St Joseph's Newsletter Update - 2nd April 2014
Dear Parents/Carers
The busy last week of term is now here so please find reminders of times and dates of events taking place in school this week.
Diary Dates
Thursday 3rd April - Foundation Stage Trip to Cocksfield Farm
Friday 4th April - Charity Coffee Morning in School
Friday 4th April - School Closes (normal time)
Tuesday 22nd April - School Opens
Holy Week
Maundy Thursday - 17th April
Good Friday - 18th April
Easter Sunday - 20th April
Father Lavin would love to see you in church for this important festival.
St. Joseph’s Penny Boxes
If anyone still has a St. Joseph’s Penny Box could they please return them to school this week. Thank you. There is a prize for the best decorated box.
Willow Wood Easter Bunnies
Thank you to all who supported Willow Wood and bought one of the lovely Easter bunny keyrings. They proved to be very popular and sold out within a couple of days and we managed to raise £ 144.00 for the charity.
Friday 4th April – Charity Coffee Morning
We are holding a charity coffee morning to help raise funds for St. Joseph’s Penny in school this Friday 4th April (from 9.00 am onwards). The usual tea, coffee, juice and cakes will be on sale. Each class will sing or recite in turn to help entertain visitors. Please support this event and come along if you can. It is a lovely social occasion and also can help us raise funds for charity. Any cake donations for our stall would be very welcome.
Changes in school
The start of the next term will see the return of Mrs Howarth. She will be returning to school on a part time basis and will be job sharing with Mrs Poole in Year 2. There will also be some further changes at St. Joseph’s in September. Mr Curtis is retiring and Mrs Farmer will be leaving the school at the end of the summer term. As yet no decisions have been made about which class any teacher will take. This won’t happen until later in the summer term when hopefully new appointments will have been made.
The Governors have made a decision, based on the requests of parents, to move to 4 x KS2 classes. The children will therefore be in straight age groups throughout the school in September. This will have a huge impact on school budget and resources but hopefully will be beneficial to the pupils.
Levy Money
Mrs Hirst will be sending letters out this week for outstanding Levy money payments. There is still a large amount of Levy money outstanding so please try and send your payment into school as soon as possible in a named and sealed envelope.
Reception Places
Reception parents will receive confirmation about places during the school holidays. The school is also informed at the same time as parents, so as yet we do not know who has a place in Reception Class in September. There has been a large demand this year and each place will be allocated strictly according to the Admission Criteria so for any future places parents need to be aware that being baptised Roman Catholic and living within St. Joseph’s parish are two very important factors. Parents must also apply on time before the closing date. It is extremely important that parents who are given a place return reply slips immediately if they wish to accept the place.
Willow Dome
A willow dome is being planted on Friday in school. If the weather is dry the children will be helping with this. This will be a living den for the children to play in but it does take several years to grow.
Inspection
This has not yet taken please but if you would like to help your child’s school please put a positive comment on parentview. We had so many lovely comments on the last parent’s questionnaire it would be great to see them repeated here. Please visit http://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk
Finally, may I wish you all, on behalf of myself and all the staff, a happy and holy Easter and really hope the sun shines on us all.
Best wishes
Sheila Partington
