St John Vianney School Newsletter 18.10.2024

Assistant Headteacher's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you are having a great week. We are now 7 weeks into the Autumn Term and it has been lovely to see most of our pupils settled well in school this week. Attendance has been fantastic at 93.2%. Please continue to support the school by ensuring our pupils are in school everyday and ready to learn.

On Tuesday this week, the whole school attended Chester Zoo. Many pupils and staff have spoken about the wonderful experience and how fortunate we are at SJV to be able to provide these opportunities. It is lovely to see our pupils represent the school so well, staff at Chester Zoo and SJV have commented on how proud they are of the pupils' behaviour and engagement throughout the trip. Pupils gained a greater understanding of conservation and our role in looking after our common home. Well done to all the pupils and thank you to the staff involved.

On Wednesday we celebrated the Harvest Festival in school, a fantastic opportunity to bring the whole school together and reflect on the amazing generosity and spirit in the SJV community. Fr Nick led a lovely service that culminated in representatives from each class bringing forward their contributions. Pupils took great pride in preparing their boxes, even the staff were getting competitive! A huge thank you to all parents, carers, and students for your incredible generosity in supporting this year's Harvest Food collection. We are thrilled to announce that we collected an amazing 319.65kg of food—enough to provide 761 meals for those in need! All donations went to the South Manchester Food Bank, who have sent a thank you to our St John Vianney community for making such a significant impact. Your kindness will go a long way in helping local families. Together, we’re truly making a difference!

Could I remind you please that school closes for half term break at 3:15pm on Friday 25th October and reopens for pupils at 9am on Monday 4th November.

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.

Best wishes for the weekend.

Mr G Damant, Assistant Headteacher

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 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

Stars Of The Week

  • Class 1 - Shawn - For some excellent work about the Solar System.
  • Class 2 - Freya - For trying hard to make good choices and representing the school at the football tournament.
  • Class 3 - Alex - For being more settled in class.
  • Class 4 - Victoria - For good typing skills in ICT.
  • Class 5 - Joe - For trying really hard all week; being in his lessons and doing all of his work.
  • Class 6 - Zachary - For an improved week and showing a more mature attitude.
  • Class 7 - Charlie - For consistently working hard all week.
  • Class 8 - Sean - For being the tech assistant in Class 8; presenting Picture News to class.
  • Class 9 - Thomas - For fantastic behaviour all week.
  • Class 10 - Katie - For excellent behaviour offsite and having a fantastic week.
  • Class 11 - Finlay - For excellent maths intervention work and trying hard in English.
  • Class 12 - Amy - For showing great maturity and trying hard in lessons.
  • Class 13 - Munir - For a great transition into Class 13.

Employees Of The Week.

Congratulations to Miss Carney for an excellent start in her new role, working non-stop to do whatever she can to make students' and colleagues' days brighter. She is highly proactive and a positive influence on staff and pupils. Congratulations to Mr Cooper for being a kind, caring and supportive colleague who is always willing to help, he also delivered the best assembly ever; proving that if we are interesting enough the young people will listen quietly.

Highlights of the Week

Harvest Festival

Chester Zoo

Our Catholic School

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

'Jesus is a teacher of truth who shows us the way to happiness.'

- Pope Francis

We had our whole-school Harvest Festival on Wednesday which was wonderful. We look forward to more frequent opportunities to bring the whole school together for collective worship and celebration later in the year. Everyone was so generous, and we were able to donate many food parcels to South Manchester Food Bank.

It was heart warming to see how much effort each class had put into designing and creating their harvest boxes during their faith in action lessons. We saw a box that had been made into a stall, a truck and a treasure chest as well as boxes created from all-natural, foraged materials, such as leaves, berries and flowers. We are so impressed with the creativity that was shown.

Within RE this week we have had a busy week 'making a difference' to our work; reviewing and improving our work on vocation and studying the wonders of creation.

This week's Wednesday word is 'Greatness'

Mrs Garfin

Poetry Corner

This week at SJV we celebrated our Harvest Festival, so it feels fitting to share this wonderful ‘Harvest Moon’ inspired poem with you all. Our pupils particularly loved the fourth stanza of the poem:

These lines really resonated with everyone, as we have been busy collecting and packing our harvest boxes to share gifts of food with some of the most vulnerable families in Manchester.

Oliver Lomax

Useful Information

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

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