Summer Term Issue 34: 19th June 2026
Flourishing in the love of God, love of life, love of learning
Dear Families,
It was wonderful to see so many of you enjoying the Stay and Play events this week. It was a real pleasure to share a glimpse of what our playtimes look like. We are incredibly proud of the children and the way they collaborate, problem-solve and create together.
As you know, the weather is set to be very hot next week. In school, we will be making sure that children spend time in cooler areas, have plenty of water, and enjoy lots of shade throughout the day. We would really appreciate your support by ensuring that children come to school with sun cream already applied, a sun hat, and a water bottle.
We know that many of you will be starting to look ahead to the next academic year. You will receive a letter on Friday 3rd July informing you of your child’s class and teacher for next year. This will be followed by transition sessions on Thursday 9th July, giving the children a chance to meet their new teacher and settle into their new classrooms.
We hope to see lots of you at the school fair tomorrow – it promises to be a lovely event for our whole community.
With warm wishes,
Alli
Stay and Play
We were thrilled to welcome so many parents and families to our two Stay and Play sessions this week. The sun shone and everyone had a brilliant time. It was great to see parents getting stuck into sports, den building, water engineering, woodworking, exploring the peace garden, searching for frogs or sitting quietly in the shade reading a story to some avid listeners. That’s what OPAL is all about- facilitating the 18 different types of play and planning for everyone to be able to have an amazing playtime every day. Huge thanks to the Play Team, to Ais in woodwork area, Nik our parent helper who has been helping build new structures and to Sharon our wonderful Premises manager and to all the children of SJSC for flourishing in their play and demonstrating our school values every day!
Some parent comments:
“Amazing!!! Loved the dens + the wood workshop+ paint/waterplay: Lucky Kids its fantastic!”
“What a playground! Lovely to see what they get up to and [seeing them] being responsible for difficult bits of the playground”
“Water play is a joy in the sun!”
“Lovely thing to be able to join in with what they do at school and playtime x Fantastic!!”
“Fabulous fun! Thank you for letting us share playtime!”
Reception
This week in Reception, we have had an amazing delivery of dragon eggs accompanied by a scroll from the Queen Dragon asking us to take care of them for her! The children were hooked and have been writing letters and drawing pictures for the Queen Dragon- who always writes back! They have also been learning how to draw a dragon and will be experimenting with water colours to paint it.
In Maths we have been looking at all sorts of ways to make ten using Numicon, practising all our number facts like double numbers up to ten and number bonds that make ten- like 8+2 . We have been using our fingers to make all the numbers up to ten (remembering we already know we have 5 fingers on one hand so we don’t need to count them- only count on for the extra bit.)
In RE we learned about the Creation story in the Bible and drew pictures about it.
Himid Class went to Forest School and had a brilliant time making journey sticks with things we found on the way. We were saddened when we arrived because vandals had left loads of rubbish- and graffiti, but we worked as a team and cleared it up, a real-life lesson that tied in perfectly with our RE themes of caring for our world. Stik class made some great Pride posters, celebrating the simple message “ love is love”.
Year 1
We have had another fantastic week of learning and have been so impressed by the children's enthusiasm and creativity. In Maths, we have continued exploring money, comparing different totals using the symbols greater than (>), less than (<) and equal to (=). The children have worked hard to explain their reasoning and have become increasingly confident in recognising and comparing amounts.
In RE, we have continued thinking about what Christians believe God continues to give to the world. The children shared thoughtful ideas, discussing gifts such as food, water, love and choice, and reflecting on why these are important in our lives.
In Literacy, we have continued innovating our stories based on Pig the Pug, creating our own characters and adventures. We have met a venomous viper, silly snake, curious cat and rude rabbit, to name just a few! It has been wonderful to see the children bringing together so much of their learning from across the year. They have wowed us with their use of time adverbials, alliteration, conjunctions and expanded noun phrases, creating stories full of imagination and detail. We would love to hear about the characters and adventures the children share with you at home this week!
Year 2
This week in R.E. we have been learning about the importance of prayer to some people. We explored the different words and phrases people use when praying and talked about why prayer is meaningful to many people. The children enjoyed sharing their ideas and even wrote their own prayers, showing thoughtful reflection and creativity.
Year 3
We looked at various significant sayings from Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Humanism, sorting them into the correct belief. We then worked as a group to draw and write how someone who follows these ideas may behave and discovered that all of them include ‘The Golden Rule’ of treating others as we would like to be treated ourselves.
Year 4
In Science this week, Year 4 created their own model of the digestive system in a fun and hands-on lesson. We began by using a fork to represent teeth, crushing biscuits and bananas to show how food is broken down in the mouth. We then added water to represent saliva.
Next, we funnelled the softened food down an “oesophagus” and into the “stomach”, where we added lemon juice to act as stomach acid. The resulting mixture, called chyme, was then passed into the “small and large intestines” (represented by tights), where nutrients and water were absorbed, just like in the human body. Finally, the remaining waste was moved into the “rectum” before leaving the body via the anus.
The children had a fantastic time making their models—it was certainly one of the most memorable (and possibly the messiest!) science lessons yet!
Year 5
This week in year 5, we have been really impressed with the children’s enthusiasm for their learning as we near towards our end of year. They are showing such resilience in maths in particular. We have also dived into the debate about whether the Benin Bronzes should be returned to Nigeria or kept in the British Museum. The debate highlighted how far the children have come with their oracy skills – they presented their arguments confidently and articulately and they listened so attentively to one another that they were able to change their minds and consider others’ views. Good job everyone!
Music this week…
In Music this week, Year 3 were using a fantastic website to gather information about Beethoven. They were able to learn about his family life, his health in general and of course the music which he wrote. In addition, there is a section which allows you to build your own Opera Set and listen to music which might have accompanied an Opera from that era. The children were incredibly keen to show this website to their families so please find the link below.
https://hallo.beethoven.de/html5/start.html?&lang=e&chap=-1&site=-1
Children in Year 5 have been listening to a piece of music from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite. This week they were using the pentatonic scale to compose a tune based on the piece Laideronette which tells the strange story of a Princess who is placed under a curse to be ugly forever. They had to keep the rhythmic pattern which Ravel had used but they were allowed to change the notes.
News from the Art Studio…
This week in the Art studio Years 3 & 4 are exploring buildings with green roofs and Biomimicry in architecture. They have started to translate their designs into 3D models using recycled materials.
Year 5 are using their drawing skill to draw animals. We are creating flip books to help us make chimeras – mythical animals made from three different creatures. Next week we will make our chimeras out of clay.
Friends of SJSC
Our Summer Fair is TOMORROW! We look forward to welcoming you all there between 1pm-4pm for some family fun. We’ll have a bouncy castle, games, crafts, empanadas, ice-cream, cakes and lots of drinks to enjoy! Please encourage your friends, family and neighbours to come along and help us raise money for the school.
We need bakes and cakes (shop bought or home made - no nuts please) for the cake stall. Please bring along direct to the stall at the fair.
And don’t forget that our Summer Fair Raffle is open! Tickets are £2 and you can win some amazing prizes from local businesses and parents, including vouchers for local restaurants, ice cream, gyms and fitness classes and many, many more. Please send the link to friends and family, anyone can buy tickets and all the money raised goes to our school. Buy tickets here: https://tinyurl.com/SJSC26
Thanks for your support.
Stars of the Week
Well done to all of our stars who have demonstrated our school values brilliantly this week!
Enjoy the weekend!