Assistant Headteacher's Message
Dear Friends and family of SJV,
It has been another eventful week here at school as we come to the end of this first half term. It has been wonderful to see our new pupils settling in to life at SJV and the warm welcome they have received from their classmates. On Tuesday of this week a fantastic opportunity for classes 9-13 to meet with employers, including Keir Construction who are doing the building work at school, took place. It is so important that we provide pupils with chances to see different employment options so they can make informed choices as they move into adulthood.
On Wednesday the whole school community came together to celebrate our Harvest Festival. Our pupils showed such respect and each class were able to bring their food donations that have now been sent to a local food bank in Stretford. Thank you so much for your generosity; there was an abundance of food which will certainly make a positive impact on so many families in need, during these difficult times. Manchester South Food Bank were very grateful for our donations and informed us we donated enough food for 566 meals for our local community!
Finally, I would like to wish you all a happy and restful half term. Whilst it has come around quickly, I can see many tired faces around school. School reopens Monday 30th October for Autumn term 2 where we get ready for the most wonderful time of the year!
Best wishes,
Kirsten Nesbitt
Dates For Your Diary
- Friday 20th Oct @ 15:15 - School closes for the Half Term break.
- Monday 30th Oct @ 9:00 - School re-opens after the Half Term break.
- Friday 1st Dec, All day - School closed to pupils. INSET day for staff.
Stars of the Week
Congratulations to our Stars of the Week!
- Class 1 - Hassan -For some excellent work in his SALT session.
- Class 2 - Neo -For settling back into school and adapting to change well.
- Class 3 - Ethan -For doing lots of good listening and participating in lessons.
- Class 4 - Leon -For making good choices, a greatly improved week.
- Class 5 - Ayla -For great communication and thoughtful answers.
- Class 6 - Chael -For making good choices around school and producing some brilliant work.
- Class 7 - Roger -For being an always pupil.
- Class 8 - Justin -For having a fantastic week. Amazing behaviour and attitude!
- Class 9 - Leon -For excellent progress in English and for being a reliable member of Class 9.
- Class 10 - Nesrine -For being a great worker. Fantastic maths work.
- Class 11 - Mia -For a huge improvement in maths and for always trying her best.
- Class 12 - Tomasz -For taking his role on the School Council seriously and maturely.
- Class 13 - Leon -For some excellent contributions in lessons.
Employees of the Week
Miss Hunter for her ongoing support for many classes and the completion of her NASENCo qualification.
Miss Mawn for her support with the medical requirements of her class and for being so kind and caring.
Introducing....
Adnan
- What have you been doing this week? We made a mask, we went to forest school and I've been working on my own art projects.
- What is the best thing about being in SJV? Getting star of the week, lunch and Art.
- How could SJV be even better? Getting a free vacation to Hawaii for star of the week.
- What are your hopes and dreams for the future? Bringing my cartoon characters to life and making my own TV show.
Mr Kanakides
- What is your role in school? KS5 Coordinator and Class 13 form teacher.
- What have you been doing this week? It has been a brilliant last week of the half term. Class 13 delivered all the donated coats to Cornerstones, the homeless charity. I would like to thank everyone who donated, as the school were able to give out over 100 coats to help homeless people with the cold weather. I also really enjoyed the harvest festival service, the school community came together to donate over 550 meals for the local community. On a school lesson front, I have been really impressed with the work our KS4 pupils have completed towards creating websites using HTML.
- What is the best thing about being in SJV? The best thing about SJV are the staff and pupils. Even after all the years that I have been here. They make me smile and laugh every day.
- How could SJV be even better? If there was proper fish and chips with curry sauce and mushy peas every Friday. Fish fingers or fish cakes are certainly not my favourites.
- What are your hopes and dreams for the future? I can’t wait for the new building to finish and for us to move in. That way we can have a brilliant building that matches the amazing people that are part of SJV. I also hope my family and friends are happy and healthy. That and for my football team to win the league again!!
Class 7
- Who are the members of your class? Staff: Mr Whelan, Miss Wilkinson, Miss Copeland and Mr Patel. Pupils: Isabella, Rodger, Sana, Miya, Scarlett, Charlie C, Charlie P, Jensen, Rhys and Jack.
- What is the best thing about your class? Having kind adults who listen to us and support us. We also like our quiet area at the back of our classroom, where we can take some time out if we need to. We also have lots of reading books in class for Literacy time.
- What would make your class even better? School will be even better when the new school building is finished and if we had more preschool activities in the mornings for those pupils waiting to go up to class.
- What has your class been learning this week? This week in Topic we have been creating our own 7 wonders of the World, in English we have written our own story mountains based on Mr Stink and in Science we made circuits in the Science lab.
- What activities have your class undertaken this week? This week Class 7 have been cycling, 3 of our pupils have been to Duke of Edinburgh and we finished making our own guitars in Design and Technology.
- What is the class looking forward to in the future? After half term we are looking forward to going to Forest School at CAFT each Monday for 4 weeks and in March we are going on our KS3 residential to Bendrigg.
Class 8
- Who are the members of your class? Staff: Ms Graham, Ms Royle and Mr Lengden Pupils: Alfie, Amanda, Callum, Charlie, Heaven, Jason, Justin, Kalen, Katie, Keenan, Kenzie
- What is the best thing about your class? We have a lot of prefects, so we love responsibility and taking care of others. Also, everyone has a great sense of humour which makes the day fly by.
- What would make your class even better? Making sure to try our best in all lessons, even if it’s not our favourite.
- What has your class been learning this week? we’ve been learning how to write leaflets in our non-fiction unit in English, learning all about decimal place in maths, observing changes in solids to liquids in Science, and talking about what might come after life in RE.
- What activities have your class undertaken this week? We went to play football at Stretford Leisure Centre and we’ve been filling our class box for Harvest Festival. We also helped sort the coat donations for our World Homeless Day coat drive. There were so many- it was amazing.
- What is the class looking forward to in the future? We cannot wait for the Calvert Trust residential! This will be our first year there and we’ve heard excellent things.
Our Catholic School
Oh, my goodness! How it is half term already? We had our whole school Harvest Festival on Wednesday and that was wonderful; it’s the only time we get the whole school to celebrate and worship. We do our masses and celebrations in Key stages so it was truly special to get to see the whole school come together and see the generous donations from our pupils, staff, parents and carers to our local food bank.
Within RE this week we have had a busy time making a difference to our work. In ‘MAD’ time we took part in discussions about 'moral' and 'ultimate questions' and we have been ranking and sorting out pictures of 'awe and wonder'.
I hope you all have a lovely half term and hopefully we will all come back recharged and well rested, ready for the next exciting half term and the run up to Christmas.
This week's edition of the Wednesday Word will take you through to 1st Nov.
- 18th Oct's Word is 'Gratitude'
- 25th Oct's Word is 'Love'
- 1st Nov's Word is 'Humble'
Click on the button below to access it.
Mrs Garfin
Careers Morning
On Tuesday, KS4 and KS5 students took part in a career's morning. The students had the chance to meet representatives from Green's restaurant, Kier construction and Farrat engineering. During the workshops students learnt about what was involved in the different careers and had the opportunity to ask questions and learn about the skills and qualifications needed for each job.
Poetry Corner
An amazing week of poetry here at SJV! Pupils have been writing and performing poems to protest racism in our society. It’s so wonderful to see the sensitivity and compassion within the work of our young poets, their writing really reflects the culture here at school, one of unity and togetherness.
Proud to be sharing this beautiful poem by Joe in Post 16, it was read out in our celebration assembly as part of today’s Show Racism The Red Card events:
Black Lives Matter
Judge me on what I hold within
Not for the colour of my skin
Men should be born equal
Our hearts are all the same
I’ll take the knee in your name
If we stand together, it won’t be in vain
We’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Joe, Class 13
Our Olympias Music Foundation facilitator Georgie, who does an a amazing job in supporting Music development in school, has on offer we would like to share with parents. Many of our children and young people really enjoy and engage with her sessions in school and may benefit from extra sessions online. Please see the information from Georgie below;
LAUNCH OFFER: Free session every Tuesday
Unlock the world of music with Songs, Signs & Sounds! We are offering you a weekly pre-recorded music session which is available FREE on our YouTube channel every Tuesday, 9am-9pm. These sessions are designed to empower participants, parents, carers, and educators to feel confident in music-making; we explore a different song (and genre/style) each week, focussing on listening, singing & playing, interacting, signing, and delving into therapeutic sounds through sound healing.
If you are a parent or carer, we would love for you to share us within your network so that more people can experience the joy of inclusive, interactive music-making! Hear about the impact of our work from one of our families.
And for educators - try it for free in your classrooms and share it with your network of SEN educators, schools and governing bodies! Explore our website to find out more about our bespoke education pack.
Thank you so much! Karen & Georgie
Contact us at: songssignssounds@gmail.com
Useful Information
At precisely 2.00am on Sunday, 29th October 2023, the clocks will go back one hour in the UK
Road traffic collisions increase by 20% in the fortnight after the time change. Sadly, some of those collisions will involve child pedestrians and cyclists. Children under-16 are one of the most vulnerable groups of road users. To help support road safety ROSPA created a road safety guide for parents/carers.
Mrs Griffin
Keep up to date with SJV on our website and on social media. Just click on the buttons below:
St John Vianney R.C. School. Rye Bank Rd, Firswood, Stretford. M16 0EX.
Tel: 0161 881 7843