Next week, we will be walking down to church to hear the most important commandment of all:
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
This may seem easy enough to say, but how do we act it out on a daily basis through our words and actions. How easy is it to truly love each other? How can we demonstrate this freely? On Thursday, Father Peter will tell us all the Gospel reading of the Ascention; the time when Jesus left us on this earth to bring his kingdom of God alive through the lessons that he had taught us. We hope that you will be able to join us for our school mass.
Another period of time has just started with the arrival of May; the month of Mary. Being Our Lady Star of the Sea, this is a special month to us as we share in the lessons we can learn from her. A vital part of this is the rosary. In assembly today, I shared with the children a set of rosary beads that I was given by my auntie and uncle on my Holy Communion; ones that I still use to this day. Over the next few weeks, the children will be praying the rosary in their classes. Could you use the time at home to devote time to the rosary too?
School Developments…
Over the next few months, there will be some building work taking place at school. This will span into the summer holidays and beyond. When our kitchen was built, it was only built for 40 dinners; we are now nearer 160 dinners each day. Because of this increase in numbers, we need an increase in size - which is very exciting for Jacqui our wonderful cook. You will start to see a few bricks being laid as we double the size of our current kitchen, making it fit for purpose.
Another area of school which we are looking to develop is the area of land to the left of the allotment on the field. This is a dense area and one that can be used in lots of different ways. To do this, we need your help.
Do you know someone who could help us prepare the ground of this area?
Have you worked with someone who you would recommend to the school?
Have you got some spare time on your hands where you could support our school?
We need a committed team of gardeners who can help us achieve our vision of what this space should look like.
The plan is to remove the brambles and nettles that have grown and prepare the ground for a canopy area to be made with log seating. We want to create our own forest school area. If you know someone who could help, please do email me at head@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk
We really need your help to get this project off the ground and made into something that our whole school community will benefit from.
Enrichment
I have loved seeing the children and staff interact differently this year. Each half-term, the children have visited a different area of the school, and a different teacher, to learn something new. I think the teachers have enjoyed it more than the children. This week:
Recpetion visited the allotment with Mrs Hotchkiss; Year 1 completed some Van Gogh inspired craft with Mrs Naylor; Year 2 made some pasta salad with Mrs Lyons; Year 3 tackled team games with Mr Cornwell; Year 4 went all Strictly and learnt the waltz alongside Mrs Harrison; Year 5 visited Mrs Hartley and learnt German and Year 6 built some sedementary rocks with Miss Drummond in science.
Learning is all about the wider experiences. How can we encourage our children to experience more and therefore learn more?
Learning Role Models of the Week
Virtue Butterflies - Children being Learned and Wise
Learning Role Models
Walk to School in May
A huge thank you to EVERYONE who has made such an effort with walking, scooting, cycling and any other none car way to get to school. It has been quieter at the start and at the end of the school day around the gates. I am parking much further away from school and walking whilst my little one scoots. This is about a big team effort which we are so good at here!
We understand that it isn’t possible to do this every day, and that is fine, little and often is great. Even parking at the end of the road and walking for 2 minutes to school counts - it keeps our roads much quieter. What we want is to create quieter roads for those children who need to be brought in by car each day and for our Year 5 & 6 children who walk to and from school.
Data has been collected this week and the winning classes will have £50 donated to them for them to spend how they wish - hopefully to encourage more exercise in their class. This week, our winning classes were Year 3 & 4 who both had a total of 53 walks over the past three days.
Let’s see how many we can get walking next week!
Thank you to this week’s student counsellors who were giving flyers at the gate this week. They are being really proactive with their approach to our safer roads. Next week we will have a new batch of children with their flyers ready to go!
Office news…
We have one plea from the office for this week. If your child has a medical appointment or is delayed coming into school for any reason, please can you ring ahead with their dinner choices. We have to submit dinner numbers to our kitchen by 9.30am and if children are arriving in after that, we are then finding our numbers are skewed. Thank you so much for your support with this.
Our Weekly Attendance
Next week we will be announcing two fundraising events that will be taking place in the Summer term for causes very close to our heart.
A bank holiday weekend is always welcome. I hope you enjoy your weekend and extra day on Monday. We look forward to welcoming you back to school on Tuesday.
Have a lovely weekend with your families.
God bless
Mrs Gregan