Each class from St Joseph’s Primary School attends All Saints Church on a weekly rota. During these visits, pupils have the opportunity to participate in Mass and worship alongside parishioners. Father Maridas, our parish priest, leads the Mass. This week was the turn of Year 2.

Inherited traits are physical or behavioural features that are passed from parents to offspring through genes. Can you identify the inherited characteristics in Y6’s imaginary families?

In PE Year 1. have been developing movement skills by focusing on the big parts  of their bodies. Through playful exploration and guided activities, children have been learning how to move, balance and create shapes using areas such as their backs, tummies, shoulders and legs. A key part of the lesson involved listening carefully for the sound of the tambourine. Each time it was struck, children were challenged to freeze and create a still balance  using a big  body part. This helped to develop body control, spatial awareness and listening skills, all while having lots of fun. It was wonderful to see pupils showing creativity, determination and imagination in the shapes they made.

Today in Year 1, we had a fantastic maths lesson all about the number 10! Our challenge was: “How many different ways can we make 10?” To help us, we used tens frames and cubes. The children worked in pairs to explore number bonds like 6 + 4, 7 + 3 and so on. They recorded their ideas and shared them with the class. Once we had lots of examples, Mrs Wilson put them on the working wall – but one was missing! The children had to be detectives and spot which combination wasn’t there. This was so much fun and really made us think carefully about our work.

This week Year 1 became history detectives ! Our big question was: “Who is George Stephenson and what does he do?” To find out, the children examined old photographs and paintings as clues. They looked carefully at details like clothing, objects and settings to make predictions about the person in the pictures. We asked questions such as: What can you see? What might this tell us about his job? Why is he important? Through our investigation, the children discovered that George Stephenson was an engineer who built one of the first steam locomotives and helped design railways. His work changed how people travelled and connected towns across Britain.

We explored an exciting science enquiry question this week:“Do the oldest children have the longest feet?” To investigate, the children worked in pairs and drew around their feet on large sheets of paper. Each child recorded their age and month of birth and we compared the results across the class.   The children were fantastic scientists! They noticed that while some older children had longer feet, it wasn’t always true – there were exceptions. This led to a great discussion about how scientists look for patterns but also think about other factors that might affect results.

This week in Nursery, we have been busy learning all about birds! 🐦 Our focus story was Hooray for Birds , which helped us to recognise and talk about different colours 🌈. In Maths, we sang Five Little Ducks 🦆 to practise our counting and number recognition 🔢. In the creative area, we made bird crafts using primary colours 🎨 and explored a range of materials to create bird nests 🪹. We also used our fine motor skills ✂️👐 to make bird models. Our older children learned the ‘a’ sound during phonics sessions 🔤. In RE, we discussed celebrations 🎉 and enjoyed sharing our own celebration photographs from home with our friends 📸. What a fantastic week of learning! ⭐😊

In Year 6 science, pupils explored how the circulatory and respiratory systems function together to keep the body healthy. Measuring blood pressure and lung capacity are practical ways to investigate these systems. Pulse rates were also measured before and after exercise.

The children had a great day learning about the Romans and their army. They handled artefacts and looked at armour and weapons. They also made their own version of a Roman coin.

Year 4 used decibel meter readings to compare the sound level in different areas of the school. They collected their data and created a bar chart to show their results. The children also explored using different materials to test which was the best insulator of sound.

This week in Nursery, we have been busy learning all about dinosaurs! 🦖 Our focus stories were Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs  📚 and The Dinosaur That Pooped  collection, which the children thoroughly enjoyed. We developed our fine motor skills through dinosaur stomp paint printing 🎨, and in maths we played a dinosaur egg dice counting game 🥚🎲 to support number recognition and counting. The children also enjoyed dinosaur yoga 🧘‍♂️🦖, helping them to exercise their bodies and develop balance and coordination. In our dinosaur small-world area, we explored and discussed different dinosaur species 🌍🦕 In RE, we talked about celebrations 🎉 and shared the special events we celebrate with our families ❤️. Our older children also began learning the ‘s’  sound during phonics sessions 🔤. What a fantastic and fun-filled week it has been! 🌟🦖

Year 2 enjoyed visiting Seven Stories to watch a pantomime of Puss in Books!   ‘Once upon a time, in a land far away, resides Puss in Books – the most famous and fearful scaredy cat in all of Storyland. Puss in Books is strictly a library cat, risking all his nine lives through the safety of a good novel. But when he discovers his friends have disappeared is Puss brave enough to venture outdoors and into the deep dark forest to find them? The Cheshire Cat thinks Puss has what it takes…sort of…’   The children enjoyed the pantomime and helped Puss in Books find his cat friends like Mog and Cat in the Hat!