Our traditional send off for our year 6 saw a human tunnel out of church and a tractor ride over to their party! Mrs Browne and Mrs Hunter hopped on too! You could hear the fanfare across Slattocks! Good luck year 6!
Our end of year Church Service was a great celebration of the year and a super send off to our year 6 children. It was filled with song, poetry, reflecting back on year 6 time’s at SJT, hope and prayers for the future and more songs! It was wonderful!
A very calm and reflective morning at church with year 6 focusing on the story Fly Eagle Fly as they transition to secondary school and review how the school values have helped them at SJT and how they will continue to when they are at secondary school!
This is the staffs garden for Middleton In Bloom! Can you guess who is who in the staffroom?
Today we welcomed the Middleton In Bloom official RHS judge. The children showed her around the school garden including the bird cafe, mini pond, eating beds, sensory gardens, forest school areas. She also met our scarecrows, wheelbarrow buddy and saw the miniature gardens!
In worship today we have been thinking about what we are looking forward too in the Summer holidays. Rev. Alison asked us to think about how we can help our friends and family enjoy the holidays too. We thought about the things we are thankful for from God in the world
Today was our final ground breakers worship of the year! Mary came to tell us the story of the 12 spies. The story taught us to think about how we might feel about change and how to look at things positively, remembering God is always with us ⭐️
Today was Polish Culture Day. The children wore red and white, ate traditional polish foods and took part in lots of activities. They enjoyed learning a Polish Dance too! The mum of two of our children is from Poland and they enjoyed teaching us some Polish words too!
What an amazing morning at The Primary Cranmer Games. It was wonderful to come together for a football match, rounders game and quiz! Each school won one of the events so no overall winner this year, we will share the cup over the year!
Traditionally, we ended our sports day with the parent/ carer and toddler races, which can often get quite competitive! Always one of the children’s favourites- the staff race!Unfortunately, Mrs Browne was unable to participate due to an injury this year so Mrs Hunter earned the gold ( after Miss Callaghan was disqualified due to cheating!)
What a fantastic race afternoon we have had to end our sports week today. The children ran many races from obstacle to egg and spoon, showing many of our school values. We even managed an ice lolly to keep us cool in the sun. Thank you to parents and carers for supporting!
All the children at St. John’s had a great time supporting their house country at the opening ceremony to our sports week.
What an afternoon we have had! 6 of our children went to the Pirramidd science share at Alkrington primary. They had lots of fun finding out about other scientific enquiries presented by other local schools, as well as sharing our own.
Lighthouse crew have led worship today, focusing on our half term value of hope. They acted out a story of when Paul showed hope as he was thrown into prison and had to save himself from a ship in a storm, we also enjoyed sharing our school jelly baby prayers.
We wore red, white and blue and had a special lunch for D-Day. Some of our children also created a remembrance display in the hall!
Well done to our digital leaders on their whole school assembly all about how to stay safe whilst online with a focus on sharing pictures.
It was a cakes and shakes treat for Stakehill family team today as together they gained the most house points last half term. The fairy cakes were yummy. Let’s see who wins this half term for living out the school values and being a good learner with a growth mindset!
Lighthouse crew led worship focusing on our school value of respect. They chose to present a play on Daniel and the Lions to show how he respected God during dangerous times and shared children’s prayers, adding ribbons to represent these on our willow prayer cross.
Reverend Alison has led worship with us today. We unscrambled a word to reveal impossible, then added actions to a story of a stormy sea learning how Jesus calmed the storm with God’s help. This helped us understand that nothing is impossible for God.
Well done to the children who went litter picking over the school holidays as part of the Keep Britain Tidy Great Big School Clean. We have collected 46 bags of rubbish so far! Come and collect some litter pickers and bin bags and lets see if we can collect some more!
What a fabulous day focusing on anti- bullying whilst rocking! Thanks to @RockKidzUK for a day of workshops and rocking! The children learnt some fabulous key messages that support their work in PSHCE as well as having a fabulous time...rocking! Look at our fantastic outfits too!
Well done to our Earth Stewards for leading worship today. They shared their work on biodiversity and conservation which are in their Eco School action plan. They asked for help with filling bird feeders and class energy monitors and taught us the Rich Diversity song
Lots of different activities linked to Greece and their traditions!
Children excited to try some Greek snacks on our salad bar today! Well done to Miss Robertson and Maya for making some lovey Greek foods!
Wow! What a fantastic presentation to introduce our Greek Culture Day led by one of our families this morning. The rest of the children learnt so much and are looking forward to participating in further activities in classrooms!
Book in a Box! You have been so creative and we can’t believe the hard work that has gone into these little creations. Well done to everyone who entered our competition as part of World Book Day! We will announce the four winners tomorrow as it is taking us so long to decide!
SJT staff are always eager to dress up too! Can you guess which books they are characters from?
Wow what wonderful costumes you wore to celebrate World Book Day! We had some fabulous homemade costumes, some very original costumes and we were impressed that despite some year 6 think it isn’t cool to dress up, lots of our year 6 did!
We have started the 40 acts of kindness activities the student ethos team at St Anne’s have created for us! I wonder how kind we can be on our lent joinery towards Easter!
We wore red today to show racism the red card. Our assembly focused on the impact racism can have on families and children. Everyone decorated a boot, some with anti-racism graffiti and we created large letters. Our class photographs show us giving racism the boot!
We have been sharing the love in school today with each child writing a positive postcard for someone in their class to tell them what they admire about them! The staff did it too and hung them in the staffroom to celebrate the skills and qualities that they bring to our team.
This term we are focusing on our school value of patience! Look at the fabulous displays in the class reflection areas which capture all the different ways and times when we have to live out this value!
We are ready for the Big Bird Watch and in FS sessions next week we will be counting all the birds that visit our school grounds and bird cafe as well as those they come to see what we are learning in our classrooms each day when they perch on our window feeders!
We all created a flower for David just in case the flowers in his hair fall out again. The book, The Boy with Flowers in his Hair by Jarvis is a beautiful book about patience, friendship, kindness and supporting friends in hard times. Look at out fabulous display in the entrance!
Another fantastic worship led by Mary from Groundbreakers today on the theme of generosity. Children thought about how they could be generous to one another through giving up their time or sharing their treasures.
The whole school took part in a giant construction workshop on Thursday ran by @KaplaclubsUK It was a great team building event with the whole school working together to create the masterpiece below. In was wonderful for fine motor development, concentration and creativity. We have our very own bag of planks so look out to sign your child up for a lunchtime club soon
Our Christmas Church service focused on the ‘essence of Christmas’ and what the true meaning of Christmas is for Christians. The children performed poems, sang songs and acted out bible stories. It was a wonderful celebration!
Look at the wonderful games each class researched, designed and made during TASC day. The games were created for our school fair and were fantastic. A big shout out to Molly, Poppy and Miss Ireland who were enthusiastic and energetic the whole evening as a human fruit machine.
We started our Christingle Service at school watching The Bible Society story Festive Fred which was about Jesus being the greatest gift at Christmas. We then walked down to church and we sang, prayed and lit our Christingles as we reminded ourselves of what they represent.
Every night over advent a different child will play host and use the nativity characters to retell the Christmas story. Posadas have been welcomed into many of our St John’s family homes. The children have captured the visits in the diaries wonderfully! They have a lot more homes to visit.
Rev Alison led worship today focusing on waiting! We looked at different types of waiting. Advent means waiting for the coming of Jesus. We read the parable of the 10 bridesmaids to remind us that we are still waiting for Jesus to return, we have hope that he will. Maranatha!
Inventors class shared their learning about The Romans in their assembly this morning .They shared their understanding of how life was during the Roman period, their Beowulf poems and sang a Roman song to the tune of Hey Mickey which we are now all singing and humming!
Our Earth Stewards led worship today, they told us why they chose to join our Earth Stewards team and what they want to do to help our school to be more eco friendly through projects in the school, school grounds and local area. They are on a mission to gain our first Eco Flag!
Mary led worship today and we had to remember the items she showed us. Is there anything that connects these things? The 12 objects are linked to a special day in November, even the jellyfish, 3rd Nov is Jellyfish Day. What a wonderful world where we are all different!
Adventurers led a whole school assembly today focused on the meaning of remembrance day, remembering our heroes and the poppy being a symbol of remembrance and hope. Well done Adventurers you did us proud
To celebrate the end of Black History Month we had an African Culture Day. Lots of activities including making African jewellery, masks and writing about amazing black women. We came together to listen to African music, dance and we enjoyed trying African food on the salad bar!
To celebrate Black History month we have added some new books, recognising more Black Courageous Advocates, to our collection. Year 6 have created a fabulous display sharing positive, quotes and words to change the world
The children enjoyed watching The Nest today. The set was fabulous and the storyline helped our children understand that you don’t need lots of things to feel loved. The birds in the story needed love, care and help to fly so they could look after themselves.
Our Lighthouse crew have led worship today, we have focused on prayer and how we can pray. We have worked together on our house teams to write our school focused jelly baby prayers; Suzy sorry, Thea thanks, Wendy worry and Andy ask.
A wonderful St. John’s community Harvest Festival was held at church today with each class performing either a poem or song. Fabulous singing from everyone with our favourites Harvest Samba and Conkers being sung! A service of thanks and togetherness supporting others in need!
The children have created wonderful displays in their reflective areas to represent our school value of hope with a focus on dreams for themselves and others. They have really thought about dreams for the coming year and dreams for their futures.
Meet our fabulous lighthouse crew. They have worked hard to share a collective worship with the theme with our school value of respect, sharing a story from the Bible, leading songs and sharing whole school prayers.
Reverend Alison joined us today for collective worship and told a modern day version of The Good Samaritan. We reflected on our own actions and how we might behave in similar situations.
Look at our wonderful SJT families. A huge welcome to our new families who have just joined us, we can’t wait to find out more about you.
Mary from Groundbreakers came to deliver our collective worship and acted out a parable about being grateful for what we have. Are you a grumbler or are you grateful?
Book club has started again this week and it is lovely to see so many ‘bookworms’ enjoying reading all the different books in our corridors.
Over the last few days each class has focused on a different well being book to help them start the new year positively with the tools to cope if things get tough! Look at the fabulous displays in the hall!
A wonderful whole school worship and celebration to end the school year. Different groups of children performed, we handed out our special leavers and progress awards and we reflected on our year 6’s time at SJT. We ended with a song to year 6 and our traditional human tunnel!
Mary came to lead the final of her worships on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Our year 6 were on hand to help her and she talked about tricky choices. She shared the bible story of Daniel who had a tricky decision to make. What tricky decisions do we need to make? #godhelps
Who's that behind the mask? We held our Masked Reader Event this afternoon with the children working in teams to guess the staff member behind the mask and the book they were reading! Go to the children tab on the website and look at the videos under the video resource centre!
Wow what an absolutely fabulous sports day! The children tried so hard in their races, cheered on their house teams and showed true sportsmanship. A wonderful afternoon with the SJT community!
The children took part in a Geography TASC afternoon and created wonderful displays showing the human and physical features. Explorers looked at the hamlet of Thornham, Discoverers the village of Castleton, Inventors the town of Rochdale and Adventurers the city of Manchester.
Mary from ground breakers delivered collective worship this week and spoke about Ruth from the bible being a “sticky” friend. Are you a “sticky” friend too?
Rev Alison led worship today. We watched a video to show the ascension of Jesus into heaven and Rev Alison read from the Book of Acts in the bible. The ascension was a surprise and God is still surprising us now if we open our eyes and look for his wonder!
We have looked at different types of families and our Model Making Club have been busy creating people for our display. The display celebrates how each family is different and unique. There are as many as a handful of buttons. We can’t wait to see the children’s button families!
Year 2 have started their Archbishop Young Leaders Award journey today. Focusing on the value of kindness and how it links with being a good leader
Today we had a SCARF workshop with each class focusing on different topics. Explorers and Discoverers focused on Me and my Body and friendship, Inventors focused on well being and connections and Adventurers looked at the difference between legal drugs and illegal drugs.
This half term we are focusing on the school value of belief. Each class has created a display above their reflection table. Some classes have looked at different faiths and others have focused on belief in themselves and others.
KS2 have been looking at survival skills in Forest School based around a plane crash scenario. Today we had visitors Dave and Tom from Rochdale Council to teach us some basic first aid. We learned how to check casualties vital signs, apply bandages and perform CPR.
This week every child wrote a positive postcard thinking about the special qualities of one person in their class. They posted them in the box and today they were given out. Everyone received one with lovely messages and beautiful pictures, the staff got involved too!
This week has been Anti-bullying week with the message that kindness can over power bullying . Each class created a letter to spell STOP and wore brightly coloured/odd socks today. These photographs will be made into posters to display around school
This week is World Autism Acceptance week. We have been celebrating difference, accepting people as they are and raising awareness. We ended the week taking part in a colour run. The children wore hair accessories and held ribbons in class colours as they ran.
Some of our Gift Group and Lighthouse Crew have written wonderful Easter Prayers which they shared at our Easter Service.
What a wonderful Easter Service of hope. Discoverers explained the Easter story through resurrection eggs and Inventors and Adventurers recited poems which showed us how Jesus dying and rising again gives Christians hope. Explorers sang a lovely spring song
Easter displays are popping up around school with a lovely Easter garden created by Harry and a fabulous flower cross made by our reception class. We are looking forward to our Easter Service at St. John’s Church this afternoon where we will celebrate what Jesus did for us all!
The value we have been focusing on this half term is Compassion. Look at the wonderful displays containing children’s thoughts and ideas of what compassion is and prayers that show compassion towards others.
Mary came to lead Collective Worship today and stared with a ‘would you rather?’ then ‘declare or deny’. We talked about people in the bible who denied Jesus. Peter made lots of declarations but then denied Jesus’ three times before declaring love three times.
World Book Day!
This year we focused on poetry as well as illustrations. The children took part in two activities. One writing their own poems and displaying them on our poetry and the other an online workshop with Rob Biddulph focusing on illustrations.
Here is our Poetree, there’s lots of poems for you to see. Creatures large and creatures small, we hope that you love them all! We all wrote poems for world book day and have created woodland animals to display them in!
One of the activities for World Book Day involved the children watching Rob Biddulph interactive online show based on his book New Blue-Footed Booby in our large inflatable dome and they had a go at sketching some of his characters too.
Book in a Jar! These are so amazingly creative. We are really impressed! They look fabulous displayed in our library!
World Book Day dressing up as a book character!
Wow what amazing costumes you all wore for World Book Day! Fabulous characters for all different books, it was great to guess who you all were!
The staff looked fabulous for World Book Day too! Can you guess what characters they are?
Mr. McQuaid the chaplain from St. Anne’s came to share the Love Thy Neighbour challenge, the change you want to see! We might give some things up but this time can you also give something back. Look out for the challenges each day and send in some photographs!
During anti-racism week each year group created a piece of art to display in the corridor to show SJT’s commitment to standing up to racism. art work to show our understanding of racism and the impact it has on our lives. We can’t wait to hang them up on the corridor to show all our visitors that everyone is welcome in our school.
During Anti-Racism week, activities were planned to raise awareness including: a special visitor who talked about their experiences of growing up in a multi- cultural society and one of our pupils lead collective worship to let everyone know that we are all responsible!
For Mental Health week have been focusing on looking after our minds and hearts. We used the theme ‘Let’s connect’ from Place2Be. The children thought about their connections with others and how that helps their well being and their hearts too.Each child decorated links with positive graffiti. We connected the whole school together from Reception all the way to year 6 to show togetherness. We will hang the huge paper chain up to remind us to look after our minds!
Our Lighthouse Crew led Collective Worship in a different way today. Their focus was on prayer and the children took part in a workshop in their house families to look at the four different ways we can pray to God. Have a look at our prayer Jelly Babies!
Look at us wearing numbers for NSPCC Rocks. We took part in lots of fun number activities today, including using maths calculation games, problem solving and writing number questions to answers. In Collective Worship this week we have looked at the amazing work of the NSPCC!
What a fabulous assembly year 1 performed to the whole school and their parents this morning. They told us all about The United Kingdom, the countries and the capital cities through a fabulous song. They took us on their tour bus to see the key landmarks in London. Amazing!
We enjoyed reading the book Mixed in Collective Worship and every child created their own colours, each one different and unique. At SJT we are all different and that is what makes our school so special. We learn from each other, accept difference and show love to all.
Love is all around this half term as we focus on our school value of LOVE. Look at the wonderful displays above our reflection tables in each class. The children have written different ways to show love.
In Collective Worship we have read the book Only One You. The book celebrates diversity and radiates positivity. Every child designed and made their own fish and pledged how they will make a difference. SJT is small but together we can do our bit to make the world a better place! We are loving the positive words, captions and statements the children are adding to our graffiti table. This has been inspired by the book Only One You. The table is so colourful, positive and we are amazed by the block and bubble writing and different letter fonts. Fabulous!
What a wonderful church service we had with time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas for Christians. The different classes told the Christmas story in different ways including poems, songs and rhyme. Our choir sang beautifully for us and children wrote and read prayers.
It was Barmy in Bethlehem this morning with our party sheep singing ba ba boogie. Our Explorers told the nativity story brilliantly, taking on their different roles, learning their lines and singing their songs fantastically! Well done we are so proud of you all!
We have been busy making our Christingle oranges ready for our service at church on Thursday. Do you know what each part of the Christingle orange represents? Our Christingle service started at school where we watched a different version of the nativity story called The Christmas Poem. We all then followed the pony down the lane and went into church for our service where we lit our candles as the choir sang.
The whole school took part in Christmas TASC day. Each year group researched a countries Christmas Traditions and used their learning to design, create and make a decoration for our tree. We have Ukrainian webs, Swiss cable cars, Jamaican masks, Greek boats and an Indian star.
The wonderful world of technology provides information, access to videos, social media etc The book Unplugged has helped us to think about when we use technology too much which stops us from enjoying the world around us and spending time with others. BASC made us our own BLIP!
It was the staff and governors turn to review our school ethos statement in their meeting tonight. We had some of our year 4 and 5 children sharing a presentation of the work they did in their ethos workshop with Ground breakers. A buzz in the air as we shared more ideas!
Rev Alison came to lead worship in school today. She talked about gifts they could give told us the parable of the talents- gifts God gave to servants. If you use the talents that God gives you he will give you more. Use Gods gifts to the best of your ability and to do good.
Look at these beautiful God’s eye poppies the children have made in Forest School. They are standing proud in front of The Queen’s Jubilee tree. Have a look when you visit us.
We will remember them! Our year 6 children made a wreath in Forest School using willow and red leaves. We walked to church and laid it on the cenotaph. We talked about the fallen soldiers and then listened to the church bells before holding our minutes silence.
Remembrance assembly this morning led by year 6 was really thoughtful and reflective. They read their trench poems and took us back in time in their Tardis. They read prayers and helped us to think about those who lost their lives and gave us hope for the future.
It was wonderful to see you all at parents evening to share in your child’s successes and wows. We hope you enjoyed visiting the travelling book fair. It is still with us tomorrow so come and have a look at the fabulous books.
We are so proud of everyone in our school who helped to prepare our school for the Middleton In Bloom competition in the summer. School did bloom, we learnt lots of new skills and we welcomed lots of birds and animals into our school grounds. We won an award. Well done team SJT!
Wow Discoverers your assembly was absolutely amazing! You have learnt so much about Neil Armstrong and his journey to the moon. You learnt your lines so well and said them loudly and clearly. You had lots of information to remember. Fantastic singing and dancing too.
We celebrated Harvest with a wonderful Harvest Festival full of singing, poems and prayers of thanks. Each class performed a song or poem and Discoverers led us in prayer. Thank you for your food donations, they are on their way to Middleton Food bank. Have a look at the class blogs for the perfomances.
Wow Discoverers your assembly was absolutely amazing! You have learnt so much about Neil Armstrong and his journey to the moon. You learnt your lines so well and said them loudly and clearly. You had lots of information to remember. Fantastic singing and dancing too.
Well done Inventors you did a super assembly this morning showing us all your Science learning this half term. We found out so much about The Water Cycle and were impressed by your knowledge and understanding of the vocabulary. We loved your rap too.
Ground breakers led a workshop with year 4, 5 and 6 focusing on The Holy Trinity and our school ethos. The children really thought about The Holy Trinity and how it can be represented. They had wonderful ideas on how to adapt our ethos statement to make it more child friendly!
In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. Everything was dark but God’s spirit was there, getting ready to do something amazing. Every year group has created a picture to show each day of God’s creation. It really is a colourful creation that we all need to cherish!
Our Lighthouse crew have planned and delivered their own assembly in collective worship for our school value of dreams. They have worked extremely hard and impressed us all with their enthusiasm, energy and courage speaking to the whole school, sharing their dreams and hopes.
Our Global Goal for this half term is to to think about the importance of trees for humans and all living things. We need to make sure we are not wasting paper and do our bit to recycle. We set the children a challenge to recycle newspaper and make their own.
We loved having @M6Theatre in school to perform Sunflowers and Sheds. What treat to see a real live performance. We loved the set, the acting was amazing and the music. Two very different people coming together over a shared interest and becoming friends, a fabulous storyline.
Mary from Groundbreakers came to see us today she talked to us about hero’s and villains. We played who am I? Was Guy Fawkes born a villain? Was Rosa Parks born a hero? It is about choices. Make good choices for yourself and for others. If you make a bad choice put it right.
Our first book club was wonderful this morning with children reading in the book nooks all across school. They were reading to themselves, reading with each other and listening to adults read. Looking forward to next weeks book club, Mondays and Fridays at 8.30!
Mr Genty from Rochdale music service has been in school today teaching inventors about Samba music. Every child in school will learn to play this new instrument as Miss Ireland learns from Mr Genty and then teaches each class in turn. We cant wait to see how they progress and await a few performances too.
Today our KS1 children took part in the BUPA get with the programme coding day. They watched an assembly about eating healthy foods and used their knowledge of this to create a healthy lunch by designing algorithms for a robot. They classified the foods brilliantly.
Goodbye and Good Luck to our Class of 2022
Year 6 Church Leavers Service
What a send off our year 6 leavers had at our church service. It was filled with prize giving, reflections of their time at St. John’s and songs from their production of Mattie. A goodbye song of Sweet Caroline as they left down the tunnel of children. SJT will never forget you as you helped to give it a big heart!
Middleton In Bloom Judging
It’s judging day! Middleton in Bloom judges followed the map of our school gardens, created by Megan and Lucinda, to find our wild flower bed, vegetable patches and filled tyres, Forest School areas, sunflowers for our competition, fairy gardens, bird cafe and lovey baskets!
Well done to SJT you have worked so hard and our school grounds are blooming!
Mattie
Year 6, supported by year 4/5, have worked really hard to be ready for their performances of Mattie. They were all fabulous despite the really hot weather and a few missing due to illness.
Fabulous singing, dancing and great acting!
Florence Nightingale Production
Wow Discoverers class what an amazing production of Florence Nightingale! You told us all about her, what she did, how she helped and what impact it has had on us now! Super singing, loud voices and great actions. Well done to you all, it was fabulous!
Sports week and race afternoon!
What a wonderful sports week our children had taking part in all different sports, learning new skills and new rules as well as good sportsmanship.
It was fabulous to have or race afternoon, we really missed having our parents/carers at it over the last few years. The sun was shining, the children were fabulous in their races running, jumping and going over obstacles for their house teams. Everyone got involved from the toddlers, to the parents and staff in their races too. A well deserved ice lolly at the end. Well done everyone!
The Great Science Share
Some of our amazing Scientists went to The Great Science Share at Manchester University Manchester! They presented a science investigation which used different fruits and bicarbonate of soda.
How does the type of fruit affect the amount of fizz?
The children really enjoyed manning their investigation stand as well as walking around and taking part in other investigations. They learnt so much from the investigations the other schools presented. Going to Manchester University was really inspiring too!
SJT Jubilee Celebrations
Our Jubilee celebrations started with us watching the Queens Coronation in the school hall, singing the National Anthem and waving our flags as we sang. Each class then went to create stamp designs for our whole school art project and to decorate their own Queens crowns to wear for our Afternoon tea. Sandwiches, mini fish and chips, cakes and scones- very British and very yummy too!
The afternoon was a TASC competition where each year group designed an outfit fit for Our Queen. The only problem was they had to make it from newspaper with a little bit of tissue paper to add colour. A democratic vote decided on the wining dress and who would be the models and the children got on with making their amazing designs.
The afternoon ended with a catwalk which showed off the designs. Mrs. Hunter couldn't choose a winner as they were fantastic. Some of our models carried on wearing them down the lane!
Have a look on the video conferencing tab under the children's section of our website to see the video of our catwalk and us singing "Even if the rain pours down on me we wont stop singing- for Our Queen."
Easter Church Service
What a fabulous Easter Service. It truly was a celebration and it was wonderful to welcome parents back to join us. The children performed brilliantly and it was amazing to hear them sing our new I-sing Pop songs. We reflected on the true meaning of Easter for Christians.
Water is Precious!
We have been reading The Water Protectors in Collective Worship. The book has taught us that water is the most precious resource for humans, animals, plants and trees. We must treasure it, not waste it and value it. We all stand together and pledge to be stewards of the Earth!
Rochdale Spelling Bee 2022
We are part of the Rochdale Spelling Bee competition and have been bust bee's learning our spellings ready for the school heats. Congratulations to our spelling bee winners in year 3,4,5 and 6. We have one winner from each year group who progressed to the next round.
This morning the four winners competed against each other. They were fantastic and it took a long time to find our winner. Congratulations to Oliver who will progress to the Rochdale semi-finals and represent St. John's.
I-SING POP Lent Workshop
We had a fabulous time on Friday with Leah from I-SING Pop. She lead Lent workshops and taught the school three new songs which we are going to sing in our Easter service. It was great to see Leah in person as we watch I-SING Pop collective worship once a week online. The children were really committed to learning the new songs and the actions and we have enjoyed practising them ready for our Easter Service. Thank you to the PTFA who paid for this special activity.
World Book Day 2022
Our children looked fabulous in their costumes for World Book Day and loved reading lots of books, going to our reading cafe as well as taking part in our book swap. Can you guess which books some of children are characters from?
Preparations for World Book Day 2022
In preparation for World Book Day each class created a chandelier. KS2 have chosen one of their golden texts and EYFS/KS1 have chosen a Traditional Tale. Can you guess which books they have been reading?
E-safety Day
Each class took part in lots of activities focusing on being safe when online. They were also part of a workshop led by Global Policing about people not always being who they say they are online. Our Digital leaders led Collective Worship and created a power point about You Tube and how to make sure you do not watch content that is not appropriate for children.
Shane from Global Policing delivered a parent workshop on the very important topic of E-safety!
Music- different styles of music this half term
Each class has been busy creating a display which shows the style of music they focused on last half term. When you are in school next use the QR code to watch the children as they perform the different music styles.
Design Technology and RE
Our whole school TASC day with a focus on DT and RE was amazing. This years TASC was to create a class chandelier to decorate our new corridors with a Christmas hymn as a theme and it had to be made out of recycled materials. Can you guess the hymns for each chandelier?
The TASC wheel helps us to research, plan, design, make and evaluate the things we make. We really thought hard about how the whole chandelier would look and our individual decorations hanging on it too. Our school corridor looks brilliant and we are so pleased with the chandeliers.
RE and Art Collaboration
The whole school collaborated on an RE and Art project to replicate an original piece of art create by Don Clark as an illustration in the book The Biggest Story by Kevin Deyoung. After reading the book the children were inspired by the illustrations. Each class created a section of the picture and then we pieced it back together. It looks fabulous!
Explorers used finger painting to create their section of the picture. They mixed primary colours to make secondary colours and added white and black to colours to make different tones.
Discoverers collaged their section of the picture using a combination of materials that were cut, twisted, torn and then glued down into position.
Inventors used pointillism and block colour to create their section of the picture. They carefully used dots in different sizes and colours to create a fantastic effect.
Adventurers used collage to create a mosaic effect with ripped paper overlapped to create rough edges in their section of the picture.
"One day there will be nothing but the best days, day after day after day. And forever and ever it will be a wonderful time to be God’s children in God’s wonderful world."
MAVIS SPARKLE
Did your child tell you about the special performance we had in school on Wednesday?
M6 Theatre Company performed ‘Mavis Sparkle’. Mavis is a cleaner with an extraordinary story to tell, She went on a journey north to see nature's biggest light show with her own eyes. Her amazing cleaning trolley full of secrets and surprises, was brilliant. Did your child tell you about the special performance we had in school on Wednesday? M6 Theatre Company performed ‘Mavis Sparkle’. Mavis is a cleaner with an extraordinary story to tell, She went on a journey north to see nature's biggest light show with her own eyes. Her amazing cleaning trolley full of secrets and surprises was brilliant.
At St. John's we EMBRACE DIFFERENCE
We looked at diversity and difference in Collective Worship.
We talked about being the same on the inside. We know we
all feel joy, pain, delight and fear. We all have hopes and
dreams, gifts and talents. We are all human.
We shared the book Smeds and Smoos and thought about
people who find it difficult to accept that others might be
different, like different things, enjoy different music, eat
different foods, have different religions, love different people,
have different skin colour or have physical or mental differences.
At St. John’s we celebrate difference and diversity. We love
to meet and learn from people who are different from us.
We are all the same on the inside and just like the different
creatures in the story, The Smeds and Smoos, we are all
different on the outside. We embrace difference and celebrate
what we all bring to our world.
Love one another as I have loved you
John 13.34
SCIENCE WEEK
In our science week every class focused on a new Science ‘wow’ to develop their investigative skills further and experience new things in a fun and interesting way. Year 6 theme was innovating for the future and they designed and created their own Robo- Bug. Inventors researched, designed and made a roof that would withstand a rainforest downfall. Discoverers looked at how our lungs work and used a bicycle pump to see a sheep's lung in action. Explorers looked at teeth and what drinks can damage them, the egg and orange experiments showed the sugar harming the enamel. Next week each class will enjoy looking at what the rest of the school investigated as each class shares their big science question and their learning too.
St. Johns Sea Shanty
#SeaShantyTikTok is currently dominating social media platforms, thanks to a rendition of 'Wellerman' by a Scottish postman and folk singer. We enjoyed finding out all about Sea Shanties in our assembly and found out that they were originally sung by seamen aboard merchant ships and fishing ships in the 1400s. Scottish postman and folk singer Nathan Evans began the viral trend with a cover of ‘Wellerman’, a 19th-century New Zealand whaler song.
Josie from Ed Start has taught us a St. John’s version which we all loved learning this week. We cant wait to perform it for you!
Look out for our whole school video we will record when the weather gets better.
Lord God
Thank you for the gift of music through instrument and voice. We hope you bless us all with the creativity to make and share music and keep us healthy and fit to enjoy dancing to it.
Amen
Toilet Tube Book Characters
We celebrated World Book Day with the children making their favourite character out of a toilet roll. Each class shared their creations and favourite book on zoom and brought them to school when they returned on Monday. Look at the gorgeous designs. Can you guess the different characters?
They have been displayed in the hall and are amazing. Well done to our wonderful designers. We hope you enjoyed celebrating World Book Day and the fabulous books and authors too!
World Book Day 2021
Despite some of you being at home we managed to celebrate reading and wonderful books Wow, what wonderful toilet roll character creations you made for World Book Day. The class zoom sessions today were brilliant- some of you dressed up too. Can you please bring your toilet roll character to school on Monday as we will make a display in the hall?
As part of World Book Day some of the staff have recorded themselves reading a section of their favourite book. They are disguised. Can you work out which member of staff is reading each book? You can find The Masked readers on your child's Showbie or in the Video Conference section on this website. (under the children's section) We will reveal the readers in tomorrows Lockdown Lowdown. Happy guessing!
Ground breakers Assembly- The True You- 5th February
This week Mary talks about our gifts and talents and how we use them.
There is a memory game at the beginning, opportunities to think and reflect and a story called The Parable of the Talents. I hope you and your children enjoy it.
Topsy Turvey Assembly #8 The True You
Mrs Hunters Assembly- Children’s Mental Health Week.
We talk about being healthy all the time in school and remind ourselves how to keep our bodies healthy by eating the right foods and exercising but we also focus on our mental health too. This week is Children Mental Health week and this is a great reminder about how we should look after our minds just as much as our bodies. We talk about our well-being in school and the Heart smart 'High Fives' we use in our PSHCE lessons really help us with this.
It is good to talk about well-being and you might watch to watch this video with your mum, dad or carer as it explains how we all have different emotions on different days and gives us ideas of how we can manage them. It s good to talk about our emotions and feelings and this can really help our well-being and so can doing the things we like.
Talking Mental Health
Watch the video below of The Duchess of Cambridge’s sharing her message about mental health. She is the patron for Place2B and sends a message to children and parents. The focus this week is on doing something creative which makes you feel good about yourself.
Children's Mental Health Week 2021 - a message from our Royal Patron
If you want any further information about Children’s Mental Health have a look at the Young Minds website
Ground breakers assembly- All Puffed Up- 21st January
This week Mary from Groundbreakers talks about the dangers of boasting and being "puffed up". Follow the link below to find out what she thinks about being proud compared to boasting or bragging!
Groundbreakers Assembly - Too Clever Is Dumb
Mrs. Hunters assembly- 18th January
In school we appreciate those who are always willing to be helpful and I am sure your parents love it when you offer to help them or others at home! Everyone has the same chance to wear a 'helpful' badge in the actions they choose to make each day.
Being kind and helpful to others costs nothing except a little effort on our part and that helping others should be something that we do willingly. It is such a shame to think that some people will only do something to help if they think they will get a reward.
How many of you are willing to help at home without expecting a reward, such as a biscuit, a sweet, or some money. The satisfaction in helping others should be the reward.
Watch this video which shows the joy it brings to someone who learns to help others.
Short Film, Cartoon Story, Helping others is the key to happiness (Official Video)
Everyone is capable of helping, however big or small they are. Even very young children are eager to help.
Small creatures help larger creatures. For example, there are tiny fish, sometimes called doctor fish, that clean the fungi (small growths) from bigger fish. There are birds that eat the parasites (blood-sucking insects) that live on the bodies of larger animals or in the scales of crocodiles or alligators. These small creatures help to keep the larger ones healthy.
There are people who dedicate their lives to helping others: people who save lives (doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, etc.); people who face danger to help others (soldiers, sailors, RAF members, fire-fighters, police officers, etc.). Some people work throughout the night when the rest of us are sleeping (electricity supply workers, carers, lorry drivers, etc.). Most do get paid for what they do but they still choose a sometimes difficult way of life because they want to help others.
Thank you to everyone who helps others in their job, at home or in school. You make our world a better place by spreading kindness.
Dear God,
Teach us to be thoughtful and kind like Jesus.
Lord of the loving heart, may mine be loving too.
Lord of the gentle hands, may mine be gentle too.
Lord of the willing feet, may mine be willing too.
So may I grow to be more like you in all I say and do. Amen.
Groundbreakers Assembly- Monday 11th January
Below is this week's assembly called 70 times 7. It is all about forgiveness. In it, we look at how revenge is a common theme running through many films and the main character is often faced with a choice - Do they get their own back or do they show mercy in the end? Then we go on to look at what Jesus has to say.
Groundbreakers Assembly - 70 times 7
Mrs Hunters assembly- Friday 8th January
Today's assembly is all about Hope for the world. We have talked a lot about plastic in our assemblies last year and created a lovely turtle display in the hall this year to remind us of the damage it causes. We need to stop using single use plastic as we know what damage it is doing to the beautiful sea animals.
Have a read of this poem-
Plastic packaging and plastic rings,
Plastic bags for more plastic things,
Plastic bottles for the water you drink,
But plastic causes death so stop and think!
Millions of sea birds and turtles painfully die,
After eating plastic that floats on by,
Plastic thrown away and out of reach,
Ends up as plastic sand on a plastic beach,
Plastic sold for consumer cash
Fills our oceans with plastic trash.
How does this poem make you feel? Does it make you want to do something to stop this? We have written to the milk company to ask them to stop sending us plastic straws with our school milk. What else could we do?
Watch the video. If only the sea creatures could clean out the sea themselves! They can't they rely on us.
Hope Works 🌟A Whales Tale 🌟Cartoon Network 🌟Turner 🌟Movies for Children
Can you create a poster to remind others to stop using single use plastic and research what other things they could use instead? Share your posters with us and we will put them on the school notice board for the walkers to read. Remember the 4Rs formula which is to Reduce, Refuse, Reuse and Recycle!
Here is a prayer I found in our school prayer book written by one of our children-
Lord, please pray for the ocean animals, they are suffering from plastic bags from people and god created the ocean animals too!
Please pray for the ocean animals!
Amen
If you want something a little different to Joe Wicks PE follow EdStarts daily lessons.
Whole School Christmas TASC Day 2020
We loved finding out what this years Christmas challenge would be.
What gift can you create for someone your know using an empty matchbox?
Have a look at the Power point below which highlights the task set and shows how children use the TASC wheel to generate, plan, develop and make their products.
Now look at some of our wonderful creations- some very lucky people will be receiving our gifts this Christmas.
Lithium Laura and Nuclear Naz from Mad Science did a virtual assembly today and they showed us lots of experiments which made is go wow! Some experiments used heat reactions including using a hairdryer to get a ping pong ball to fly and a large blower to unravel a whole toilet roll. The pressure got the objects to lift in the air as if they were flying. We loved her experiment to get Bubbling Bob out of the pit using a chemical reactions which bubbled over and she amazed us by using heat to get Egbert into the vase!
We love finding out about the world around us in our Science lessons and cant wait for our Science Share week in June where we can try our own experiments.
Please find attached some leaflets prepared by Rochdale Council written to support parents with children's anxiety and when dealing with family bereavement during the Covid Pandemic.
If you need any further advice or support with this please do contact us and we will do all we can to help. The office@thornhamce.rochdale.sch.uk will be manned over the summer.
This assembly is about perseverance but this time looking at life being like a race and thinking about some of the things that can hold us back in our race. As the day of filming was the 23rd June, Olympic Day, we look at the example of Derek Redmond, how he persevered in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and then go on to look at a verse from the Bible about running with perseverance and what that actually means. Ironically, this assembly needed much perseverance as it had to be re filmed so many times due to technical problems with the camera, fuzzy image etc etc. I felt like giving up!! :) However I PERSEVERED (!!!) and here it is...
This weeks Picture News has seen lots of coverage on the news over the last few weeks. Talk with your family about the differing viewpoints.
Worship2go focuses on Resilience which is something we all need particularly whilst we are still in Lockdown. Play snakes and ladders, make and shield and send a message to someone you love in a bottle.
Here is the new assembly entitled Knotted Up. It's all about how just as we can get knotted up with our shoelaces and are prevented from moving forward, so we can get in a tangle with "nots" ie. I can NOT do that... which also stop us moving on. We need perseverance and a positive mindset to untangle our mental knots and sometimes we need help too.
This weeks Picture News question helps us to think about money. We have to make sure we budget so we have enough to pay for what we need and save up for what we might want.
Patience is the them for this weeks Worship2go. Have a read through the bible verses and prayers and then have a go at making a ball and cup to play with and see if you can make a playing card tower!
Mary's assembly this week is called You Matter! In the light of what is going on in the world I thought it is important to remind ourselves that we all matter very much to God.
iMoves Samba Dance Challenge
Mrs Howarth would like all you budding dancers to have a go at this challenge from imoves. Follow the link below for more information. Create your own Samba routine. First, dance along to our video to get you moving and shimmying, and give you some ideas. Now it's time to create your your very own Samba routine.
Use their video for inspiration, create something totally wacky and unique, or just dance along with them. Simply post your video on whichever social media platform you prefer and tag imoves and the one with the most likes each week will win! EVERYONE who submits a video will get a downloadable certificate to put on their bedroom wall.
Send your videos into school too as we would love to see them. Keep dancing!
This weeks picture news question is very interesting and the extra activities will help you to think more about it and what a routine means for your family.
This weeks Worship2go focuses on the value of Peace. Once you have looked at the passages why not have a go at making a peace dove and a sensory bottle. There is also a recipe for baking cakes too!
The new assembly for this week from Mary is... New Normal! 😀 It looks at some of the things we have had to learn in lock down and how, if we take them into our “new normal”, the world will be a kinder and more patient place. It focuses on the story of Peter and his “new normal”.
Have a look at this weeks Picture News. Discuss this question with your family and ask them why they chose the job they do? What job do you want to do when you are older?
Worship2go this week looks at joining together with people across the whole world as we think about the special prayer Jesus taught us, The Lord's Prayer. Why not make a beautiful patterned picture for your window too!
Mary's new assembly continues to think about Hope. It is entitled Anchored and looks at symbols associated with Hope. Get involved in The Generation game too!
Coronavirus Explained! (for kids)
Lots of parents have asked me for help in explaining coronavirus COVID-19 to their children. Here is a quick video that I hope will help explain what we curr...
The science behind how soap destroys coronavirus
Soap is made up of polar molecules - these are molecules where one end is different to the other end. In soap, one end loves water we call this hydrophilic w...
This weeks Picture News discussion question focuses on the news- what do you think? Do your family members agree with you?
This weeks Worship2go focuses on the value of Kindness- which ties in with National Mental Health week. We hope you have been thinking about keeping your minds as active as you bodies. Try some of these activities including the ripple experiment.
Mary from Ground breakers Collective Worship for this week is about Hope. Hope Is... thinking about the wait for things to return to normal and what I Hope... means
Free eBook: Everybody Worries by Jon Burgerman
Even the bravest of the brave and the coolest of the cool worry. Worrying is normal when so much has changed.
Inspired by conversations with his parent friends who weren’t sure how to explain what is happening right now to their small children, artist and writer Jon Burgerman decided to do something to help.
Read this book with your child to help them to understand that everyone has worries and talk about what they should do if they are feeling worried.
It is National Mental Health week. We know that we have to work hard to keep both our bodies and minds healthy. This week your teachers have asked you to look at KINDNESS and think about how you show kindness to others. Kindness makes a big difference to us all and the world we live in.
Going out for daily walks and exercise can help to keep us fit but also helps us to think about different things like the nature around us. Chatting as we walk to our parents/siblings is also very positive too! The government has encouraged us to go our for daily exercise whilst in lock down which is great and you can still earn your WOW walk to school badges.
Have a look at the attached picture which shows #try20 there are lots of activities to do when you are walking to help you keep your mind healthy as well as your body too. Keep a diary of how many times you go for a walk and we can give you your wow badges when we return to school.
Looking to the Rainbow
Here is the song Looking to the Rainbow which has been created by Worship for Everyone. We plan to perform together when we are able to return to school. In the meantime can you learn the words and sing along to the track. It is a lovely song which is about lock down- how hard it has been having to stay away from school but shares the power of hope and us looking forward to us all coming back together again.
Looking-To-The-Rainbow-BeckyCalls.wav
Here is the music for you to sing along to. The lyrics are also below to help you to learn the words.
Can you discuss this weeks Picture News question as a family? I wonder what type of home you would like to live in!
Here is another Collective Worship activity sheet you can look at with your child- it focuses on the value Perseverance with lots of fun activities to do too!
Mary from Groundbreakers assembly for this week-10th May- Hide and Seek
VE Day - explained for children.
Author Andrew Powell-Thomas explains why VE Day is important in a simple and easy to understand way for children. For FREE online resources linked to this pl...
We hope you are going to get involved in the VE Day celebrations on Friday. Get involved in a social distancing street party where you live or why not do some of the activities listed below. Bake some cakes and make some sandwiches for your own afternoon tea! #VEDayAtHome
Picture News- KS2 children can you discuss and reflect on this weeks question?
Is your child missing our Collective Worships/assemblies in school? Have a look at this resources focused on the value of Hope with lots of fun activities to do too!
Assembly from Mary at Ground breakers Assembly- Mon 4th May '20 - Whose Hands
Whose hands do you feel safe in?
Picture News
Each week in school we pose a question to our KS2 children and ask them to reflect on the world around them. We are still receiving our weekly question from Picture News and thought that you may want to answer the question each week with your child and have a discussion around it!
These lock down memory tiles are a brilliant activity to do that you can keep for ever! Make them using salt dough- we have added a recipe for salt dough below! They are really easy to make and all the family can get involved!
Try these 30 day challenge grids for Arts and Crafts and Lego!
Coronavirus
Axel Scheffler has illustrated a digital book for primary school age children, about the coronavirus and the measures taken to control it. Published by Nosy Crow, and written by staff within the company, the book has had expert input: Professor Graham Medley of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine acted as a consultant, and the company also had advice from two head teachers and a child psychologist.
The book answers key questions in simple language appropriate for 5 to 9 year olds:
• What is the coronavirus?
• How do you catch the coronavirus?
• What happens if you catch the coronavirus?
• Why are people worried about catching the coronavirus?
• Is there a cure for the coronavirus?
• Why are some places we normally go to closed?
• What can I do to help?
• What’s going to happen next?
Here it is for you to read with your child on screen or print out!
As it’s Science week this week, the children have been engaged in some wonderful science experiments in each class.
Explorers - “We have been conducting experiments involving the weather! We made a snowstorm in a cup, a rain cloud in a cup and discussed how rain happens. We also used coloured water and sugar to create a rainbow!”
Discoverers – “We made ice cream using a chemical reaction. The salt mixed with the ice, causing it to melt quicker. The energy is transferred to the ingredients so they freeze; it tasted great!”
Inventors – “We made an air rocket made from straw & paper then had a race to see how high & fast our rockets flew!”
Adventurers – “We conducted an “egg drop” investigation. In groups, we created mechanisms to protect the egg from cracking. We had to ensure the test was fair by only changing one variable – the material and all other variables remained the same! We observed the eggs after the drop for any signs of damage; unfortunately, one didn’t survive!!”
WORLD BOOK DAY
Well done to all the children who decorated and created their favourite book character using a piece of fruit or a vegetable. We had some amazing creations and it was lovely to see the effort that the children made to decorate their book characters. Well done to our 4 winners; Harry C, Nicole, Harry V & Ben R!
The aim of World Book Day it is to celebrate authors, books, illustrators and - of course - reading! Last year Mrs Purser went to Tesco and got all the left over £1 books so every child in school came home with a free book today as well as receiving their £1 World Book Day Token before the half term holiday, which can be exchanged for one of the 10 specially published World Book Day books available in Tesco and WHSmith.
The whole school worked together and were placed in 3 mixed groups who moved around school doing activities linked to books and stories! The favourite book shared was a classic The Jolly Postman!
Look at the amazing creations of story characters made from fruit and vegetables! Thank you so much to all the parents/carers for supporting your child with this!
The children had a wonderful time when they visited Dippy the Diplodocus this week at No.1 Riverside where they went on an enquiry walk and observed the life sized cast. Afterwards they all took part in a range of dinosaur themed activities at Touchstones Gallery.
Dippy has travelled from The Natural History Museum in London. The children and staff were all amazed by how tall Dippy was and asked some great questions too! Ask your child what they learnt on their visit and what they favourite part of the trip was!
RHEMA THEATRE COMPANY- Cyber Tales
The day started with a whole school assembly focusing on three different tales to help us think about the real world and the online/cyber world. The first tale used puppets to show the two characters in the tale Mia and Bea. The sisters were very different Bea was kind and caring and chose her words carefully to do good, Mia liked to lie, spread rumours and break up friendships. Mia hurt lots of people and only learnt her lesson when she hurt her sister most of all. We learnt the saying "Be careful with your words please do, you never know what they may do." It is great making new friends online but if we haven't seen them in real life do we really know who they say they are?
The next tale was about a girl and boy who were at their Aunt's, she warned them not to go past the thick walls as a dragon lurks there. We helped to tell the story saying the " Whatever they might say or do...never let the dragon through." Whilst the Aunt was out Ava kicked her ball over the wall, it was thrown back over. She started talking to someone- they were friendly she thought it couldn't possibly be a dragon as he was kind and friendly. Ava sneaked out of the house, taking the key and opened the gate. The dragon leapt out at her and tried to eat her. Her brother had realised what she was doing and phoned his Aunt who happened to be a kick boxer and kicked the dragon back over the wall. Ava almost got tricked by a stranger in real life but this can also happen on line too.
The final tale was about a boy called Toby Raff who liked to make people laugh. He did silly things to make them laugh, we joined in the story with actions to show how we were laughing. One day at the swimming pool he did different jumps into the pool to make his friends laugh. One friend took a photograph of him doing a octopus jump. The class called him Octoboy- everybody laughed. The photo was shared phone by phone around the class- everybody laughed. Someone altered the photo, adding octopus tenticles- everybody laughed and everybody shared the photograph with other children around school even people he didn't know. Some people weren't nice, they made mean comments. He asked Bert to delete the original photograph. Bert said " Can't you take a joke? I can delete it on my phone but not everyone's." Toby Raff no longer laughed, people wore t-shirts, sang songs and told jokes about Octoboy. Toby Raff went to a tiny island to get away. People shared photographs without thinking about the consequences or getting permission to share. They though it was funny but making fun of others is never funny when the other person feels sad about it.
Each class then took part in a workshop where they talked about the different tales in more detail. We all reflected on the words we use. We need ti chose our words carefully to use to each other, even when messaging as we cant take them back once they are said. We can make the world a nicer place if we choose the right words.
STAY SAFE WITH THOMAS
On Monday 13th January 2020 @ 12:00pm all our children watched Stay Safe with Thomas – this was a LIVE READ with Nick Jordan from Network Rail which was streamed at lunchtime.
The broadcast featured Nick Jordan, Project Manager from Network Rail, who will held a live read of the new Thomas the Tank Engine book, Stay Safe with Thomas.
Network Rail teamed up with the world’s most famous blue engine and pre-school favourite to help young children learn how to be safe when using the railway.
Network Rail and British Transport Police (BTP) hope the story book will encourage parents to discuss rail safety with their young children in the same manner they teach them about other dangers they may encounter when out and about.
It is the first time Network Rail has partnered with children’s entertainment company Mattel and the first time Mattel has published a Thomas the Tank Engine TM book with a rail safety theme.
Please visit the below website to download your Stay Safe with Thomas e-book;
We are held a BOOK SWAP DAY on WEDNESDAY 29TH JANUARY in each class.
We want our children to become lost in the world of books, enjoy the adventures characters’ go on as well as find out more about the world around them. Reading is not just something that children should learn to do in school, they should be developing a love for books, stories and poems guided by the adults around them. Reading needs to be an everyday part of children’s lives, something they choose to do. The benefits of reading for pleasure go beyond this and stretch throughout a person's life.
We will hold a book swap every half term as well as having a basket in the lobby for you to place books you no longer read abd take a new book home. So if you have any age appropriate books that your child no longer wishes to read, please send them into school so your child can swap them with their classmates and take home some new books to explore!
We have had a fantastic time in school this week developing our Design and Technology skills along with our team work skills. Over the last two days the whole school has taken part in a Christmas TASC (Thinking Actively in a Social Context) Design and Technology project!
The children's TASC was to create a game for the school fair! Each class had to research, plan, design and made a festive game!
The games were brilliant and a fantastic addition to our school fair. All games stood out with their beautiful coloured banners and were played fairly due to the rules written by each class! Well done to all our classes who worked so well as a team to produce such wonderful games. Let's see which game made the most money!
I-SING POP came to St. John's this week and for an hour each day each class learnt new songs with lots of movement and action too. What an amazing week of singing we have had- the children have also learnt to be sassy and rap a little too! It has been wonderful for the children to learn lots of new songs and I cannot wait for the CD so I can listen to our children singing and use the CD in assemblies and church services too. Seven new songs were taught by Leah with great enthusiasm to our KS2 children and our KS1 children loved learning the actions to the four songs they learnt. It was so wonderful to end the week with our very own pop concert down at church. We did two concerts with all our children singing brilliantly, dancing and entertaining with HUGE smiles on their face. The audience loved it and the staff were so proud of each and everyone of our children. Thank you to the church team for letting us us the church for our event and to Manchester Diocese as without their financial contribution our children would not have engaged in such a fabulous musical experience. Have a look at the photographs below. We wore our school uniforms in the afternoon performance and bright coloured t-shirts in the evening show!
What a delight it was to take the whole school on a trip to Chester Zoo on Wednesday!
We were lucky to bid for and receive free admission tickets to the Zoo and therefore only had to pay for the coach which was fantastic. The children and staff were so excited to see different animals and learn about their habitats, what they eat and how the zoo is conserving special breads of animals.
The sun shone for us and the zoo was very quiet which meant we could move around the zoo with great ease. The new Lion area was amazing and we could see them so close up and another favourite was the penguins and the elephants too! The children were so enthused to do their writing in school on Thursday as they were all able to write about the animals they saw and the experience they had.
A huge thank you to all parents for getting the children to school early and collecting them later to enable us to spend as much time as possible at the zoo and to the staff too for looking after our children so well.
What a wonderful sound of Ukuleles I could hear from my office this morning. I followed the sound to find Discoverers in action strumming and playing beautifully. Mrs. Purser , with help from the music service is teaching all our children from Year 2 up to Year 6 to play the Ukulele. It has been wonderful to hear them playing in school and for Year 6 to perform at our Harvest Service.
We have created a display using the wonderful photographs that were sent in, which celebrate all of our fabulous and different St. John’s families, taken in their special places. Our message of ‘Different families, Same love’ shows everyone that each of us are unique and different individuals and so are our families. Every family is different and we are very proud of our St. John’s families! Our entrance is lovely and bright, come and have a look!