Date Time Event Monday 3rd March 8:30am School Re-opens after Half-Term Tuesday 4th March 9:00am Year 1 and Year 2 Workshop of Hope parents/carers welcome Wednesday 5th March 9:00am Year 3 and Year 4 Workshop of Hope parents/carers welcome Thursday 6th March 9:00am Year 5 and Year 6 Workshop of Hope parents/carers welcome Friday 7th March 9:00am Sibling Workshop of Hope parents/carers welcome Tuesday 11th March 3:20pm Parent/Carer Evening Wednesday 12th March 9:00am Y4 Maths Workshop Tuesday 18th March 3:20pm Parent/Carer Evening Wednesday 19th March All Day Y5/6 Trip to Holy Island Thursday 20th March 11:00am Whole School Mass in Church (parents/carers invited) Friday 21st March All Day St Cuthbert’s Book Day Tuesday 25th March All Day Reception trip to Newcastle Castle Wednesday 26th March 9:00am Y5 Maths Workshop   AM Y4 Stations of the Cross at the Cathedral Friday 4th April 9:00am Reception Palm Sunday Assembly (parents/carers invited) Monday 7th April 9:00am Early Years & KS1 Sibling Easter Craft Morning (parents/carers invited) Tuesday 8th April 9:00am KS1 Easter Craft Morning (parents/carers invited) Wednesday 9th April All Day Nursery & Reception Easter Celebration Day – Children to wear White or Yellow 9:00am Nursery & Reception Easter Craft Morning (parents/carers invited) Thursday 10th April All Day Easter Disco Friday 11th April 3:15pm School Closes for Easter Holidays

Year 4 loved PE and Science this week! In PE, we looked at throwing and catching skills needed in rugby and in science we have started to look at classifying plants - super work, Year 4! Year 4 enjoyed the beginning of our data topic in Computing. We looked at different types of data, created our own questions and began collecting data in different ways! Year 4 are loving their sports/game full cube jar morning! Have a lovely half term from all of Year 4!  Year 4 loved their music session this week and are making great progress with their stitching - this week we looked at backstitching. Next week, we will be making our final products - we are all very excited!  Year 4 enjoyed a games session with a special visitor and have also been working super hard in DT this week with their stitching! Well done, Year 4! Year 4 loved working with Year 3 this week to peer assess their Stone Age non-chronological reports. The children worked collaboratively to help read and also mark their work with a checklist! Super teamwork!  Year 4 looked at how to stay safe online in RHE this week - we created our own gameshow quiz and had discussions about what is suitable and not suitable to share online. Year 4 are also enjoying their music sessions with Cathy!  Year 4 have looked more closely at Catalonia this week in geography - some fantastic research was carried out! Year 4 have started looking at what we already know about Poetry for their English topic this term. We have also recapped the 7 continents in geography - we even placed the continents in size order and had a little sing-along to the 7 continents song!

We are delighted to share our latest Ofsted Report below. 'Pupils thrive in an environment that is caring, supportive and highly inclusive. The school is ambitious for pupils and ensures that they are well prepared for each step in their education journey. This is reflected in their achievement in reading, writing and mathematics, along with a range of other subjects.' OFSTED, 2025 https://www.stcuthbertsk.org/ofsted

Dear Parents and Carers of St Cuthbert’s,   Please check the Dates for your Diary for more information re: the rest of this term so that you don’t miss out on anything.     Workshops of Hope Thank you to all of our families who were able to attend our Workshops of Hope. In addition to the children and families, all of the staff have completed a cross too and together we have produced some beautiful designs and personal images of what hope means to each of us as either individuals or as families. We will be combining these crosses into a whole school cross which will be completely unique to our school.   St Cuthbert’s Book Day Book Sale – Save the Date! As you know, on Friday 21 March, we have our St Cuthbert’s Book Day Book Sale. This is a family event where you can browse the books we have on sale with your child/children, choose a book(s) at your leisure and then get yourself some light refreshments and enjoy your new purchases alongside your child.   Please continue to send your book donations into school and do your utmost to attend the book sale on the day. This is a lovely opportunity for you to spend some time, if you’re able, with your child in school.   As always, children are invited to dress as characters from their favourite books or come into school in their pyjamas as if ready for a bedtime story. This can include face paints but please ensure these are washable and removed by return to school on Monday 24 March. Please do not feel under pressure to buy any expensive costumes for your child and please join us in dressing up if you fancy! More information to follow re: arrangements for the day.   Climate Change and Walk to School Week, week beginning: 31 March As part of our curriculum work on climate change and the impact this can have on the environment, we have been learning all about the little differences we can make in our everyday lives to contribute positively to the prevention of the negative impact of climate change.   One of the messages we will be sharing with the children is the impact of our ‘carbon footprint’ and how this can affect changes in climate. As part of raising awareness of this with the children, we will be hosting a ‘Walk to School Week’ and will be encouraging all of the children to walk to school during the week beginning 31 March.   We fully appreciate that some of our children live quite a distance away from school and families do need to use cars to get to St Cuthbert’s. We would politely ask those families to park a few streets away from the school gates so that their child has the opportunity to fully take part in the week.   We will be doing a ‘Travel to School’ survey each day of this week and every child who has managed to walk all or at least part way to school will be getting a certificate of achievement for that week for trying to reduce their own carbon footprint.   Please do your utmost to support your child’s participation in our Walk to School Week. Thank you.   New Leave of Absence Form Trial We are introducing a new Leave of Absence Form for parents and carers to complete should they request to take their child out of school during term time. We have included the codes school need to use on our school registers which provides the local authority with the reason why a child is not in school. We hope this clarifies school absence and attendance monitoring procedures further for our parents and carers. We would appreciate any feedback you can provide on the new form. Please share this with the school office. Thank you.   Easter Craft Sessions for Early Years and Key Stage 1 We will be hosting our Easter Craft Sessions in school for our parents and carers to attend alongside their child in Early Years and KS1. If you have more than one child in Early Years / KS1 (Years 1&2) we have added a sibling session that you can attend instead.   The sessions for parents/carers to join their children are as follows:   Monday 7 April 9.00am Sibling Session for N/R/Y1 and Y2 parents/carers welcome Tuesday 8 April 9.00am Year 1 and Year 2 parents/carers welcome Wednesday 9 April 9.00am Nursery and Reception parents/carers welcome   Punctuality Our school day begins at 8.45am prompt. We have a number of children who are consistently late and who are missing the first 10-15minutes, and in some cases even longer, of their learning in school. We have collated some seriously concerning data re: the number of lates and minutes of learning missed for some of our children. We will be reaching out to parents and carers directly over the next couple of weeks to see how school can best support them in helping their child to arrive in school on time to begin their day properly alongside their friends and peers.   If you wish to discuss any item in this letter or anything further, please do not hesitate to contact me via the school office.   Best wishes,   Mrs Anne Bullerwell Executive Headteacher

Year 1 have loved learning about the very first part of the Easter Story. We made palms and sang 'Hosanna', then looked at different artists' representations of Palm Sunday before painting our very own!  Year 1 have been very excited to start our new topic of 'Traditional Tales'. We loved reading the story of Rumpelstiltskin and acting it out! Year 1 loved tasting different Chinese flavours! We found out all about the healthy vegetables and which part of the plant we eat. We ate roots, stems and the fruit! Fantastic! Year 1 have loved investigating shapes this week. We named and sorted the 3D shapes in lots of different ways and took part in some tricky challenges! This week, Year 1 have been learning all about the Last Super. We acted out the events and said the special words which Jesus said to his disciples! This week, Year 1 have been investigating shadows and choosing the materials they need to create a shadow puppet theatre to tell the story of Chinese New Year! Year 1 have been working out how to tell the time using our little clocks. We can recognise O'clock and half past times. Fantastic! Year 1 took part in a tricky problem solving activity, working out how to measure the length of the whole yard using just 2 long metre sticks so that we could find out how many houses the Emperor could fit on it! We worked in teams and recorded our results. They were amazingly accurate and everyone worked very hard in their teams! Year 1 loved creating different shades of the same colour by adding different amounts of a bright colour to some white paint. We noticed how the colours gradually became darker and darker. We can't wait to use these skills to create some fantastic shaded blossom tree pictures.

Year 6 ready for black and white day to support Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup Final on Sunday! Year 6 have had a great time in PE this week! Year 6 enjoyed learning about human uses of the Amazon Rainforest through trying to solve a murder case. There are definitely some future detectives out there! Year 6 had a great time enjoying reading for pleasure in our wonderful Library. As part of Mental Health Week, Year 6 took time to write a positive message to another member of the class. They exchanged them and there were lots of smiles, high-fives and hugs! Year 6 have been very helpful supporting each other by peer-marking their writing in English. Year 6 enjoyed discussing some controversial topics in English this week in preparation for writing a balanced argument. Year 6 have had a great first week back! They finished the week by making eco-friendly bird feeders and hung them around the grounds to help the birds in these freezing temperatures!

Year 5 loved their DT project last half term- creating Electric guitars to play in their own band. We have reviewed our footage of the bands and images of our products this week to review our work. Check out our band photographs! Year 5 have been learning about Ash Wednesday this week and some children chose to receive ashes. In computing we have been completing our Database topics and using databases to answer questions and sort data effectively. Year 5 loved ordering and comparing decimal numbers in our active maths session this week. We also enjoyed some time reading with our friends and listening to Sinbad the Sailor's voyages in the library This week we worked with our Reading Buddies to answer tricky questions about a Human Life Cycle. The vocab was super tricky, but we worked as a team to explore this! In Year 5 we looked at effective ways to boost our mood and look after our wellbeing this week. We looked at ways to connect, imagine, boost our self esteem and to to recharge. Our favourite was connecting with others through short games of silly faces! https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/moodboosters Year 5 have used their knowledge to code their own game of rock paper scissors using the Microbit Year 5 loved learning to code the Microbits in Computing this week. Y5 enjoyed a super trip to Newcastle Racecourse. We started a busy day with our BHA workbooks, followed by the weighing room, on the course looking at the fences and then the paddock! We learned a lot about the maths involved in all these areas. We were lucky enough to see the racehorses in the parade ring and we watched them race. Great experience for all. Thanks to Carrie and Toby for their support! Year 5 had a visit from our Police friend. She talked to use about 'county lines' and the dangers of becoming involved with this. Our children approached this with great maturity and asked some very insightful questions. A super first week back!

Year 2 have loved learning to play the glockenspiel this week. Y2 Explored the work of Wassily Kandinsky. We considered how colours can make us feel emotions and created oil pastel artwork inspired by his art. Year 2 have been exploring the story of the Last Supper through role-play this week! This week, Year 2 have been measuring mass. We compared the mass of different objects and moved on to reading scales in grams and kilograms Year 2 investigated buoyancy by testing different materials and using their findings to design and build boats. Each boat had to be under 15cm, float for 2 minutes, and hold 5 cubes. After testing, we evaluated our designs to see what worked best and how we could improve next time! Year 2 have been writing and performing their own 'Imagine' poems. Year 2 have been investigating how exercise effects our bodies, here we are observing the change in our heart rate before and after physical activity.

Reception have enjoyed learning all about castles.  We have drawn and made our own castles.  We have painted large castle walls outside so that we can make our own role-play castle in the Butterfly Garden.  On Shrove Tuesday, we enjoyed learning about why we eat pancakes. We had pancake relay races outside before eating our own delicious, sticky, pancakes! We've enjoyed learning facts about elephants and other jungle animals. We have had fun creating our own jungle collage scene and riding on our safari jeep outside.  We spotted lots of jungle animals! Reception class have loved listening to lots of Elmer stories and talked about why Elmer is so special.  We painted, drew and collaged our own patchwork Elmer the Elephant.  They looked so colourful.  Reception enjoyed their visit to church where we talked about the different religious celebrations that take place there such as Weddings, Baptisms and Mass.  We looked at the features we see in churches and named some of them including the altar, lectern, pews, baptismal font & tabernacle. We liked coming to school dressed in red and yellow clothes to celebrate Chinese New Year with our Nursery friends. We danced to Chinese music, played instruments and joined in with a dragon parade.  We even made our own Chinese concertina dragons.   We have enjoyed learning the names of the planets and their position in the solar system. We held the 3D planets, ordered them and moved around the sun.  We have enjoyed telling stories of being astronauts and going into space on our rocket in the Butterfly Garden. We have enjoyed listening to stories about our new topic of ‘Space’.  We have been learning some new vocabulary about space including the words gravity and craters. We painted some very funny looking aliens and made playdough models of them. We have loved being back at school seeing our friends and playing with all the Reception toys.

Nursery had a fun filled day to celebrate Newcastle United getting to the final of the Carabao Cup. Nursery have had so much fun learning about animals. We talked about our favourite animals and Together, we created and acted out an animal dance. We made some delicious cakes and enjoyed eating them when watching an animal story.  Nursery put on their ‘detective hats’ and looked for clues to see who had made a big mess in the Home Area. We looked at the clues and worked out it was ‘Goldilocks’ who did it. The Nursery CCTV confirmed it; we caught her red-handed sneaking around Nursery making a mess.  We worked up an appetite looking for all the clues, luckily we had some yummy porridge to enjoy after! This week Nursery continued their journey through the magical world of ‘Traditional Tales’. We loved listening to the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and acting it out with our friends. We enjoyed scaring Miss Graham and Mrs Slater with our loud snarling troll voices. We had fun pretending to be goats’ trip, trapping over the bridge and sliding down into the delicious green grass. Once Upon a Time in Nursery a little Gingerbread Man and his friends left us lots of traditional tales’ stories to share. After sharing some of the stories and talking about our favourite characters we decided to make some delicious gingerbread men, that, thank goodness, did not run away! Another Favourite story was the ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ we created our own troll and billy goats. What an amazing week nursery have had Celebrating Chinese New Year. We had so much fun playing in the Chinese Restaurant we created. We loved dragon dancing and playing the musical instruments in the Rainbow Garden to beat of the Chinese music. We treated our taste buds to some delicious Chinese food. We decorated lucky red envelopes and even got to take a special Chinese coin and fortune cookie home. Nursery are really enjoying taking part in PE: balancing, jumping and moving in lots of different ways. This week in nursery we had a ‘chilly time’ learning how to make ice and experimented in different ways to free the artic animals that were trapped in the ice. We had so much fun making our own snowmen using playdough, mini hats and little buttons. We explored the topic of ‘Winter’ in Nursery. We researched all about different kind of artic animals and had fun playing with them in water and ice. We loved playing in the winter wonderland role play area.

Year 3 enjoyed choosing new books in the library this week. Year 3 loved getting outside in the sunshine for their first Tag Rugby lesson. We have been practising how to hold, pass and catch the rugby ball. It's been a busy week in Year 3! We have planned and celebrated a 'Celebration of The Word' for our topic: Journeys and have been using atlases to find countries in the world that don't have clean water. Have a lovely half term! Year 3 have been enjoying reading and performing a range of poetry. Year 3 made prototypes of their party hats this week. They produced lots of interesting models! Year 3 enjoyed completing a product specification in Design Technology and refining their recorder skills. As part of their DT topic, Year 3 visited the children in Year 1 to ask them some questions about favourite colours and interests. Year 3 will be designing and making their Year 1 friends a party hat! Year 3 also enjoyed time in our fantastic library this week. Year 3 have been working really hard in Maths lessons this week. They have been practising times tables, completing arithmetic tasks and have looked at fractions.

March 2025 March marks the beginning of Lent, a time in the Church that focuses on prayer, fasting and almsgiving (charitable giving). This year also brings the added invitation to explore and grow our friendship with God through the celebrations of the Year of Jubilee .   The season brings an exciting opportunity to slow down, put the most important things first and experience the joy that God offers each one of us.   This newsletter shares some of the content children will experience in school throughout March, and suggests ways for you to engage with them about it. We hope it is a useful resource for your family prayer time.    Follow the link for our full Newsletter: March 2025