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- Newsletter 8 November 2024
Dear Parents and Carers of St Cuthbert’s, Anti-bullying Week 18 – 22 November In the week beginning the 18 November we will be holding our ‘Anti-bullying Week’ at St Cuthbert’s. Our Safeguarding Champions will be hosting our whole school assembly on Monday of that week and all classes will then participate in a range of activities throughout the week aimed at helping children to recognise bullying when it is happening, the negative impact it can have on others and to help develop the necessary strategies and skills to deal with bullying. On Monday 18 November , we will be celebrating Odd Socks Day . Children are invited to come into school wearing odd and brightly coloured socks for a fun and lighthearted event that encourages people to embrace individuality and celebrate differences. Non-Uniform Day On Friday 22 November , we will be having a Non-uniform Day for the whole school. We are asking for any donations, for example chocolates, toiletries, new toys and/or games to be brought in by the children in lieu of the Non-uniform Day which will then be used as raffle and tombola prizes for the Christmas Fair which we will be hosting on the afternoon of Friday 6 December . Book Fair We are hosting our annual Scholastic Book Fair at St Cuthbert’s week beginning 11 November 2024. The children will be taken to view the selection of books on offer on Monday and Tuesday and then the Book Fair will be open for parents/carers to attend on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after school from 3.15pm. Books can be bought by using cash or the QR code which will be available at the fair. Children should be collected from their normal entrance and then brought back into school through the main reception door. If parents and carers are unable to attend the Book Fair but would still like to purchase a book, please send the correct monies into school on either Monday 18 or Tuesday 19 November when the Book Fair will still be on site. Early Morning Snack/Breakfast at St Cuthbert’s From Monday 18 November, we will be offering all of the children at St Cuthbert’s toast as an early morning snack/breakfast. This will be prepared by our teaching assistants and ready for the children when they arrive at school. This snack will be free of charge and available to all children. Attendance and Punctuality Please see below our latest attendance figures for St Cuthbert’s. Attendance from September 5th up until November 8th Reception Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 95.2% 96.6% 96.4% 96.2% 96.3% 94.5% 96.7% Green Zone: 97% and above; Amber Zone: 91-96%; Red Zone: 90% and below Please continue to support your child with their attendance and prompt arrival at school before the main gates close. Good attendance provides every child with the best chance of success at primary school and helps ensure they are ready for the challenges of high school. Every day at school counts and no child should be put at a disadvantage by missing school days where they can learn, spend time with their friends and teachers and get the very best out of their primary school days. We fully understand and support school absences when children are too poorly to attend and we know that this type of absence is completely unavoidable, but we please ask that you make appointments, whenever possible, outside of the school day and that you do not take holidays during term time. If your child is too poorly to attend school, please follow our school procedures and ring school on the first day of absence no later than 9.30am and by 9.30am on each subsequent day of absence. Polite Reminder re: the school day 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 of their learning in school. Please ensure you arrive at school in time for your child to start their school day properly and alongside their classmates. Dates for the Diary We have a full list of all of our school events on the Dates for your Diary. Please check the dates carefully so that you don’t miss out on anything. If there is anything you would like to discuss or if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your continued support of St Cuthbert’s; it is really very much appreciated by us all. Best wishes, Mrs Bullerwell
- Dates for your Diary 4 Nov - 20 Dec
Date Time Event Monday 4th November 08:30 School Re-opens after Half-Term Thursday 7th November All Day Year 5 Trip to Newcastle Castle Friday 8th November AM NHS Flu Vaccinations (Rec – Year 6) Tuesday 12th November 3:20 Parent/Carers Evening Wednesday 13th November 08:45 Reception Reading Cafe Tuesday 19th November 3:20 Parent/Carers Evening Wednesday 20th November 08:45 Year 1 Reading Café Friday 22nd November All Day Own Clothes day - Bring a Tombola/Raffle Prize for Christmas Fair Wednesday 27th November 08:45 Year 2 Reading Café Wednesday 4th December 08:45 Year 3 Reading Café Friday 6th December PM Christmas Fair Tuesday 10th December 09:00 Reception Christmas Sing Song – Parents/Carers invited Tuesday 10th December 12:00 Christmas Lunch Wednesday 11th December 09:00 Nursery Christmas Sing Song – Parents/Carers invited Wednesday 11th December 9.00 Jack & the Beanstalk Panto (Rec – Year 4) Thursday 12th December 10:30 Year 6 Carol Singing at the Toby Carvery Friday 13th December 09:00 KS1 Nativity – Parents/Carers invited Monday 16th December 2pm KS2 Carols by Candlelight – Parents/Carers invited Tuesday 17th December 2pm KS2 Carols by Candlelight – Parents/Carers invited Wednesday 18th December All Day Christmas Party Day Thursday 19th December 3:15 School Closes for the Christmas Holidays
- Year 4: Autumn 2024
- 06.09.24 - Year 4 have had a great start to the year! They have loved working together to come up with some fabulous class rules as well as modelling solid, liquids and gases particles in our science topic 'States of Matter'. Well done for a great start, Year 4! -13.09.24 - Year 4 have enjoyed their first music lesson and have worked collaboratively to identify features of mountain landscapes, as part of our Geography topic. Super work! - 27.9.24 - Year 4 have had an exciting week in English this week! They also enjoyed their French session. - 11.10.24 - Year 4 thoroughly enjoyed their Fire Safety talk this week. We spoke about lots of different things: how to stay safe in our homes, the importance of fire alarms and testing them frequently, signs and causes of a fire and what to do if there's a fire. We also loved filling in the workbook after the session! Well done, Year 4! Year 4 thoroughly enjoyed science this week! We explored the types of teeth we have and their functions. We discussed how to look after our teeth and why this is important. Near the end of the lesson, we played some matching games on the iPads - some Year 4 members definitely got competitive about how quickly they could complete the tasks!
- Year 3: Autumn 2024
Well done to all of the children in Year 3 for a fantastic first week back! The children have worked hard in Maths to revise the place value of three and four digit numbers and have been practising hand- to- eye coordination in PE ready for basketball. On Wednesday we visited our beautiful school library and listened to Mrs Hacking reading a story then chose a new book to read. Year 3 enjoyed a French lesson with Madame Dryden this week. They learnt how to say numbers up to twenty and skip at the same time! In RE, Year 3 have been looking at how The Holy Family show love towards each other by using magnifying glasses to look in detail at a piece of art work called, 'Christ In The House of His Parents. During Science we identified the main bones in a human skeleton and looked at examples of endoskeletons, exoskeletons and hydrostatic skeletons. Year 3 have been adding and subtracting using their knowledge of place value. Year 3 have been learning about Rosa Parks as part of Black history week in school. The children worked collaboratively to produce information posters explaining the key events that led to the bus boycott. We have also been enjoying listening to Tina Turner, OutKast, Aretha Franklin and The Lighthouse Family!
- Reception: Autumn 2024
We loved retelling the story of ‘Farmer Duck’ in the Butterfly Garden. We felt sorry for the poor duck who had to do all the work and we were pleased when the animals chased the lazy farmer away. Reception have enjoyed counting sets of objects from our 'Counting Collections' boxes. We estimated how many were in the box, counted the amount then drew the corresponding number of objects on our wipeboards. Reception love learning new phonic sounds and enjoy writing the corresponding letters on their wipeboards. They had fun going on a letter hunt in the Butterfly Garden. In Reception, we have been learning each others names and thinking about what we all look like. We have painted pictures of ourselves, drawn outlines of our bodies with chalks and made ourselves with the playdough. We have had a great few days in Reception class, making new friends and exploring all of the toys. Reception class heard the story of Guy Fawkes and why we celebrate Bonfire Night. We talked about fireworks we'd seen and made our own firework pictures.
- Year 2: Autumn 2024
Friends Year 2 have loved getting back into school and spending time with their friends after the Summer holidays! Ocarinas Year 2 have been learning the Ocarinas, a wind instrument. We learned to play High D, Low D, A, B, G, C#, E and F#. We used 'OcPics' to read the music. Watercolours We've been experimenting with different techniques to create art using watercolour paints. We tried splatter, wax resist, dabbing techniques and experimented using salt to create different effects. Wizard of Oz Roleplay Our topic this term is The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Today we've been exploring the different characters, focusing on the Lion. We particularly analyzed how his character changed from ferocious to cowardly when Dorothy stood up to him. We acted out the scene and used hot-seating and freeze frame techniques to really get inside the character's head. Paul Klee To round off our watercolour unit in Art, we created art work inspired by Swiss artist, Paul Klee. We studied a variety of his art and discussed how we felt about it and what we noticed. We focused particularly on 'Castle and Sun' (1928) and used our new wax-resist skills to create lines and watercolours to paint over - noticing how watery paint settled on the paper and not on the wax. In our music unit, Year 2 learned to play Twinkle Twinkle using the ocarinas. We used 'OcPics' to read the notes we needed to play
- Year 1: Autumn 2024
Year 1 have been learning all about the amazing expedition led by Captain to get to the South Pole! This week, we followed the clues from Reginald Rake to go exploring around our playground! We made a physical map of all of the places we visited then created our own map with a key. We have also started our 'addition' topic in maths, learning how to read and write different addition equations and solving them using practical objects or jumping on the number line. We have been making representations of different 2 digit numbers, using long sticks to represent the multiples of 10 and little squares for the units. It was hard work putting them all in the right order for our great big class numberline! Reginald Rake sent us a message to say we needed to follow the clues to find all of the items for the scarecrow's wedding! We were so clever to follow the clues and find a lovely treat at the end. We also explored colour mixing, trying to create as many colours as we could by using just red, yellow and blue! We were able to create different shades of the secondary colours by using different amounts of each primary colour. Fantastic! We loved spending time in our school chapel, taking part in a collective worship about the theme of 'families'. We listened to God's Word, took part in a litany of thanks and shared ways in which we will show love to our families. We have also ben practicing counting in 2s, identifying multiples of 2 and solving some tricky problems. It's the right time of year for planting some bulbs! We are so excited to keep track of how they grow and electing a weekly 'plants monitor' to take care of them. Watch this space...! We loved investigating our senses this week! Our favourite investigation was definitely the taste test... We also learned about how much God loves us and created some art to show that we understand the meaning of the message. This week we have launched into our brand new maths topic of 'place value' counting all of the way to 100 and learning about multiples of 10! We have loved playing lots of counting games, creating our own number squares, drawing 100 objects and counting out large amounts by arranging them in groups of 10. We've also enjoyed looking for labels around the classroom and adding our own labels. We even labelled a spider we found! We named lots of parts of our bodies and made amazing diagrams after drawing around eachother! in RE we have been learning about God's love and comparing it to the love of our families. We acted out Psalm 28 and shared our own experiences of different families. What a fantastic first week in Year 1! We have loved catching up with our friends, exploring the Year 1 classroom and finding out all about the story of 'The Wizard of Oz.'
- Year 5: Autumn 2024
Y5 enjoyed an epic trip to the Newcastle Castle. We met a fantastic team of tour guides and an expert on the infamous 'trials' that took place in 17th century Newcastle. The local history was so interesting and we understood more about the vulnerable people of the day that were targeted for financial gain! Our children were so enthusiastic and a credit to our school with several members of the public committing on their manners and good behaviour. Year 5 took part in the Biggest Assembly, this morning. Picture News - who provide child-friendly news feed - organised a country wide event. There were opportunities for discussion, and we considered our British and Gospel Values. It was very interesting. Year 5 enjoyed some teambuilding with Miss Thompson, this week. The had to work as a team to move the group forward. However, they had to use different ways to communicate. Y5 were looking at examples of diary entries. We worked with our talk partners to read extracts to each other, as well as reading them as a class. We were able to recognise several English language features for this genre. 'Bikeability' was great fun! Congratulations to those who achieved Level 1 or 2. Huge thanks to the Creative Dance Centre for working with Y5 this Autumn term. The children have thoroughly enjoyed their journey through dance. In computing, Y5 are using shapes and software to create vector drawings. We had real fun using various tools. The children of Y5 presented and voted on school roles. This was optional. The electees spoke to their class to outline their manifestos. We used Microsoft Forms and iPads to record our votes to maintain discretion. Well done to all the children who outlined their vision and good luck for the collation of votes. Y5 celebrated Dyslexia Awareness Week. After our assembly, we talked about dyslexia and what that might mean for children. We described it as a 'superpower' for creative and different thinking.
- Nursery: Autumn 2024
We have had a colourful and explosive week in Nursery talking about the fireworks we’ve seen and recreating them. We flicked paint onto large paper to create a firework filled night sky. We made some biscuit rockets which tasted scrumptious and explored lots of firework themed tuff trays. Nursery have had a great first week in Nursery playing with all the new toys and meeting lots of new friends. Nursery have enjoyed exploring their senses in the new ‘Sensory Room’. We loved playing in the ball pool, chilling out in the den surrounded by twinkling lights. We have also been learning how to balance on various beams and objects. Nursery have been ‘Happy and you know it’ this week exploring all things ‘Nursery Rhyme’. We have been ‘Five little monkeys jumping on the bed’-Don’t tell Mrs Bullerwell! We have loved playing musical instruments and singing along to different rhymes and have played with numerous nursery rhyme tuff trays. Nursery have been learning about ourselves this week. We painted, chalked,and drew images of ourselves. We talked about how our body reacts to big feelings e.g. happy and sad. We enjoyed making silly faces with different resources in Nursery. Nursery have been exploring the world around them using our Five Senses. We have listened to some mysterious sounds, played eye spy and used our hands and feet to feel different textures. We used our noses to smell some delicious chocolate and some very stinky cheese. We had fabulous fun wearing blindfolds and tasting some salty popcorn and some very bitter lemon. Nursery have loved investigating the season of Autumn. We created our own sticky collage of autumn objects, jumped in a pile of leaves and listened to the crackling under our feet. We enjoyed making our very own Spiky hedgehogs using playdough and sticks.
- Stories & Histories Come to Life at St Cuthbert’s
The curriculum has been brought vividly to life for children at St Cuthbert’s Catholic Primary School, with the introduction of a colourful mural and a themed new library. Created by artist Jamie Henderson from Cloud H, the hand-painted mural fills the entrance and stairwell at our school, and was designed with the help of Headteacher Anne Bullerwell. It features key historical ages, along with some familiar landmarks. “It’s an ancient history timeline,” explained Mrs Bullerwell. “It depicts scenes from ancient history, including Prehistoric, Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age – including some local history, with a depiction of Howick House Stone Age dwelling from 7600 BC – Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome. “It reflects the Key Stage 2 History Curriculum, engages and excites the children, and makes use of a plain stairwell to enhance the teaching and learning environment of the school. “The children were absolutely blown away when they saw it. There were gasps of ‘Wow!’ as they entered the building.” There was another surprise in store for the pupils at St Cuthbert’s, which is part of the Bishop Bewick Catholic Education Trust – the library had also received a dramatic new look, and had been transformed into an ‘enchanted forest’. Devised by Mrs Bullerwell and the company Promote Your School, the makeover included a wall mural of scenes and characters from classic children’s books. “The idea was to develop an immersive feel to the library, so as to give it a feeling of being in an enchanted forest,” said Mrs Bullerwell. “The children love it, and describe it as a ‘magical place’ where they can ‘visit different places and live the lives of different people’. “The library is timetabled for use every day by classes. We also run a Reading for Pleasure lunch club, and teachers have hosted reading sessions for our more able readers to broaden their range of reading material. “We also host our extremely popular and well attended parent/carer Reading Cafes in the library.” Our new library is home to thousands of books, while an electronic book loaning system has been introduced to facilitate borrowing. “The library is extremely well resourced, and non-fiction books cover the full range of the primary curriculum,” continued Mrs Bullerwell. “We have a well-stocked section focusing on local history and geography. “Our fiction range covers all genres and includes authors ranging from Charles Dickens to Sharna Jackson. We have a well-stocked bi-lingual section to support our EAL [English as an Additional Language] learners. We also have a range of children’s books set in the local area.” Both projects were funded by the school’s Parent Teacher and Friends Association. “We have a phenomenally proactive and effective PTFA who host a range of fundraising events across the year,” added Mrs Bullerwell. “Any events we host alongside the PTFA are always well attended and supported by parents and carers.”
- Dates for your Diary 3 Sept - 25 Oct
Date Time Event Tuesday 3rd September 08:30 School Re-opens Monday 9th September 3:15-4:15 Reception Open Evening Tuesday 10th September 3:15-4:15 Year 1 Open Evening Monday 16th September 3:15-4:15 Year 2 Open Evening Tuesday 17th September 3:15-4:15 Year 6 Open Evening Friday 20th September AM Year 1 Phonics/Reading meeting Monday 23rd September 3:15-4:15 Year 3 Open Evening Tuesday 24th September 9:00-10:00 Year 1/2 Macmillan Reading Cafe 3:15-4:15 Year 4 Open Evening Wednesday 25th September 9:00-10:00 Year 5/6 Macmillan Reading Cafe Thursday 26th September 9:00-10:00 Year 3/4 Macmillan Reading Cafe Friday 27th September AM Reception Phonics/Reading meeting Monday 30th September 3:15-4:15 Year 5 Opening Evening Monday 7th October 3:15-4:15 Year 6 SATS Parent / Carer meeting Wednesday 23rd October All Day Nursery Spooky Celebration All Day Reception – Year 6 Spooky Disco Friday 25th October AM Reception / Year 6 Buddy Assembly – Parents Carers welcome 3:15 School closes for Half Term
- Reading Cafe Fundraiser
St Cuthbert's Kenton & St George's charity fundraiser: