Mary’s Catholic Primary, A Voluntary Academy
SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER
Our Mission Statement
“To walk hand in hand with God, loving Him, loving each other and loving ourselves, doing our best with the gifts he gave us to make the world a richer place.”
Links with Fig Tree School
On Friday 2 nd October, 15 children from the local Islamic school will join us to celebrate our Harvest Assembly.
This is the beginning of our links with this school. The children will bring along some produce for our Harvest table and afterwards will spend time in different classes to find out about St Mary’s. After the assembly a group of children from both schools will take the produce to St Paul’s Soup Kitchen. The produce will help the volunteers prepare hot meals for local homeless/vulnerable people and is a small expression of our attempt to bring the goodness of the harvest to everyone.
Assessment without levels
From this September, the Government has made a huge change in the way children are to be assessed, as there will no longer be National Curriculum levels at the end of Year 2 and 6. All schools have to set up their own way of assessing pupils. After investigating many different Assessment and Tracking systems, we have decided to use the
Local Authority (LA) system, which is being used by a number of primary schools in Nottingham. We would like to invite you to one of two meetings to explain this further. Both will be held on Wednesday 14 th October at;
 9:00am
 2:45pm
Enrichment Activities
Staff have planned exciting topics and enrichment activities this half term with a focus on Geography and Science.
Trips include:
 KS1 visit to Skegness to explore the physical and human features of the seaside
 Year 3 visit to the National Stone Centre to explore the treasures in stone, rocks and soil
 Year 4 visit to Nottingham Castle and Art Gallery for a landscape painting workshop
 Years 5 & 6 visit to Galleries of Justice to take part in a workshop `Stand Up, Shout Up`
To celebrate Black History Month, children will be studying the lives of prominent African and Caribbean figures around the world.
Y6 Briars Residential
At the beginning of this term a group of Year 6 pupils joined Year 6 children from Our Lady’s Primary School for a wonderful weekend retreat at the Briars Residential Centre, Crich, Derbyshire. The weekend was a time for the children to reflect, pray and join in a variety of team games with children from a different school. We were very proud of our children and how quickly they interacted with their new friends. In their words, the weekend was
’very reflective and spiritual but all activities were done in such a fun way`.
Under the Trust name of St Barnabas Catholic Academy Trust
Designated Senior Persons for Safeguarding
Mrs G Kelly – Head Teacher, Ms K O’Neill – Deputy Head, Mrs U Lilley – Governor
All persons can be contacted at school on telephone number 0115 9151799

Music Camp
Mrs Hayes would like to say well done to all the Year 5 children who attended the two day Music Camp, at Ilam
Hall; they were a credit to our school. They took part in a range of indoor and outdoor musical activities, team games and walks. They had a fantastic time and especially enjoyed making a monster band and the ‘Night Walk’ where they heard a phantom trumpeter!
Sponsored Walk
On behalf of the School Council I would like to thank all the parents /carers who joined us for our sponsored walk last Friday. Luckily it was a very warm afternoon and the children had some well-deserved relaxation time to play and explore their surroundings at the Arboretum, after their brisk walk there. All monies collected will go towards the School Council’s on-going sun shade project.
School Photographer
The photographer will be in school on Friday 7th October taking individual and siblings. Due to time restraints, the photographer will only be able to take family photographs of children attending school and nursery.
Dates for your diary
October 2015
Fri
Fri
2
7 nd th
Mon 12
Harvest Assembly 9.10am (non-uniform for CAFOD Family) th
School Photographer
Black History Week
Wed 21 st Parents Evening (3:30pm-8pm)
Thurs 22 nd Break up for half-term
Fri 23 rd Inset Day – school closed for children
November 2015
Sun 1
Mon 2 st nd
All Saints
Return to school and All Souls Day
Mon 9 th
Mon 16
Mon 30 th th
Hinduism week
Anti- Bullying week
Advent Reflection Day
December 2015
Fri 18 th Break up for Christmas
Yours sincerely
Mrs G. Kelly
Head Teacher
Under the Trust name of St Barnabas Catholic Academy Trust
Designated Senior Persons for Safeguarding
Mrs G Kelly – Head Teacher, Ms K O’Neill – Deputy Head, Mrs U Lilley – Governor
All persons can be contacted at school on telephone number 0115 9151799