Autumn Term Issue 3: 18th September 2026
Flourishing in the love of God, love of life, love of learning
Dear Families,
Thank you to all who managed to make it to ‘Meet the teacher’ sessions. Now that they are all complete we will be sending out the slides.
There a couple of events coming up… Next week we will be holding our Reception Parent Café from 9:15am to 10:15am in the bottom hall. This is a great opportunity to see what our Reception children have been getting up to during their first few weeks at school. We will also be sharing information about the Reception learning goals and offering practical ideas about how you can support your child's learning at home.
Next Friday (25th), we will be hosting our annual International Evening, a special event that celebrates the wonderful diversity of our school community. Everyone is warmly invited to come along and enjoy an evening of music, food and great company.
Where & when: Red zone playground, 3:30-5pm
Own clothes: Children are invited to wear their own clothes in school on Friday and we encourage families to dress in something that represents their culture or something of importance to their family.
Food and drink: The PTFA will be running a bar, with all proceeds going to school. If you would like to contribute food to the spread, please feel free to bring along a favourite family dish to share. We kindly ask that either your container is labelled with your child's name or that you bring the food in a disposable container.
Allergens: To help keep everyone safe, particularly those with allergies, all dishes will need an ingredients label. You are welcome to complete one before you arrive, or there will be plenty of spare labels available on the evening. You should list the ingredients you used in your dish, including cooking oils. We also ask that you please avoid including nuts in any dishes. As this is a family event, parents and carers remain responsible for their children throughout the evening. If your child has any food allergies, please ensure that you monitor the food they choose to sample, and please note that ingredients lists may not include everything.
Supervision: As mentioned, children will be the responsibility of parents and carers. If a child normally goes home by themselves (years 5/6) they must have an adult with them to stay at the event.
The weather!: Whilst the calendar may say September, the weather is not quite so convincing! We are, as ever, optimistically hoping for a lovely evening outdoors, but we are also making plans should the rain decide to join us. If needed, we will use the shed, gazebos and our indoor spaces, creating a wonderful journey of food tasting around the school.
We look forward to seeing many of you at these events.
Have a wonderful weekend.
With warmest wishes,
Alli
Reception
This week in Reception we have been continuing to explore our theme of “What makes me me?” reading The Family Book by Todd Parr, celebrating the diversity of all of our families and continuing to think about belonging. In Drawing Club we have drawn our families, and what we love to do with them. In Understanding the World we looked at our faces in the mirror and drew self-portraits. In RE we have been talking together about what precious means, and who or what is precious to us and why. Really impressed to hear the children start to be able to explain their ideas; “my daddy is precious because he loves me”, “my sister is precious because she makes me laugh”, “my teddy is precious because I love it and I sleep with it every night”.
In Maths we have been learning all about counting and devising our careful counting rules. The children were great at spotting what went wrong with our class puppet’s counting skills- and putting them right.
Outside we have been pouring our own milk and washing up our own cups- and building amazing obstacle courses.
We have started learning letter sounds in Phonics so look out for the phonics packs in their backs this weekend. The children can ‘read’ you their red books and practise with their flash cards.
Year 1
We have had another lovely week of learning as we have continued exploring our text Beegu. In English, we began by thinking carefully about adjectives we could use to describe what Beegu looks like before moving on to considering how she might be feeling. We then used verbs to write advice for Beegu, thinking about what she could do to help herself. The children have shown such wonderful imagination and empathy, thinking carefully about how Beegu might be feeling and how they could help her. To bring all of this learning together, we have created our own letters of advice to Beegu, showing off all of the fantastic vocabulary and writing skills we have been developing.
In Science, we have continued our learning about weather as part of our topic on Seasonal Changes. The children have been building on their observation and reasoning skills, thinking carefully about why we might choose different clothes depending on the weather and season. They enjoyed explaining their choices, for example, thinking about why we might choose a warm coat, hat and gloves in winter.
It has been wonderful to see the children sharing their ideas so confidently and continuing to build on their learning across the curriculum. We are very proud of their enthusiasm and curiosity!
Year 2
This half term in Science, the children have been learning about plants and how they grow. We began by exploring our new vocabulary, discussing what we already knew and asking questions about plant-related words and facts that were new to us.
We started by reminding ourselves of our Year 1 learning and revisiting how to identify and label the different parts of a plant. We then used real plants to identify their features, helping us to understand that flowers and leaves can look very different from one another. The children enjoyed observing the plants closely and developing their scientific vocabulary as they explored the wonderful variety found in the plant world.
Year 3
The children this week have been developing their use of similes and metaphors to describe the character of the Tear Thief from the book The Tear Thief. They explored how figurative language can help the reader create a clear picture of a character and understand their personality. The children came up with imaginative descriptions, using similes such as “her eyes sparkled like stars” and metaphors such as “she was a shadow in the night.” They worked hard to choose interesting vocabulary and make their descriptions vivid and engaging.
The children were fantastic at sharing their ideas and listening carefully to one another. They celebrated each other’s work by identifying effective examples and explaining what they liked about their classmates’ writing. They also edited and improved their own work, making thoughtful changes to their vocabulary, punctuation and descriptions. It was wonderful to see the children supporting one another and taking pride in their writing.
Year 4
This week, Year 4 were revisiting the story of David and Goliath – discussing the theme of what it means to Christians to have faith in God and ourselves or others in challenging moments. We’ve also been enjoying reading about Wesley’s creations in our English text Weslandia as he too has had faith in himself to be authentic to who he is and be inventive even if it meant being different.
Year 5
In year 5 we were set a problem to help clean our school! A mess of gravel, sand, paperclips, drawing pins and sugar had been found by our wonderful cleaners and they needed our ideas for how to separate it all and put things back in the right place. We used our science knowledge of materials and worked in small groups to try and solve the problem, using a range of equipment such as magnets, sieves, funnels with filter paper and spoons. Gradually we managed to separate most of the things but are still working out how to separate sand and sugar. Hopefully, by our next lesson we will have solved how to do this too!
Year 6
This week, Year 6 boarded a ship bound for The New World as part of their English learning based on The Arrival by Shaun Tan. During the voyage, they stepped into the shoes of a wide range of characters and imagined what life might have been like for those leaving their homelands in search of a brighter future.
As they travelled across the sea, Year 6 developed their characters by exploring their backgrounds, personalities and reasons for leaving their homes. They created characters of different ages and occupations, each with their own unique story and hopes for starting a new life in this unfamiliar land.
News from the Art Studio…
This week in the Art Studio each class began learning about their class artist. Stowasser class learnt that he never wanted to use any straight lines in his artworks or even the buildings he designed. They used chalk to draw spirals in the playground, moving their whole body to draw them as big as possible.
Music this week…
This week, Year 3 were the recipients of a rather fancy looking envelope. Inside was a letter from the English National Opera and a link to watch a film. There was also a bundle of lanyards which read “ENO Composer” and a packet of Broad Bean Seeds. The film featured a character who we think was Mother Nature. She sang three songs of the past, present and one of hope for the future. We have been invited to “Plant A Seed”; a seed of our imagination and we are to spend the next few weeks seeing how our imagination can grow into an idea as we work together and think how we would like to develop this musical story.
News from OPAL: Outside Play and Learning
🌟 Toy Donation Appeal 🌟
Dear Parents,
We are kindly asking for your support with a toy donation. If you have any gently used or new toys at home that your children no longer need, we would be very grateful if you could donate them.
We are especially looking for toys such as dolls, cars, soft toys, puzzles, building blocks, and other suitable children’s toys. 🚗🧸🪆
Your generous donations will help bring joy to children and give much-loved toys a new home. Every donation, big or small, is greatly appreciated. ❤️
Thank you so much for your kindness and continued support!
With thanks,
Opal Team
Friends of SJSC
Welcome back and a special welcome to all new families!
Thank you to everyone who helped the PTFA last year or have volunteered for this year: the amazing Class Reps who keep all the year groups in the know, the dedicated PTFA Committee who do so much behind the scenes to organise events, and of course to our wonderful volunteers who make the events happen.
Special shout out to our PTFA Treasurer Dave Rayment who is standing down after many years keeping the books in check. And to Lou O’Riorden who has done so much for the PTFA for several years, heading all communications, WhatsApp messages, event posters etc. A massive thank you to them for giving their time and for doing so much for our school.
Our school community is a very special one and we are so thankful to everyone who helped raise an incredible amount for our school last year - Drum roll…..we raised an incredible, RECORD BREAKING, £20,000!!
The role of the PTFA is to raise money and support the school community, but this can only happen if parents continue to volunteer to help.
As the school year starts the PTFA are keen to recruit some new faces to help. Responsibilities such as organising the kids Christmas cards, being the Disco deputy or handling communications - we’re keen to hear from anyone whether they can spare a few hours or would like a more involved role on the committee, everyone is welcome and any help is much appreciated.
If you’re interested to know more please email friendsofsjsc@gmail.com for a friendly chat.
Lastly don’t forget it’s International Evening next week, a chance to meet other parents, eat some delicious food and hear about other cultures. The PTFA will be running the bar and would love some volunteers- please message your Rep if you can help at all for an hour or so after pick up.
Have a great week.
Have a great weekend, see you next week!