Autumn Term Issue 05: 3rd October 2025
Flourishing in the love of God, love of life, love of learning
Dear families
We hope you’ve had a great week—there’s lots happening at SJSC, and we wanted to keep you in the loop!
In just a couple of weeks, we’ll be welcoming the OPAL team to SJSC for our assessment. We’re really proud of the fun, creative, and inclusive playtimes we offer here, and it was wonderful to see so many of you enjoying them first-hand during our Stay and Play session last term.
To help us showcase the impact of our OPAL provision, we’d be so grateful if you could spare a few minutes to complete a short survey. You can access it via this link, or simply scan the QR code on the posters at the school gate. Your feedback really does make a difference!
There are a couple of Parent Cafes coming up to make sure are in your diary:
· Monday 13th October – The Nest will be hosting a session titles ‘Every Mind Counts: Embracing Neurodiversity in Young People.
· Friday 17th is Year 1&2 Reading Parent Café
· Friday 24th is Reception Phonics Parent Cafe
Also, just a quick heads-up—next week we’ll be sending out details on how to book your slot for our upcoming Parent’s Evenings. Keep an eye on your emails so you don’t miss it!
Thanks as always for your continued support.
Have a great weekend
Alli
Upcoming Diary Dates
Reception
This week in Reception, we took part in the most exciting workshop in the top floor (Our first venture upstairs... so many stairs! ) Greeted by the amazing Jen- we learned how to put the Kapla planks into 3 positions flat, on the long edge and on their short edge standing up- with this simple knowledge- we were able to build all sorts of amazing creations. We learned first 2 planks vertical (“Lapin”- like bunny ears) then 2 planks horizontal “Moustache”. Stacking up like this we could build our own houses, and a castle. 4 classes from Reception and Y1 took part, and at the end we all met back to have a look and see the final finished project! We loved the giant animals made by y1.
In Drawing Club, we have been drawing about “What I like most”; my favourite thing to wear, my best toy, the smell I like most, and what I can see from my window. In maths we have been subitising 4 and practising finger rhymes. Lots of fine motor practise and finger games help improve our writing skills too. In Phonics we learned g o c k and our first tricky word; “is” Do practise word building at home… n-o-d c-a-t d-o-g k-i-d p-o-t
Year 1
This week in Year 1 has been full of exciting curiosity, collaboration and discovery! In English, we’ve been focusing on using adjectives to describe nouns in pictures, helping us to become more creative and confident writers. We learned that adjectives can make our sentences more interesting by adding detail: “The shiny gold crown”. The highlight of our week was the Kapla workshop, where we used small wooden planks to build impressive structures, including a giant snake! The build encouraged teamwork, patience, and problem-solving skills, while also helping the children develop their spatial awareness and creativity. We are very proud of how well the children worked together and supported one another during the workshop — what an amazing achievement!
Year 2
On Friday 26th, Year 2 had a fantastic trip to the Florence Nightingale Museum as part of our history unit and our Big Idea: Social Justice, focusing on helping others.
The children were thrilled to be greeted by Florence Nightingale herself! They learned all about her incredible life and how she helped improve hospitals and care for soldiers. A highlight was dressing up in nurse outfits from Florence’s time and exploring real museum objects.
We also visited the Mary Seacole statue, which was a special moment as we are learning about her for Black History Month.
We would like to say a big thank you to our wonderful volunteers who came along to support us — your help made the day even more special!
Year 3
This week in Computing, Year 3 have been learning about computer networks. The children walked around the school to see how our computers are all connected. They discovered that we use wireless hubs to let laptops and tablets connect to the internet, and that a server is like a powerful computer that stores files and helps the network run smoothly.
We firstly connected ourselves with string and made the link between this and the wires that connect our computer networks together. The children enjoyed spotting the different parts of the school network and talking about how they help us share information quickly and safely.
Year 4
Over the past few weeks, year 4 have been working on their school project of setting up the new school council. They have written leaflets to explain the process of voting while learning about democracy. The project will be launched next week to the school so we have given you a sneaky preview of the posters that will be put up around the school.
Voting day will be Friday October 17th
Year 5
This week in Year 5, we’ve been writing diary entries from the perspective our the lost thing in our text using noun phrases and relative clauses. In PSHE, we have been considering how we can be positive class citizens in various scenarios—acting these out and guessing what the message is. We’re also getting ready for our school trip to London Bridge soon—thinking about how land use has changed as London has evolved.
Year 6
In Year 6, we explored place value through a fun and practical maths lesson using post-it notes to create our own 4- and 5-digit numbers. The children built and manipulated numbers to find values 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 more or less, and investigated how numbers change when multiplied or divided by powers of ten. This hands-on activity helped deepen their understanding of number structure and developed their reasoning and problem-solving skills.
News from the Art Studio…
This week in the art studio we have started our Black History month celebrations.
Each Year group is exploring the life and work of a black artist; they will create a piece of artwork inspired by this artist. We will be sharing all the fabulous artwork created during our Black history exhibition.
Music this week…
Highlights of the Music Room this week have included children using tuned percussion as an accompaniment. Year 4 were listening to the song, This Little Light of Mine. They were then using Glockenspiels and Xylophones to play an accompaniment on the first beat of every four beats. Year 4 Kapoor also thought about actions which could be performed as a choral group whilst they sang.
Year 3 children were continuing to look at The Pentatonic Scale. They chose 3 notes from this scale to make an ostinato (a repeated melody) which could accompany their singing of I’ve Been to Harlem.
Reception children enjoyed playing on the Xylophone and thinking about the different quality of sounds which could be made depending on the material the beater was made from.
Hearing Resource Base
It’s been a busy and exciting week in the Hearing Resource Base!
We were delighted to welcome Narmeen, a work experience student from the sixth form at Oak Lodge School. Narmeen is a British Sign Language (BSL) user and was supported by communication support workers, helping everyone communicate effectively and inclusively.
As October is Black History Month, Narmeen helped me with a special assembly for Year 2 and Year 3. She taught the children some BSL signs linked to Black History Month.
Year 2 and Year 3 – can you remember the signs for:
Jamaica
Scotland
Travel by boat
Statue
Famous
Why not try teaching someone at home? You can use this online BSL dictionary to help:
🔗 https://www.signbsl.com
We also watched a video about Mary Seacole, presented in BSL by a teacher who used to work at Narmeen’s school!
🔗 Watch the video here
It’s been an exciting week in the playground- on Wednesday 3 tonnes of new sand was delivered- and ‘unpacked’ into the sandpit by the children in less than half a day!
Today some wonderful parent volunteers came in to help create three new features: a big painting wall to inspire all kinds of large-scale mark making; and a slack line obstacle course- which will initially be for KS2 to use- to promote upper body strength and agility.
Children will be part of creating the rules for our new resources in our assembly next week – we call this our Risk Benefit Analysis.
The children have all been doing questionnaires in class about how they feel about Opal ready for our final Assessment Audit on 13th October, and there is a link in this newsletter for parents to fill in too- to tell us what you think about our OPAL playtimes here at SJSC. Thank you in advance for taking the time to fill it in.
Stars of the Week
Friends of SJSC
A reminder our next Uniform Swap and Bake Sale will take place in the top playground under the shed, after school on Friday 17th October. If you need some extra tights or long trousers for winter, come and help yourself to clean, good quality items for free and help reduce our carbon footprint at the same time!
It may be too early for some to mention the ‘C’ word, but at then end of next week we will be launching the Christmas Cards and Gifts scheme we offer each year. Your children can design their own artwork that can be turned into personalised cards and gifts, all whilst raising money for the school. Look out for details coming home in your children’s school bags at the end of next week.
Thanks for your support.
See you next week!