This week, our children have been busy getting into the Christmas spirit! We celebrated Christmas Jumper Day, tucked into our delicious Christmas dinners, and wowed everyone with our fantastic nativity performance. Well done, boys and girls!

This week has been an exciting one for our Nursery children! Our focus story has been The Christmas Story , and we’ve been getting into the festive spirit with lots of Christmas crafts and plenty of nativity practice. We were also lucky to receive a special delivery from the elves, who brought us some beautiful Christmas decorations and a delicious advent calendar. To say thank you, the children created their own junk-modelled elf houses—our little way of spreading some Christmas cheer!

We enjoyed wearing our Christmas jumpers on Christmas lunch day. Huge thanks go to our very own Y6 pupil photographer!

This week’s Good Samaritan showed the true spirit of St Joseph’s, giving up her own lunchtime to help one of our younger children. This good deed was noticed by several staff. What a star you are!!

Year 1. have been thinking about subtraction problems by finding out what each part is then using the following stem sentence to explain their answer.   If the whole is _____and _____ is a part, then the other part is ______.

The children have been sequencing the story, retelling the story and explaining how specific characters feel. We have shared adjectives to describe a character’s feelings as well as exploring different verbs to describe what the toys are doing.  The children have loved this story and have even created their own ending.  Have a look at some of our pictures where you will see the children's freeze frames and samples of work.

The children in Year 2 have been making their Advent promises as part of our preparations for Christmas. The children have been reflecting on the meaning of Advent and have thoughtfully created their Advent promises and related it to their everyday lives. These promises encourage the children to live out Catholic Social Teaching by showing love for others, caring for creation, and promoting justice and peace as they prepare their hearts for the coming of Jesus.

This week in Nursery, we have loved diving into the world of The Gruffalo ! The children have had great fun retelling the story with their friends and using rich vocabulary to describe all the characters. In the Gruffalo Café, we practised our number-recognition skills as we took orders and served our “customers.” We also enjoyed getting creative with a range of Gruffalo-inspired crafts. It’s been a wonderful week of imagination, learning, and fun!

Year 6 enjoyed a snowy session in the great outdoors with Jennie and Gillian.  Following an afternoon of challenge, teamwork and adventure, nothing could beat toasting marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate around the firepit!

What an amazing day Year 1 had at Seven Stories. The children discovered fascinating facts about animal homes and even designed their own habitat guides with the help of Daisy, the Animal Ranger who said they were some of the best guides she has ever seen! They explored imaginative spaces inspired by beloved characters like Mog the Cat and The Tiger Who Came to Tea sparking a love of books and reading. Through role play, puppetry and creative activities the children let their imaginations run wild. It was a truly fabulous experience that combined learning, creativity and fun.

As part of our RE curriculum the children explored the sacrament of baptism in a hands-on and meaningful way. They learned about its significance in the Christian faith and practiced using key vocabulary such as font , holy water , godparents  and blessing . Through role play, the children acted as the priest and used the words, “I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” helping them understand the language and symbolism of baptism. To make the learning even more personal, some of the children shared their own photographs of their baptism and talked about what made the day special for their families.

Year 6 are participating in the ‘Growing the Future - Watery West End’ project.  As our climate is changing and we are getting more heavy rain showers, many school grounds and gardens are suffering from flooding and waterlogging.  Jennie from Scotswood Garden is on a mission to help schools and local communities to develop rain gardens and plant up areas with water loving plants to help remedy the problem.  We can’t wait to make a difference through this exciting opportunity!