Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Lenten Giving

  Tue 23 Apr 2024 J MacDonald

  During Lent we carried out a range of fundraising activities to raise money for our 3 chosen charities. We were so grateful and thankful to be able to raise over £700 for Lymphoma Action, St Oswald’s Hospice and SVP.

  The children also completed the full it up challenge collecting loose change in hats and gloves to donate to the homeless charity, Streetworx. We raised £90 and bought 18 gift cards for Costa/Greggs. Today John from Streetworx came to collect our donations along with some warm clothing donated by staff. 

  

• Tribute to Mr Murray

  Thu 28 Mar 2024

  Today we paid tribute to Mr Murray a much loved and valued member of our school staff team.  The theme of our memorial was ‘Rainbows’.  Rainbows are rare and wonderful things that bring joy and happiness to those who see them and Mr Murray was a rare and wonderful person who brought much joy to our school community.   Each class was allocated a colour and asked to come to school dressed in that colour. When we gathered in our hall for assembly we created a rainbow especially in memory of Mr Murray.  We dedicated a part of our wild area to his memory.  The dedication service was attended by our school pupils and staff, many of our parents and a large number of past pupils who are now attending St Thomas More High School and other local high schools.   Mr Murray made a positive impact on everyone he worked with and the students hold very fond memories of him.  It was lovely to hear them sharing these with others who were gathered to pay to tribute to Mr Murray.

  

• Exploring Equality

  Thu 28 Mar 2024 J. MacDonald

  This half term the children have been exploring the value of Equality. Through their work they have learnt that equality doesn’t always mean the same and that giving people what they need means things are fair and equal. The children used a range of activities to explore this, from inclusion in our school to the work of suffragettes and the right to vote.

  

• Mr Bland Retires

  Thu 28 Mar 2024

  Today we said farewell and wished Mr Bland well as he begins his retirement.

  Mr Bland has worked at St Mary’s for 10 years and over this time has had a wide and varied role in school from supervising Morning Club to teaching Computing to children in Y1 to Y6.  He is much loved by the children and staff and will be missed in school.  We hope he has a long and happy retirement.

  

• Spring Term Attendance

  Thu 28 Mar 2024

  At the end of Spring Term our whole school attendance figure is 96%.  This means we haven’t met our target of 97% collectively as a school.  Hopefully now the winter is behind us we will have fewer absences and by the end of Summer term we can achieve this target.

  There are a large number of children whose individual attendance meets our target.   21 of our children have 100% attendance and 108 children have 97% or above.  All the children with 97% or above were entered into a prize draw.  Congratulations to Sophie in Y2 and John in Y4 won the draw and received an Amazon voucher for achieving our attendance goal.  

  

• Skipping Festival

  Wed 20 Mar 2024

  Today our Y4 children represented our school at a Skipping Festival held at St Thomas More.  They have been working hard, in their PE lessons, to learn a wide range of skipping moves including, face to face, speed bounce, criss cross, pot boiling, side swing, figure of 8 and pretzel.  Today they performed these moves alongside pupils form other school and were judged on their control and speed.  They also performed a ‘Skip Dance’ where they had to incorporate a range of these skipping moves into a sequence of movements performed to music.  The children had a wonderful time, they represented our school beautifully showing great sportsmanship and good manners.  When at the end of the afternoon the points were totalled we topped the table and were announced as winners of the event.  Well done Y4. 

• Lenten Giving continues

  Sat 09 Mar 2024 J. MacDonald

  We are continuing our Lenten giving through our cake sales and Fill it Up challenge. Thank you to Years 1&2 who provided the cakes today

  

• World Book Day

  Thu 07 Mar 2024

  Today we celebrated World Book Day in School.  We began our day by inviting parents into school to have ‘Breakfast with a Book’ with their children.   We have had the book fair visiting school this week and many families took the opportunity to browse and buy books today.  Children took part in a range of reading related activities across the day all aimed at reinforcing the sheer joy and pleasure that can be had from reading a good book!   One of the most popular activities was ‘Stop, Drop and Read’ - the children carried their book around with them throughout the day and whenever the buzzer sounded they stopped what they were doing and read for a few minutes.   There was lots of positive talk about books and reading - particularly between children from different classes during House time.  

  

• Dance Festival

  Wed 06 Mar 2024

  For the past 4 weeks our Y5 children have been working with Michael a visiting dance teacher to learn new skills, choreograph a dance and rehearse to perform for an audience.

  This evening the children performed as part of the North Sheilds Dance Festival to a huge audience at The Parks Leisure Centre.  The programme included dances from 8 other schools.  All performers were wonderful but our Y5 class 

  were absolutely fantastic and received the biggest cheer of the night!

   

  

• Lenten Cake Sale

  Fri 16 Feb 2024 J MacDonald

  Today we began our Lenten fundraising as Year 3 donated and sold cakes to support our Lent Charities