The children of F2 did an amazing job of leading our whole school collective worship for the first time. The focus was our church family. The children retold the story of Jesus being lost at the temple, shared the different members of our church family and sang their hearts out with three beautiful songs. Great job, F2!
Congratulations to our final group of Y3 children who made their First Holy Communion last weekend. Our thanks to Fr Joe, Sr Dolores and her team of catechists who prepared the children so well. Please pray for all the Y3 children and their families as they now continue their faith journey.
This week, the children have been retelling the story ‘Lost and Found’. They enjoyed coming up with fantastic actions and using loud, clear voices to retell the story. In Collective Worship, the children learnt about Jesus’ Sacred Heart. They reflected on how they could show kindness to other people. The children have also looked at the miracles Jesus performed and how he helped others. They then wrote prayers and thought about things they might want help with this week.
After starting to learn about some of the features and artefacts in a church, today the children of F2 made a visit to our church to see them for ourselves. Fr Joe spoke to our children about the altar, the lectern and the bible, the candles, the tabernacle, the font, the holy water and the statues in the church. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to look around and to ask questions. F2 parents: can your child talk to you about what they saw in the church?
Y1 led our prayer and liturgy beautifully this week. They took the theme of miracles and acted out the story of the Calming of Storm. The children spoke clearly and confidently and reminded us that Jesus is there to help us in stormy times as well as in calm moments. Thank you Y1.
Congratulations to the Y3 children who made their First Communion at St. Mary’s Church this weekend. Well done children. We are so proud of you.
In Year 2’s liturgical prayer this week, we celebrated the upcoming feast of Pentecost. The children shared the scripture and acted out the story. They explained the meaning of the Holy Spirit in detail and shared details of times they have felt filled with the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
This week, Year 3 led our liturgical prayer. Their focus was on the importance of having faith and as part of this the children acted out the story of Doubting Thomas. They did an amazing job of learning their lines and acting on the day, which made it very special. We ended by singing along to our hymn – Sing Out an Easter Song, the words of which echoed our learning around faith.
Thank you to everyone who was able to come along to watch our Y3/4 Easter Play – ‘Roll Back The Stone.’ The children were excellent. All the children sang with great enthusiasm. The narrators retold the story of Jesus’ passion with confidence and clarity and reminded us of the joy of the Easter message. Well done Y3/4!
The children of F2 have been transfixed by the Easter story. This week, we talked about how Good Friday is the saddest day, but it is soon followed by the happiest day- Easter! The children understand our important symbol of the cross and it has been lovely to hear that many of our children have shared the Easter story at home with their parents. We have made beautiful Easter cards in class too: the children used pastels to create a cross shape, learning a smudging technique to create the effect.
Thank you to everyone who made an Easter Garden this week. They are all fantastic, clearly showing how much time and effort has been spent creating them. The gardens are currently on display in the school hall.
Years 1 and 2 had great fun watching Tango’s Big Adventure. The children listened and interacted well throughout the performance. They were the perfect trainee zookeepers. The children learnt that no matter how different we are, we are all family and are all loved.
This week the GIFT team went into classes to deliver a Lenten reflection. The children shared scripture from the book of Joel and reflected on the importance of reconciliation during this time. The pupils were asked to go forth and write then decorate crosses containing their own Lenten promises.
Year 2’s class liturgical prayer took place this week. The theme was based on the scripture verse ‘Love one another as I have loved you’ and the children told the story of the feast of St Valentine to develop this message. The class also described how they could live out these values in their daily lives and spread God’s love to others all around us.
Mrs Nickeas
This week 4P had their class liturgical prayer. They explained ‘The Feast of Presentation’ to the school community. The children read from the gospel of Luke and discussed the importance of how Simeon and Anna recognised how special baby Jesus was when he entered the temple. The children shared their ideas and ways we can find something special in each and every one of us.
GIFT Team delivering their Advent collective worship to Year 1.
F2 children spread so much joy delivering their Christmas cards to the local community.
Wow! We can’t believe it is the end of Autumn term! It has been such a fun week full of Christmas cheer with children sharing their understanding of Advent and taking the crib home to share with their families, delivering Christmas cards to our local community and enjoying our class party on Thursday. We also completed our Christmas stockings and these have gone home and we hope you enjoy hearing about how they made these and what thought they put into their designs.
F2 performed an amazing musical version of the story of the nativity this week, singing and dancing beautifully. The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and reminded us of the importance of the Christmas story. Well done F2!
What a great performance the children in F1 put on for their Christmas singing show. We definitely spread lots of Christmas cheer with our beautiful singing and actions. What a great way to end the year in Nursery! Merry Christmas everyone!
As part of our morning routine, the children enjoy opening their two Advent calendars. Today, our Church calendar focused on taking turns. In our social group today, the children ensured that they waited their turn to allow other children to have a go and completing the jigsaw.
In Year 2 we have continued to enjoy sharing our class Advent calender each day. The children have enjoyed reading each others reflections and prayers. We have also made some beautiful nativity scenes to help us recall the events leading up to the birth of Jesus.
For Advent, the children have created a Jesse Tree and each day we are listening to a story linked to it. The children have also been sending home the travelling crib and sending back pictures and messages.
Year 6 have written a report, reflecting on the importance of the Advent season. They have thought about how we prepare for Christmas. The children have also led a beautiful prayerful liturgy encouraging us to think about how we can welcome Jesus into our hearts.
This week the children have been engaged in learning about Advent. They have been excited to open the CAFOD Advent Calendar each day to read the associated scripture and to discuss what this means to them and what they can do. Children have begun taking home a crib to share with their families and to record their shared experiences. We have also been reading Christmas stories and tales to learn about the different Christmas traditions and their origins.
In F1 we have been learning about Advent and the special time in the lead up to Christmas day. We have a class calendar which a different child opens each day with an act of kindness for us to complete as well as part of the Nativity story. We have been learning about Jesus’ birth and read stories to find out what happened. The children have retold the story using props and figures. We are all very excited about Christmas and have been talking lots about what we would like Santa to bring us!
In Autumn 1 Year 3 learned all about becoming and being part of The Christian Family. To help the children fully understand the Sacrament of Baptism, we decided to hold our own! The children thoroughly enjoyed acting out the roles and used the experience in the following lesson to write about the signs and symbols of Baptism.
In our first half term, we focused on God’s wonderful world. We learned that God made the whole world and everything in it, including us! We explored how God made us all different and special. We have made paintings and zigzag books of some of God’s fantastic creations, as well as considering ways in which we can look after God’s world, such as keeping the seas clean, caring for plants and animals, plus recycling. We have said prayers together and sang songs to thank God for all that he has made: we continue to focus on this in our collective worship in November.
Mrs Nickeas and two members of our GIFT Team travelled to St Bede’s College last Friday to attend the launch event for Hope in The Future stage 5. We enjoyed meeting children and staff from other schools in the Diocese and learning about the Faith in Action projects carried out by a number of Salford schools. We had the opportunity to visit stalls representing social justice charities in our local area before finishing the day taking part in a liturgy led by Bishop John.
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Please find a range of resources to support your prayer life at home this week.
www.tentenresources.co.uk/daily-prayers-for-home
https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/sunday-liturgy-for-families/
https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/primary/parents/
www.tentenresources.co.uk/15-prayers
Please find a range of resources to support your prayer life at home.
This weeks collective worship is entitled ‘A Meeting with Jesus’. Please follow the assembly video link below to access this at home and enjoy with your families.
https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/primary-subscription/assemblies/assembly-2020-04-27/2020_04_27_assembly_for_home/
One of our families (including an ex-pupil on the guitar) has been hard at work and having lots of fun choreographing their wind and fire dance for the ‘Holy Spirit Comes’ Brilliant work.
Below is an entire list of websites offering free subscriptions due to the school closure
Below are links to the Ten:Ten resources which can be used to support the prayer life at home during these difficult times.
PRAYERS FOR HOME
For the time being, we have suspended our normal Assembly and Daily Classroom Prayer resources and in their place, we have produced new resources which you can share with your families:
We plan to make these resources available throughout the Easter holidays and continue until normal service resumes in schools and churches.
This is an opportunity for your staff – including home-working staff – to fully review the materials and plan your Relationship and Health Education programme in readiness for statutory RHE, starting in September 2020. This free Extended Trial be available until Friday 22 May 2020.
Children from F2 to Year 6 took part in our Lent fundraiser – What’s your goal? Throughout the day children showed exceptional skill, determination and knowledge to perform keepie-uppies, score penalties, hit the crossbar and demonstrate their knowledge of football teams. The event was expertly organised the Year 5 children, who despite the cold and wet weather, maintained their enthusiasm throughout the day. Thanks to the children’s fantastic efforts we raised a brilliant £122. Thank you for your support.
As part of our charity work to support the ‘St Joseph’s Penny’ appeal, we decided to sell pancakes at break time as a way to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, before we start our journey through Lent. St Joseph’s Penny is a very important charity that supports vulnerable children and families in our local community. We enjoyed our pancakes especially sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice – delicious!
This half term in Nursery we have been very busy learning all about Winter. We have used our senses to look for signs of Winter outside and discuss the changes we have seen.
In Literacy we have focussed on the books ‘Say hello to the snowy animals’ and ‘Lost and Found.’ We have been working hard on developing our mark-making skills practising different patterns each week and also thinking carefully about the initial sounds in words we can hear. The children have helped to create story maps of each story and also innovated the stories to change and add our own pages and endings.
In phonics we have focused on alliteration and played lots of fun games to get us tuned into hearing the initial sounds of words. The children have especially loved making our own silly soup!
In Maths we have continued to focus on numbers to 5 but also been working on suing some new vocabulary to describe quantities- ‘more, ‘less’ and ‘same’. The children have enjoyed singing new counting songs and rhymes around our polar animal theme and have also been practising counting other things that can’t be moved such as jumps and claps.
We have been thinking a lot about changes we can see outside during Winter and also exploring ice in different forms. The children have discussed clothes to wear in Winter weather and also learnt the names of some arctic animals. We found out that Penguins are from the South Pole and what it is like there. We have also celebrated Chinese New year and tried some yummy Chinese food. The children enjoyed making lanterns and finding out about the Zodiac calendar and animal race.
In R.E we have been getting to know Jesus and how he showed love to other’s. We have learnt about some of the miracles he performed and also thought about how we can show our love and be kind to others.
We have loved our new weekly dance lesson in the hall, practising some basic movements and also listening carefully to instructions. The children have mastered taking off/ putting on their shoes and socks in record time! Their favourite activity was singing ‘sleeping bunnies’ but changing the names and movements to some of the arctic animals we have learnt about in class.
In PSHE we have been learning about how we are all special and unique and the children have been able to think about what makes them who they are. They particularly enjoyed making their ‘I am special crowns’.
Outdoor learning has been fun with lots of discussions around the Winter weather we have experienced and also the signs of winter in the environment. Children have been busy making winter soups in the mud kitchen, fixing things in our new tool station and dressing the dolls ready for the winter weather.
Our next topic is ‘Under the Sea’ with a special trip to the Sea life Centre planned for 10th March. We will also be beginning our ‘Little Biker’s course in school each Friday next half term where children will learn to ride a balance bike.
What a great start to 2020 it has been in F1. Have a lovely February half term everyone 🙂
Sister Dolores came into Year 6 to talk to the children about the Mass, looking at how it has evolved from ‘The Last Supper’ and then subsequently the Apostles meeting together after Jesus’ death, into the Eucharistic Service we celebrate today. Sister was able to give the children lots of interesting information and explain the different parts of the Mass, looking at the meanings and symbols. It gave the children chance to ask questions and gain a much better understanding of the Mass we celebrate today.
During Advent, Year 4 have thinking about how to prepare and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. Our class collective worships have been based around this and we have been counting down using the CAFOD calendar., thinking about how we can help others and be less selfish. In our RE work, we wrote instructions for the Year 3 children, explaining how to prepare properly. Each child has also had a turn at writing a prayer at home with our travelling crib and created Christmas cards to deliver to the locate community, spreading joy at this important time of the new liturgical year.
We are so proud of all of our EYFS children. They put on a fantastic nativity performance: beautiful singing, actions and story telling. Most importantly all of the children enjoyed themselves and joined in with big smiles on their faces. What a beautiful way to retell the story of the first Christmas.
Year 1 and 2 put on a fabulous of Babushka last week. The year 1 choir were an amazing support to our year 2’s, well done! This week we have also made some beautiful Christmas cards and delivered them to our neighbouring community. Merry Christmas everyone!
This week, Year Two have performed the Christmas Play Babushka. The children thoroughly enjoyed acting, singing and doing actions. They have worked very hard over the last few weeks learning their lines and perfecting their actions. Well done Year Two! What a fantastic Performance!
Children from Years 5 and 6 were joined by children from St. Thomas More High School and St. John Fisher for the annual Christmas concert. Following performances by St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher it was the turn of St. Mary’s children and they didn’t disappoint. Following a beautifully read montage the children sang The Greatest Gift; followed by a reading from the Gospel of John before bringing their performance to a close with an outstanding performance of Mary Did You Know which they performed a cappella. The children were absolutely amazing and fully deserved the plaudits and congratulations they have received follo
wing the concert. Well done to all involved.
As we enter this special time of year, the children in F2 will be preparing for Christmas by thinking about the story of Jesus’ birth. We have a class Advent calendar in our sacred space. For each day of Advent, we will complete a simple action such as reading a story from our class bible, or saying something kind to another member of our class. We are reflecting on the Christmas story as we rehearse our EYFS nativity play.
Each class in the school has its own “travelling crib”: a bag containing a crib scene, a candle and a book for reflections. Enjoy taking time to explore the crib and the figures with your child and talking about the Christmas story. You may light the candle to say a prayer together, then add reflections into the book to share in school – perhaps your child would like to draw a picture of the first Christmas, or you may wish to make up a prayer together. We look forward to sharing your reflections in our class.
Linked to the RE unit this term the Year 6 children led the collective worship with the theme of the Kingdom of God. The children through roleplays looked at the values of the Kingdom of God, values such as hope, peace, forgiveness, love, truth, courage and faith. The children demonstrated ways to live out the values in our everyday lives. They retold the parable of ‘The master and the grand banquet’ sending the message that everyone is invited into the Kingdom of God and that we must not make excuses but accept the invitation with open arms.
On Thursday, Year 4 led us in a very reflective collective worship which focused on God’s chosen people in the old testament. They took us through some of the stories in Genesis and Exodus, looking at the key figures Abraham and Moses. With their acting and singing, they also asked the school to think about how the stories can help us today by placing our trust in God. Have a listen to their song: all though history!
Year 5 led the school in their collective worship which informed everybody about this year CAFOD appeal to Brighten Up and raise money for Harvest. The focus of the assembly was water. The children expertly told us how we use water everyday and take it for granted; however, there are also children around the world who are less fortunate and have to walk up to 5km, three times a day to fetch water for their family before going to school. However, with the help of the money so generously raised by St. Mary’s these communities are supplied with water towers and pumps which gives them a regular of water so that the children are all able to attend school. Throughout the school children took part in messy hair day and there were truly terrible hairstyles (and that’s just the teachers). Thank you to everybody for your kind donations and Year 5 in leading this year’s appeal.
Congratulations to the Y3 and Y4 children on their wonderful performance of ‘Good News’. The children retold the Passion of Jesus through drama and song. We saw some super acting and confident narration from Year 4. They were most ably supported by Year
3 who proved themselves talented singers.
The GIFT Teams from St Mary’s, St John Fisher and St Thomas More led a Lenten Reflection based on the Stations of the Cross in St Mary’s Church. Each team produced artwork inspired by the Stations.
Year 5’s RE topic this term is ‘World Faiths’, as part of this topic we have been looking at the Buddhist faith – Buddhism. We have been learning about the beliefs and traditions within this faith, Buddhists regularly meditate and year 5 wanted to try meditation for themselves. It was an enjoyable experience, everyone joined in and participated in the meditation.
