Delivering our Cheer Up jars to the community

One of the last jobs for our year 6 children was leaving cheer up jars GIFT group and year 6 made together on the door steps for our local community. We hope the little jars filled with fabulous comments and drawings will bring joy, hope and smiles to the faces of our neighbours!

Year 6 Refection Day

What a fabulous afternoon with year 6 children at church reflecting on the school values and how they have helped them to become the children they are today. Eagles were the theme for the activities and we hope our year 6 children soar when they move onto secondary school!

Fairy Garden

Some of our year 6 children have been busy this morning creating a garden to attract the fairies. They have made this special garden for our younger children to create awe and wonder about the world! Let’s hope the fairies come and stay very soon. You have inspired the Explorers to create their own gardens too!

God and the Big Bang

SJT together with St. Edward’s year 5, engaged in workshops with God and the Big Bang. Interesting debates with Scientists exploring links between science and faith. We asked lots of questions about God and the universe. It was so interesting.

Toy Swap

Our first toy swap was fabulous. Children brought in their preloved toys to swap for something different. We want to look after our world and recycle rather than throwing away and buying new! What toys do you have at home that you do not play with which you could gift?

Wasted space to Bird Cafe

Our GIFT group are eco warriors and have planned to turn this unused and not so lovely space into a Bird Cafe. They have cleaned the walls ready to paint, dug out the weeds and planted some flowers. They are painting birds on wood slices and collected things to attract the birds!

Thank you for changing a wasted space into a lovely area.

Castleton In Bloom

Each year we support Castleton In Bloom and with the other local schools plant up the railway station to brighten up the days of the commuters. What a fabulous afternoon we had planting up the railway station planters and hanging baskets so they bloom all summer!

World Eye Web second meeting

A wonderful second World Eyed Web meeting chaired by Ava from All Souls and minuted by Monroe from St. John's.

The children contributed to discussions brilliantly and enjoyed designing a logo. We will adapt it to combine the children’s ideas and produce a digital version. The next meeting will focus on actions for our churches focusing on wildlife and will be held at St. John's.

Art displays

Our art displays really showcase the skills our children have been learning over the last few weeks. The children have really enjoyed finding out about the different artists, their backgrounds and looking at the art they are well known for!

Year 6 Leavers Service at Manchester Cathedral

We really enjoyed our visit to Manchester Cathedral for the year 6 leavers service. The focus on faith, hope and trust helped us to think about transition to secondary school. Our school song ‘My Lighthouse’ was played, we held our banner with pride and shared our prayer box! After the service we enjoyed a buffet lunch at Pizza Hut and played together on the park before getting the train home. We had a wonderful day together!

World Eyed Web

We have two SJT World Eye Web leaders to work with two other church schools in Rochdale to focus on how our churches can become carbon neutral. We did a democratic vote to choose from all the volunteers for the role.

Our SJT representatives met the rest of the World Eye Web team who will be working hard to ensure the churches linked to their schools become carbon neutral. St. John’s, All Soul’s and St. Peter’s CE enjoyed meeting each other, eating afternoon tea and exploring St. Peter’s school grounds.

Bishop Mark tweeted- "There was a wonderful Rogation Sunday service at St Chad’s

with the launch of World Eyed Web. The council, drawn from 3 schools in Rochdale Deanery will challenge the Deanery synod & beyond about care for the world, our common home. They were superb today. Thanks to all there."

Well Done Year 6

A HUGE well done to our year 6 for being amazing during SATs week. They have shown determination and resilience and it was wonderful to celebrate the end of a hard week with an afternoon tea with parents and grandparents! We are proud of you all!

The World Needs Who You Were Made To Be

We read a wonderful book in Collective Worship which is called The World Needs Who You Were Made To Be. We talked about how we all look and think differently and how we all have different gifts and talents. We are all one of a kind and together we make St. John’s a special place!

Lighthouse Crew

Lighthouse Crew led worship today with a focus on togetherness. They told us the story of Ruth, a story from The Old Testament and we sang our togetherness song. We shared the class prayers and gave out the ribbons for the prayer tree! We continue to pray for the Ukraine.

Prayers, love and hope to Ukraine 

St. John’s sends love and hope to the people from and living in the Ukraine. We created a wall of hope with messages and prayers written on sunflowers. We have also added yellow hearts containing prayers to our love tree! We are thinking of you and stand with you.

Easter Bonnet Parade

Look at our Explorers, they have created such beautiful Easter Bonnets and enjoyed their parade around school singing Spring Chicken! It was difficult to choose a winner but Lillianna's design won she also got a kindness heart from Mrs. Hunter for making a spare one in case someone didn't have one. 

Eggstravaganza Easter Competition

What ‘eggcellent’ entries for our Easter Egg Decoration competition. Some very clever and creative entries including ‘’NH eggS’ ‘Les mis’egg’rables’ and ‘Minecracked’. It was so hard to choose a winner but "Nh egg'S' created by Theo was a firm favourite amongst the staff. Thank you to the PTFA for his wonderful prize. 

House Point cakes and shales half term treat for winning team

Tandle Hill have had their ‘Cakes & Shakes’ reward this afternoon for earning the most house points last half term! Congratulations!

Year 5 and 6 visit St. Anne's Academy

Year 5 and 6 visited St. Anne's Academy to watch the schools performance of Aladdin. It was fabulous. The children stayed for lunch and experience PE and home economics lessons in the afternoon too. Thank you St. Anne's this really helps our children feel what secondary school is like. 

The World Needs Who You Were Made To Be

We read a wonderful book in Collective Worship which is called The World Needs Who You Were Made To Be. We talked about how we all look and think differently and how we all have different gifts and talents. We are all one of a kind and together we make St. John’s a special place!

Robinwood residential for our Year 5 and Year 6 pupils! 

Click below to see some of the photographs and videos of our amazing residential this half term! 

HO HO HO!

We had a very special visitor in school today! He was checking that the children had all been very good and gave them a little present too! Thank you Father Christmas! We hope we are all on the good list!

The Christmas Story- performed by Explorers

What a beautiful nativity our Explorers children performed over the last few days. You told the 'biggest story ever' brilliantly and we are so proud of you all. Your singing was amazing and you smiled the whole way through. Super loud voices and super proud teachers and parents!

Elfie was watching you too and he sent you a well done surprise of hot chocolate and marshmallows! Yummy! 

Christingle with a donkey

It was a wonderful Christingle service today with the whole school. We thought about the true meaning of Christmas for Christians and looked at the Christingle’s we made whilst we thought about God’s world. The children sand the new Christingle song they had been learning in Collective Worship beautifully and our GIFT group read their very thoughtful prayers out.  It was so exciting as we followed Poppy the donkey up the lane and listened to our choir sing festive songs.

Castleton Light Switch On 2021

Wow choir you were fabulous last night singing at the Castleton Light switch on. You sang beautifully and looked brilliant with your festive accessories and lights. Thank you for representing our school so brilliantly and spreading Christmas cheer for all the community to hear!

St. John's Remembers Them!

Inventors performed their World War I class assembly today. The children undertook many roles to

inform all about the events of The Great War. All Inventors did themselves proud. Well done. 

We will remember them! We have created our own poppies out of paper, felt and recycled bottles. We have written prayers of thanks and remember all that served including the animals with great respect.

Our Year 6 created a wreath in their Forest School session this week. We walked to the cenotaph at church and laid the wreath from all of us at St. John’s to show our respect to all that have served in wars. Together they performed their WW1 poem.

It’s Harvest Time!

We were sad that we couldn't have our usual Harvest Festival at church with our parents watching but we are hopeful that we will be able to have our festivals all together very soon. We did have a wonderful celebration as a whole school in the hall. We had written prayers of thanks and our Year 6 children shared these at the start of our Harvest Festival. We all said thank you for the food we eat and thought about those who are not as lucky as us. We sang our favourite Autumn hymns and songs- our favourites are Conkers and Cabbages and greens!

Each class performed a song, or poem and Adventurers did a rap! Have a look at these on the class blogs. Our GIFT group also created a wonderful Autumn display, drew beautiful Harvest posters and write Harvest poems and prayers. 

We also had a Autumn pumpkin decorating competition! The designs were fabulous. Have a look at the winning designs below. 

The amount of food you gifted to the food bank was amazing and I was so proud of our contribution. Your generous donations will help out lots of people and families who need a little support.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to all our children and families who have been remote learning.

A HUGE well done to you all for working so hard.

It has been delightful to have the whole school back and thank you to everyone who created a lovely heart for our railings.

LOVE and HOPE to you all from St. John's x

RIP Captain Sir Tom Moore
We will remember you for your commitment to the Army during WW2 and the bravery you showed. We will also remember you for your determination and dedication towards raising money for our NHS. 100 laps at 100 years old was a huge challenge but you didn’t give up. Thank you for the hope you gave to us all and for bringing our country together. You are a British hero and you will be remembered.

At the going down of the sun, we will remember him!

Christmas Parties

Look who Santa sent to our Christmas parties this year! Elfie! We enjoyed playing lots of games and dancing with the Elf. She is Elftastic and we had Selfies with her too! ! The staff and the children loved it! 

Explorers Nativity

Bundle of Joy is this years Nativity and our Explorers were amazing! The nativity shows us that even when things are bleak, with generosity and a bit of ingenuity, miracles can still happen. We hope our parents enjoyed their nativity pack with USB, hot chocolate and a mince pie.

Well done to the Explorers team who work so hard putting this together! You are fabulous!

It's Panto Time

A little surprise treat for the whole school this morning- a live performance of Cinderella! Oh no it isn't! The children loved watching the live performance and joined in with Bubbles heckling and booing! Thank you to the PTFA for paying for this and for the snacks too!

 A Special Visit from The Boy in Red!

What a busy and wonderful day we have had!  This afternoon our cheeky elves took the children to our outside classroom which had been transformed into a grotto.

Guess who was their waiting for them? Yes Santa himself! 

Christmas Dinner and Jumper Day

What a busy and wonderful day we have had! Thank you to Miss Robertson for creating a wonderful Christmas Dinner for us all! We took part in Christmas Jumper Day & raised lots of money for Save the Children by wearing our Christmas jumpers which were all fabulous! Miss Robertson even cooked dinner for the builders who ate theirs in their cabin!

SPORT RELIEF

It has been Sport Relief Day today. Thank you to all the children who have bought one of the official Sport Relief wristbands to raise money for this worthy cause.

We had lots of sporty outfits in school today! The children took part in the Sport Relief Mile during the day and learnt a new dance too, they were also lots of additional activities at lunchtime too. Luckily we had a lovely sunny day!

TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS

Well done to our new team of Traffic Controllers who have been out on patrol this week with their Hi-Vis jackets & clipboards to note down any “parking offenders”.

Their role is to stop parents/carers parking in the turning circle and encouraging parents/carers to park considerately & safely on the lane.

Traffic Controllers will help to ensure-

• parents/carers do not park in the turning circle
• parents/carers do not drop off in the turning circle
• parents/carers do not park at the red and white bollards
• parents/carers park considerately

Thank you to parents/carers who have respectfully followed our rules this week to ensure we are keeping our children safe and are limiting the amount of pollution at our gates.

WOW WALK TO SCHOOL

Well done to those children and parents who are continuing to walk and brave the cold weather. Children received their WOW badges for November & December last week in recognition of their efforts.  In order to receive January and February’s badges you need to try to walk from at least the bottom of the lane at least 1 day a week.

In March when the warmer weather comes this will be increased in order to gain a WOW badge for March and the following months up to July you must walk to school at least 2 days a week. We want to be as physically healthy as we can and enjoy the lovely surroundings we are lucky to be situated in- walking in the fresh air and in the countryside is good for our well-being.

LOOKING AFTER OUR BODIES AND MINDS

Thank you to all the children & staff who wore something yellow on Thursday for #Hello Yellow to support and raise awareness of children and young people’s mental health on World Mental Health Day. We had some very bright items worn with their uniform! We had a whole school assembly which focused on having a healthy body and a healthy mind too! #Hello Yellow

CRUCIAL CREW

Year 6 attended this year’s Crucial Crew Event at Rochdale Football Club on Tuesday. This is a multi-agency safety event aimed at Year 6 children (10 to 11 year old's) designed to provide children with life skills that will enable them to keep themselves and others safe. It is generally accepted that children start to become more independent at this age and are often expected to cope increasingly on their own and deal with changes in their lives, such as a move to Secondary school.  The aim of our Crucial Crew event is to raise each participant's awareness of threats and dangers, in a fun and interactive way.

MACMILLIAN WORLD’S BIGGEST COFFEE MORNING!

Thank you to all the parents/carers who attended this morning’s Macmillan World’s Biggest Coffee Morning at St John’s Church. Well done to our Year 6 children who attended the event as helpers and served cakes to the visitors. They then all enjoyed their very own slice of cake!  It was a pleasure to hear such lovely comments about how helpful and mature our Year 6 were. t John’s Church for hosting this event. lovely comments about how helpful and mature our Year 6 were. Thanks to St John’s Church for hosting this event.

YEAR 6 LEAVERS SERVICE AT MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL

We went by train to Manchester to take part in the Year 6 leavers service led by Bishop Mark, Cannon Maurice Smith and the education team at Manchester Diocese. 

It was a wonderful service with schools from across the diocese preparing our year 6 for life after primary school! We shared our prayer box with others and brought home St. Luke's to reflect on their prayers! Before coming home we had a lovely picnic on the grass outside the Football Museum and had time on the park too!

I almost forgot Rev. Jason, Rose and Jacob represented our school in a relay race around the Cathedral passing on the baton and sharing Christian Values to all! Watch out St. John's dad's you have competition at sports day!

PLANTING AT SLATTOCKS COMMUNITY GARDEN

Some of our Explorers did a fantastic job helping to plant flowers in Slattocks Community Garden on Wednesday! Tracey, who works with Councillor Billy (now Mayor), plant up Castleton ready for Rochdale in Bloom. This year Slattocks is part of the display. They worked really hard with the help of Andy & Blanca; the garden looks beautiful! Please take a look when you are passing!

RETREAT TO WHALLEY ABBEY

Years 5 & 6 spent a lovely day at the beautiful Whalley Abbey near Clitheroe on Tuesday. They were joined by staff, Governors and Rev Jason. The theme of the day was reflecting on the Christian values that the children have learnt whilst being at St John’s and how they live them out now and in the future. The children took part in an opening service about the work of st John. They were then involved in a range of workshops and activities which focused on school values through crafts, treasure hunts, discussions. The children also had time for some meditation too!

ROCHDALE ANGLICAN FEDERATION – FAIRY GOD MUM -  CREATIVE CROSSES

This year all 19 Church of England Schools who are part of the Rochdale Anglican federation (RAF) met over the course of 3 days to work together to create creative crosses using the gems and jewels we have been collecting in school with The Fairy God Mum- Wendy Moore.

We chose five of our Year 5 children to attend the event at Holy Trinity School in Littleborough on Wednesday to create our cross- they did an amazing job. They were very creative and our cross is beautiful it contains the five values- love, courage, forgiveness, faithfulness and respect which are the values we all used when making our ‘We are one’ film last year. We also decorated a structure for our worship table which shows a mirror, window and door. This is how we help to develop children’s understanding of Spirituality here at St. John’s-

ROCHDALE SCIENCE SHARE

What an amazing time we had sharing our experiment with children from other schools as well as being wowed by Science Investigations at Rochdales Science Share on Tuesday. A group of Science ambassadors shared our experiment which answered the question-How does the amount of washing up liquid applied to a wooden skewer affect if the balloon pops? Our Science Ambassadors shared information about our experiment as well as helping visitors to our table have a go of it for themselves. They had to try to get a wooden skewer through the two ends of the balloon without popping it- they could use washing up liquid to help.

Have a go yourselves and see if you can do it. If you are successful can you explain why using some of the following words- stretch, force, pressure, barrier. The children also enjoyed testing and trying out other Science investigations and experiments too! We look forward to going next year when Dippy will be in Rochdale!

Rochdale in Bloom- Planting at Castleton Railway Station

Councillor Billy Sheerin invited our school, along with other schools in Castleton to help to plant up Castleton Railway Station ready for Rochdale in Bloom on Monday. Four of our Year 3 children were chosen to help with this event and they worked very hard alongside children from other Castleton schools. Thank you also to Andy Turner, Mrs Purser’s partner, for all his hard work this week; he planted more plants at school which were donated to school by Rochdale in Bloom. We had a lovely feedback from one of the organisers:

“Could I say a big thank you to you all, from the Mayor of Rochdale (Councillor Billy Sheerin) and myself, for allowing your pupils to take part in the eighth annual planting-up of Castleton Station. Special thanks to Les Masters at Bowlee, for allowing his team the time to come and help out again. The behaviour and enthusiasm of the learners was outstanding. They did Castleton proud.”

Many thanks Billy and Roy.

Spring Festival

Thank you to Cllr Billy Sheerin for planning a wonderful Spring Festival in Castleton. Our KS2 choir sang beautifully in the sunshine and enjoyed watching Maypole and Morris Dancing too. They sang Together, Diamonds and True colours and represented school brilliantly. 

Rochdale BIG Sing

Our Year 4. 5 & 6 “choir” took part in the Rochdale Primary Schools BIG SING this morning in the Great Hall at Rochdale Town Hall.

The children have been rehearsing very hard for Big Sing at lunchtimes and have been sounding very tuneful and in harmony. The song that was chosen was Rhianna’s “Diamonds”. The song has been reverberating all around school amongst most of the other children and staff!!!

WORLD THINKING DAY- FRIDAY 22^ND FEBRUARY

Some of our children wore their uniforms with pride in school today to celebrate World Thinking Day on the 22^nd February during the half term holiday. The day focuses on International Friendship and encourages the children to think about guiding and scouting all over the world. Our children can be the ones who bring about positive change in the world and belonging to other groups outside of school who encourage charity work and focus on global issues allows the children to think more about the role they can play.

It's snowing!

What a beautiful place our school is in! We have had fun playing in the snow building snow people and taking part in our Forest School sessions. The fire pit really kept us toasty!

gulp (Give up loving pop)

The whole school is doing the 30 Day water Challenge as part of gulp, the new campaign from Food Active which aims to raise awareness of the health harms associated with over consumption of sugary drinks. Has your child been swapping sugary drinks for water?

Last week Mrs Hunter started an experiment in assembly where she placed 3 eggs into liquids- one in cola, one in orange juice and one in water- here are the results.

Thank you to everyone who bought an extra Christmas present for the HITs radio Mission Christmas appeal. Mission Christmas is all about bringing children in poverty across Greater Manchester some Christmas spirit at a time when they need it most.

Organisations across Manchester have nominated children who they know will not have a present under their tree this Christmas. I am so pleased that St. John’s could be involved in this appeal and be part of spreading Christmas cheer across Manchester.

On Tuesday our KS2 choir visited Meadow Bank Nursing Home. They sang festive hymns and songs and entertained the residents with their movement and actions too! They took each resident a handmade Christmas card and handed them out. The children and the residents had a drink together before singing traditional Christmas songs whilst the residents played along with musical instruments.

Thank you to the children & their families who joined us on our Nativity Walk- this is a joint event with school and church and it is a wonderful experience for our community. Thank you for joining us in the school hall to think about the true meaning of Christmas before following the donkey down the lane to church. This was followed by our special Christingle Service. The children had been very busy in the morning making their Christingles and our thanks goes to the Co-op in Castleton for donating half the oranges, the raisins, sweets and sticks and to Tesco in Rochdale for donating the rest of the oranges! The service was filled with hymns and poems and it was beautiful when the lights went out to see all the candles flickering around church!

Thank you to church for the mulled wine and to the PTFA for the potato hash- compliments to the chef were given by many!