Summer Term Issue 26: 17th April 2026

Flourishing in the love of God, love of life, love of learning

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Dear SJSC Families,

Welcome back! I hope you all had a lovely Easter holiday and enjoyed some well‑earned rest. It has been wonderful to welcome the children back to school this week. They have returned full of enthusiasm, excitement for the summer term, and noticeably taller too (Monday’s whole‑school Collective Worship was quite a squeeze)!

Our value for this term is CREATIVITY, and we kicked off the week by exploring the power of imagination and how creativity helps us to see the world in different ways. It has been lovely to see this already coming through in classrooms across the school.

Before the holidays, you will have received the Summer Term Key Dates. Please do take a moment to note these, along with individual class events that will be shared during the term.

I also wanted to follow up on a discussion from last half term’s Headteacher Parent Café, where we talked about home–school communication. A really positive idea that came from this was exploring how class reps can feel well‑informed and how WhatsApp communication for parents can be simpler and more effective.

With this in mind, I would like to invite all class representatives to a meeting on Friday 8th May 9-9:45am. At this meeting, we will:

Discuss the use of WhatsApp as a clearer and more effective way for parents to share reminders and information
Talk through the home–school agreement
Look ahead to upcoming events and key messages

It would be fantastic if as many class reps as possible could attend. If you are unable to make it, please feel free to send someone in your place.

Thank you, as always, for your support – it really does make a difference.
Have a wonderful weekend.

Alli

This week Reception had a wonderful time visiting Bocketts Farm! We went on a tractor ride around the farm, saw mummy pigs and sheep with their babies. We were brave enough to feed lots of sheep and goats and even some big cows! Lots of us loved stroking the friendly rabbits and guineapigs. A highlight was the famous pig race with fierce contestants such as Beatrix Trotter, Snoop Hog and Fireman Ham! We finished our day with lots of fun in the soft play. The children were amazing, giving new things a go and being respectful to all the animals, big and small.

Reception

Year 1

Year 1 children returned to school to find mysterious posters hanging around their classroom announcing, “The moon has gone missing!” The children have been working incredibly hard to help locate it by thinking of descriptive adjectives and adding them to their own “lost” posters-what fantastic imagination!

Alongside this, we began our new science unit on animals and humans. The children had great fun working in groups to sort animals and even came up with their own creative ways to classify them, such as “lives on land or in water” and “has a beak or does not have a beak.”

In maths, we have continued to deepen our understanding of addition and subtraction by exploring doubles and finding missing addends and subtrahends. The children have shown great enthusiasm and perseverance!

In RE, we have started our new unit on Islam. Ask your child if they can tell you about the Five Pillars of Islam—we’ve been really impressed with their learning so far!

The Year 1 team are so proud of how the children have returned to school with such a positive, ready-to-learn mindset. Keep up the fantastic work!

In Gormley, we have continued learning about north Africa, this week focusing on the River Nile. We worked in small groups to create a presentation showing why the Nile is so important and how it supports farming and fishing, energy creation, transport and tourism in the region, enabling the settlements along its course to grow.

In Muriu, we have continued to develop our understanding of plants. We were scientists making careful observations of how water is moved from the roots and through the stem to a plant’s leaves, enabling photosynthesis to happen. We were fascinated by how capillary action can be seen when plants are given coloured water!

Year 3

Year 4

We started the term by stepping into our journalistic roles. We discovered that mysterious metal parts had been found scattered along the coast, with local residents reporting strange clanging and banging noises. The children took on the role of reporters and created news reports to be sent back to the studio.

As we began our class text, we discovered that the mystery book was The Iron Man! The children wrote fantastic descriptions of the colossal Iron Man standing on the cliff top before stepping into the abyss and tumbling all the way down the hill, with various parts of his body falling off along the way. We are so excited to continue reading this thrilling story written by Ted Hughes.

Year 5

This week in year 5, the children have bounced back into school life and have gotten stuck into our new topic of space travel – we’ve become historians about the space race, the Soviet Union and the US rivalry from the previous century as well as thinking about life as an African American woman working for NACA in the 50s (Hidden Figures). The children have also started their samba lessons and are on their way to being performance ready at the end of the year! They have also enjoyed their first BSL lesson back after the break.

Year 6

We’ve started playing cricket in the sunshine and have been enjoying building our batting, bowling and fielding skills. Fingers crossed for plenty more lovely spring weather so we can keep the games going!

News from the Art Studio…

Fantastic news from the Art studio this week. Arlo – Year 4 Kapoor, had his work ‘Rising from the Ashes’ selected for a prize in the 4th Plinth Schools Award 2026. Arlo will attend the award ceremony at City Hall, where his work will be displayed as part of the

4th Plinth Schools Award 2026. We are so proud of you and your wonderful work Arlo.

All of Year 4’s amazing submissions will be displayed as part of our Arts Festival celebrating Social Justice on 5th & 6Th May. We look forward to celebrating with you then.

Music this week…

Children in Reception are learning a song called Bow Bow Bow Belinda. For our music lesson this week, we had to learn the difference between our left and right hands. This helped the children to understand which direction to walk in when they were turning in a circle to the right and then to the left. The children also practised linking their right arm with a partner’s right arm so that they could spin together as they sang the song.