your hopes and dreams for the future? Other than winning the lottery, I look forward to cutting the ribbon at the grand opening of our New School.

Class 10

• Who are the members of your class? Staff: Mr Donovan, Mr Wood, Mrs Mahmood Pupils: Adam, Bruno, Daniel, Harley, Leah, Munir and Nesrine.
• What is the best thing about your class? The best thing about Class 10 is that we are a great mix of different characters, who try to make each other smile. We are the probably the class that laughs the most in school! We all have lots of different interests that we like to encourage each other to explore. We enjoy doing our class jobs and like the increased independence of being in Key Stage 4.
• What would make your class even better? We think our class is great the way it is.
• What has your class been learning this week? This week we have visited The International Slavery and Maritime museum in Liverpool. It was a very moving visit, which gave us lots to think about. We've been learning about the history of medicine and writing our own horror stories in English.
• What activities have your class undertaken this week? We've had Music Therapy where we are learning to play along to Vangelis's 'Chariots of Fire' and in horticulture we've been tending to our tomato plants.
• What is the class looking forward to in the future? We're looking forward to the rest of the year with Christmas activities and getting ready to go to our Calvert Trust residential.

Highlights Gallery

Our Catholic School

‘They who are filled with love are filled with God himself’

-St Teresa

During our Chaplaincy Team meeting this week, we started to make preparations for a full chaplaincy retreat, with 38 chaplaincy members (not including staff); it’s a big task! We are looking forward to planning the school Advent launch and activities.

Within RE this week, we continue to look at November being the month of Remembrance, focusing on patron saints and what it means to be a Saint. We also looked at the upcoming celebration of Diwali on Sunday and what it means to our Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities.

This week's edition of the Wednesday Word is all about 'Wisdom'. Click on the button below to access it.

Mrs Garfin

Poetry Corner

An exciting week of poetry as always at SJV for staff and for students. Mr Lomax led a poetry and wellbeing session for all staff, experimenting with different writing techniques and exploring poetry as reflective practice, hopefully inspiring staff to share their experiences and hopes through writing poetry. It’s hard for staff not to be inspired by all the amazing young poets here at SJV and this week we are proud to be sharing with you all Nesrine’s stunning work. A winner of last year’s War Poetry prize, her beautiful poem on the themes of Remembrance and Peace was aired on 'Allfm' recently. Click on the link below to listen to Nesrine read her poem and be interviewed live on the radio. Well done, Nesrine! Click here to hear Nesrine's poem

Have a poetic weekend everyone!

Useful Information

Every November schools throughout the United Kingdom take part in Anti-Bullying Week. This is an opportunity to spotlight bullying and consider the steps we can take together to stop it. Anti-Bullying Week 2023 will take place from Monday 13th to Friday 17th November, with the theme ‘Make a Noise About Bullying'.

As a parent or carer, you are a vital piece of the puzzle in tackling bullying. You have a unique role to play in guiding and supporting your child through their school years and there are many positive steps you can take to help keep your child safe from bullying and harm. One of the steps is knowing when to ask for support. Click on the link below for information and resources from The Anti-Bullying Alliance. This tool was written with input from Kidscape and is designed to give you information about bullying, tips about what to do if you’re worried about bullying and the tools to help you talk to your children about bullying. Click here for the parent info and resources

If you have any concerns about bullying, please contact school straight away!

Mrs Griffin