Goodbye

As well as saying goodbye to the year 6 children, we said goodbye to Mrs Bevan, Mrs Leaworthy, Mrs Staples, Mrs Graham, Miss Wright and Mrs Nicholson. We wish them all the best in the future and thank them for all their hard work for the school.

Leavers mass

It was an emotional farewell to our year 6 children and several members of staff. It was also a time to celebrate the achievements of the school year.

Choir

What a brilliant year for the school choir! They have been giving lots of performances recently. Here are some videos of them singing in assembly.

Well done the Choir and Mrs Marsh!

Year 6 Performances of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes

Year 6 produced some outstanding and enjoyable performances of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes. The children have worked hard adapting the popular story into a playscript, adding lots of their own material. It was a real team effort with all the children playing a part. Their brilliant personalities really brought the play to life.

Well done!

Miss Geach's Multi Skills Club

Tuesday was the last session for Miss Geach's after school club. The children have been working on ABC'S; Agility, Balance, Co-ordination and Speed.

This last session was a chance for the children to demonstrate the skills that they have learnt over the course.
Well done children (and Miss Geach) for all the effort and hard work!

Infants sing up at Vassals Park

All the infants went for a trip down to Vassals Park on Tuesday to sing some songs. We sat down for a healthy picnic on the grass before standing in a big circle and singing. The children sang very nicely and did all the actions to the songs. After that we all went into the children's play area to use the equipment. It was great to see all the children using their social skills and co-operation whilst playing.

Thank you to all the parents and friends for your help in walking to and from the park and your help when the children were playing. Your help makes a big difference to these trips.

Year 6 Playground Project Winners

The winning project was produced by 'The Renaissance' Team. I was impressed by the quality of their presentation skills and their clear ideas. Their project pack included clear plans, diagrams, costings, market research and had a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve.

Well done 'The Renaissance!'

Winners of the Playground Project - by Mr Condon

As you know, Year 6 have been very busy recently working on a playground project. The aim was to present a bid for improving the school playground.The children worked in teams consisting of a Project Co-ordinator, Budget Manager, Health & Safety Officer, Surveyor, Designer, Log-Keeper and Market Researcher. The children were were regularly joined by Mr Terry, a Volunteer from the finance sector HSBC (who was also in civil engineering) who helped the children particularly with budgeting, presentation skills and team work.The children needed to measure, design, budget, undertake market research and investigate health and safety issues regarding the playground.

Earlier this week, each team presented their proposal to myself and gave me the opportunity to ask questions. I was amazed with the way in which the children organised and presented their ideas. Sometimes as a Headteacher I need to present ideas and information to groups of adults, so I know how difficult it is. Each team demonstrated that they had considered the needs of the school in depth and had put their imaginative ideas into detailed plans. But which team had the most effective proposal?

I will be meeting Year 6 to share my judgement later today!

St Joseph's Sports Day

Today was our Sports Day. Each child competed in a variety of events. There were running races...



A jumping event...



A throwing event...



And a personal best event. This involved the children trying to beat a record they had set earlier in the week on a walking course.



The children had a great time, especially those from St John as they were the winners! Well done St John!



Thankyou to all the parents and friends who came to Sports Day, and to everyone who helped out with different roles to make the day such a success. A big thankyou must go out to Mrs Tuohy and Mrs Mooney who did a sterling job with calcualting the scores.

Olympic Gold medalist visits St Joseph's!

We were all extremely lucky today at St Joseph's when we were visited by an Olympic Gold Medalist! Ed Coode, who was part of the Great Britain 'Four' rowing team that won Gold at the Athens Olympics, very kindly came in to show the school a video of the race and then spent some time answering questions from KS2 children.






It was a great inspiration to all of the children and very timely as it's our 'sports week' and we will be having our own 'Olympics' on Thursday with the St Joseph's Sports Day.



A big thankyou to Ed for taking the time to come into School to talk to us-and for bringing in his Gold medal!

St Joseph's skipathon!

Today all of the children from St Joseph's took part in a British Heart Foundation 'Jump rope' skipathon. By doing this they were raising money for the BHF, as well as sports equipment for the school.
Mr Sherwin and Mr Conlon were surprisingly good skippers!






A big well done to all the children who took part and and a big thankyou to Mrs Petela for running the event.
Remember to keep all the sponsorship money coming in!

Sports week

Skipathon for the British Heart Foundation is on Monday 14th July

Sports Day will be on Thursday 17th July at the school field off Forest Road. It will begin at 9.30pm -weather permitting.

Hinduism Day

On Tuesday the whole school spent the day learning about Hinduism. In Y1/2S we had already read the Ramayana story of Rama and Sita and spent some time turning it into a play. Hinduism day gave us a chance to make masks for our play and to perform it to the reception class. Some of the children were a bit nervous about their performance but everyone tried their hardest and the reception class enjoyed it. Well done!!!

What was your favourite part of the story?

PTFA Summer Social

It was great to see so many people enjoying themselves at the summer social last Friday. Here's a few photos of the night.

Y5/6C making rakhi

Y5/6C have been looking at some of the Hindu festivals for Hinduism day. We looked at the festival of Raksha Bhandan, which celebrates the relationships between brothers and sisters. The festival is marked by the tying of a rakhi, or holy thread by the sister on the wrist of her brother. The brother in return offers a gift to his sister and vows to look after her. Below are some photos of our class making rakhi.

Playground project

Year 6 has been very busy recently working on a playground project. The aim being to present a bid for improving the school playground.


The children worked in teams consisting of a Project Co-ordinator, Budget Manager, Health & Safety Officer, Surveyor, Designer, Log-Keeper and Market Researcher. We were regularly joined by Mr Terry, a Volunteer from the finance sector HSBC (who was also in civil engineering) who helped us particularly with budgeting, presentation skills and team work.


The children needed to measure, design, budget, undertake market research and investigate health and safety issues regarding the playground. All the teams produced fantastic professional presentations, learning a lot from a tough project.

Doubting Thomas

Mr Tilmouth's year 3/4 class did an amazing assembly today based on St Thomas. The acting was phenomenal and the audience were able to hear every word thanks to the loud voices that the actors and readers used.

It was really nice to see so many parents and friends coming in to watch the children perform their assembly.

A hop, a skip and a jump

The infants were getting ready for Sports Day this afternoon. The children were working really well in thier teams and showed good co-operation. The playground was a hive of activity with 4 classes doing different activities and a small year 6 group checking their bikes before their cycle-safety class.

The children have been talking about how they have been getting ready for Sports Day at home too so it looks set to be a very competitive day indeed.

Polish Club

Today we were making a plan of the school. Sebastian and Klaudia were hard at work drawing it out.

The rest of the group have made a page telling us about our school teams of St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke and St John, and how to collect team points.
Our teams in Polish are:

St Matthew - Św Mateusz (Shvyenti Mateoosh)
St Mark - Św Marek (Shvyenti Marek)

St Luke - Św Łukasz (Shvyenti Wookash)

St John - Św Jan (Shvyenti Yan)

Joint choir workshops and concert

Friday 20 June was a really exciting afternoon for St Joseph's choir. Two choirs form Bristol Grammar School came and joined forces with us and together with their singing teachers, we learned rounds, partner songs and brand new songs. At the end of the afternoon, parents came and listened to our collective voices. BGS sang two wonderful songs based on poems by Edward Lear with a piano duet accompaniment. St Joseph's choir sang 'Believe', a powerful anthem about your hopes and dreams by Howard Goodall, and a second song called 'Ghosts' by Gareth Malone (of The Choir BBC2 fame). Together we sang the rounds and partner song learned in the workshops and a three part song called Simple Gifts, also by Howard Goodall which was particularly moving. The concert ended with Shalom, a song of peace and unity.
We really look forward to more singing with these choirs, as we had a wonderful time and learned so much.