Summer Term Issue 32: 05th June 2026
Flourishing in the love of God, love of life, love of learning
Dear SJSC Families,
Welcome back! While it wasn’t quite the return we had all planned for on Monday, it was wonderful to see everyone back in school on Tuesday, ready and raring to go. Thank you so much for your support and understanding regarding the local water issues—we really appreciate it.
Can you believe we are already in the final half term of this academic year? Time has flown! You will shortly receive another key dates reminder for the remainder of the term. There is so much happening, and we would love you to join us whenever you can.
A particular highlight coming up is our Eco March on Goose Green next Friday. Our fantastic Eco Team will be helping to raise awareness of important environmental issues across the school, before we head out to the green at 2:15pm to make our voices heard. We would be delighted if you could come along, join in, and support this important cause.
It has also been a brilliant Maths Week here at SJSC. Our KS2 pupils thoroughly enjoyed a Mathematical Adventure show, and we were delighted to welcome visitors from Mathletics. They got in touch specifically to celebrate the outstanding engagement and achievement across the school, including the impressive number of children reaching Legend status. We truly do love maths at SJSC!
Wishing you all a lovely and restful weekend.
Warmest wishes,
Alli
News from Governors
From Hannah Hickman, (Co) Chair of Governors
The governors had their last full governing board meeting just before half term. The governing board has had several new members this year with Billy Chan, Marie Perry and Lucy Wilkins all joining at the start of the year.
We have also said goodbye to Leonie Saywell with her term comes to an end at the end of July. Leonie has been a member of the governing board for many years and has made a valuable contribution in supporting the school. We all wish Leonie well and are very grateful for the time, expertise and care that she has shared.
Over the course of the year governors visits have taken place around safeguarding, leadership, pupil premium, Special Educational Needs and SATS, as some examples.
The governing board has signed off the budget for next year and while money is tight, as with all public services at the moment, the school is in a good place for the next academic year.
Governors have also discussed and scrutinised the school’s data around performance and support for children as well as reviewing key policies.
There is a lot going on in Education at the moment with the Schools White Paper (Every Child Achieving and Thriving) being published in the Spring Term along with the SEND Consultation. The changes that this new policy will bring are being thought through now and I joined Alli at a Southwark school leaders meeting today to discuss some of the changes that are happening and how schools can best be supported by the Local Authority.
We hope the rest of the year goes well for everyone and look forward to being back in touch in the new academic year!
Hannah Hickman
Co-Chair of Governors
Reception
This week in Reception we have been having a brilliant time exploring all things Pirates inspired by our new book “The Night Pirates” where a group of child pirates trick the grown-up Captain Patch and his cowardly crew! Children have been drawing maps, writing letters applying to join the crew, singing sea shanties and digging for treasure. In RE we have been thinking about the natural world around us and what makes our world wonderful. In maths we have started using Rekenreks a type of abacus that helps us visualise numbers.
The children have been really impressing us with their reading and writing skills and this half term we really want to see if we can crack correct letter formation to be ready for year 1. You could help practise with your child in their red phonics book. Make sure they are starting and finishing all their letters in the right place, and that letters are facing the right way.
Looking forward to Pirate Day today! Ahoy me hartees!
Year 1
We have had a wonderful first week Year one and it has been so lovely to welcome the children back. They have all returned with fantastic enthusiasm and have settled brilliantly into their learning.
In English, we have started exploring our new text, Pig and the Pug. We have been using the conjunctions and and but to add more detail to our sentences and make our writing more interesting. The children have also been challenging themselves to uplevel their vocabulary and have been exploring the prefix un-, thinking carefully about how it changes the meaning of words and can be used to compare.
In Maths, we have been developing our understanding of grouping in 2s, 5s and 10s. The children enjoyed using practical manipulatives and working at their new tables to create and identify equal groups, supporting them to build strong foundations for multiplication.
In Science, we have moved on to our exciting new topic, the Human body. We began by thinking about the parts of the body we already know and worked collaboratively in our new table groups to draw and label our own body outlines. It has been fantastic to see the children sharing ideas, working together and showing such curiosity towards our new learning.
We are incredibly proud of how brilliantly and positively the children have returned to school and look forward to another exciting week ahead!
Year 2
Year 2 have started their new topic, The Great Fire of London, and the children are already so excited to begin their learning! To introduce the topic, they explored modern London and its famous landmarks, including Tower Bridge, the London Eye and The Shard.
The children then used this knowledge to create fantastic tourist leaflets to help promote London. They did an amazing job using a range of sentence types, including commands, exclamations, questions and statements, to make their writing engaging and informative.
We are very excited for the children to share their wonderful leaflets as part of our Great Fire of London Exhibition on Wednesday 15th July. We’re also looking forward to seeing all the brilliant work they will create throughout this topic!
Year 3
In year 3, we have been learning more about the importance of the River Nile to the ancient Egyptian civilisation. We worked as small teams to answer the question ‘What helped to make Ancient Egypt a successful civilisation?’ We used images of images and a poem from the time, as well as information texts to develop our understanding before creating a group collage reflecting our ideas.
Year 4
For the past few weeks, we have been learning about Anglo-Saxon life! This week, we explored how they chose to live in small villages rather than large Roman towns, building homes around a central hall and settling near water sources to support farming and provide food.
We then used everything we had learned to design our own Anglo-Saxon villages, and we had so much fun thinking about all the things we would need for our new settlements!
Year 5
In year 5, we have started our new topic about the Benin Kingdom – asking ourselves ‘Why does legacy matter?’. In our first lesson, we created timelines to put the Benin Kingdom into context with European history. It was interesting to learn that it crossed over with the Vikings and The Tudors!
Year 6
This week, we enjoyed an exciting interactive theatre maths show all about the relationships between numbers and the four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Through drama, games and problem-solving, we explored how numbers connect and how different operations can be used together. The children were fully engaged and developed their confidence in mathematical thinking while having lots of fun.
We loved seeing the children participate so enthusiastically and use their maths skills in creative ways!
Music this week…
In Year 4, children are continuing to learn about the Opera, Hansel and Gretel. In scene two, the children find themselves lost in the woods. Gretel tries to distract Hansel by singing him a Riddle. The lyrics are as follows:
What Gretel is really singing about is a plant, the Rosehip. Kapoor Class have been practising the song and making up their own riddles. You can hear a recording of their singing by clicking on the link
Monet Class were making a sound scape of sounds which might have been heard in the woods; listen out for the rustling of a hedgehog in the leaves, the pitter patter of rain, the gentle wind and some animal noises
Year 3 are continuing to learn about Beethoven and take an in depth look at his Symphony Pastoral. You can hear a recording of them singing Verse 1 of Oh Beethoven! See if you can you hear what his school teachers said about him as a pupil.
This week, we were very lucky to welcome a representative from Mathletics to celebrate our achievements on the platform. The children were delighted to receive a giant certificate and a special Mathletics-branded pen in recognition of their hard work and dedication.
A huge congratulations to Year 2 Kusama, who achieved the highest number of points across the entire school – an incredible accomplishment! We also celebrated the top point scorers from each year group, recognising their commitment and enthusiasm. Well done to all of our pupils for their fantastic efforts and continued engagement with Mathletics. We are very proud of their achievements!
Friends of SJSC
Thank you to everyone who signed up to have a Truepenny’s board outside their house to advertise our Summer Fair. We had 81 people sign up - which is a new record - and has raised £1,215 for our school! A relatively easy way to raise lots of cash so thank you!
The Summer Fair is just 2 weeks away and we are still in need of some volunteers to help. Specifically if you are a trained First Aider, please could you volunteer to do a shift at the Fair. If you could let your Class Rep or someone from the Committee know please.
We look forward to seeing you all there on Saturday 20th June, 1pm-4pm for a lot of fun (in the sun hopefully!)
Stars of the Week
Well done to all of our stars who have demonstrated our school values brilliantly this week!
Enjoy the weekend!