Term 2 29th October—20th December 2018

Newsletter

Dear Parents & Carers,

I am sure you will all agree that the nativity plays have been as wonderful as ever this year, and certainly a huge amount of hard work has gone into preparing the costumes and rehearsing the songs and words. It has been a pleasure to hear the rehearsals over the past few weeks and then to see the final performances as well. Our children are becoming such confident performers and, most importantly, they clearly enjoy performing.

We are very proud of all the children who have represented the school in local events this term. Our choir performed in the annual Children Singing for Children event at St Mary’s Church in November and we were delighted by a number of congratulatory emails and letters which were sent to us following our performance. Each correspondence commented on the tunefulness of the singing and also the evident enjoyment of the children - they had clearly shared their joy with others!

Our netball team has also done very well again this term, winning our local Banbury tournament to make it through to the North Oxfordshire tournament in Bicester.

I would like to offer a huge vote of thanks to the hardworking and dedicated team of parents and friends who helped to make our Christmas Fayre such a success this year. I understand that the FUNdraising team have had fun preparing for the big event; I know that there was a whole evening of craft-making at St Joseph’s Church and hours have also gone into organising raffle prizes and Santa’s grotto. The team have raised over £1,000 for the school, all of which directly benefits your children, so do please consider joining this team for our next event in 2019. Getting involved in these events is a great way to meet new people and learn about the skills you didn’t even know you had!

There have been many activities and trips organised this term, a number of which you will find more information about in our Christmas edition of the school newspaper.

Please remember that we have an INSET Day on Monday, 7th January 2019 and therefore

the school will be closed to children. We look forward to welcoming you all back at the usual time of 8.40 a.m. on Tuesday 8

th January, 2019.

In the meantime, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a joyful and blessed Christmas.

Best wishes,

Clare Smith

Next term we will be practising the virtues of eloquence and truthfulness because we believe that if we nurture eloquence and truthfulness in our pupils, they will be honest and respectful in their relationships with others.

Dates for the Diary

January

Tue 8th at 8.45 —Term 3 starts

Thur 17th—’Peter Pan’ pantomime

Fri 25th —Year 4 visit schools concert at the Sheldonian

Tue 29th —Reception and Year 6 height & weight measuring

February

Fri 1st —Year 6 Junior Citizen session in Oxford

Fri 15th —end of Term 3

Mon 25th —start of Term 4

Mon 25th 3.30-5.30—Parents

evening

Tue 26th 5.00-7.30—Parents evening

March

Thur 7th —World Book Day

8th-15th —British Science Week

Fri 29th —Mothers’ Day Lunch

Sat 30th —Big Spring Clean

April

Tue 2nd at 1.30—LKS2 Performance

Wed 3rd at 6.30—LKS2 Performance

Fri 5th at 3.00—End of Term 4

Tue 23rd at 8.45—Term 5 starts

St Joseph’s Fencing Club Twelve children from years 4 , 5 and 6 participated in Fencing Club this term, led by coach Olly Bickley. They developed their footwork skills, lunging and parrying techniques, and enjoyed putting it all into practice in an exciting competition held last week. This was the first opportunity for some of the participants to fence using the electrical equipment, which lights up when a hit is scored.

The competition was a close-run event, in which Summer was the eventual winner, just beating Elvey in a nail-biting final.

We are delighted that Olly will be returning to St Joseph’s after Christmas to continue with the club.

On Thursday 15th November a netball team from St Joseph’s took part in the High Five netball competition. We had a very successful day winning every game we played conceding only 1 goal!

We have now qualified for the next round where we hope our success will continue. Well done team.

Banbury Area High Five Netball

Competition

Term 2 Overall Attendance 96.47%

Number of lates 103

Reception 95.48%

Year 1 96.91%

Year 2 94.18%

Year 3 96.89%

Year 4 97.80%

Year 5 98.45%

Year 6 95.57%

Attendance and Punctuality Beat the Gate—Don’t be Late!

Attendance for Term 2 Reporting absence from school

If your child is unwell and unable to attend school please phone the school before 8.45 to report their absence.

If your child has been sick or had a bout of diarrhoea they must not return to school until they have had no reoccurrence for 24 hours.

~FUNdraising Team news~

Dear Parents, Carers and Friends,

The FUNdraising Team would like to say a BIG thankyou for all your help and support with making the Christmas bazaar a huge success.

We wouldn't be able to do it without your generosity and support with amazing donations of prizes, contributions and time.

I would like to thank everyone that attended the craft evening at St Joseph's Church. It was an eventful, social and productive evening. I'm sure there will be many more fun opportunities in the future, so watch this space if you would like to get involved. It's a great way to meet new people and have fun whilst supporting St Joseph's School.

We have raised a grand total to date of £1,000. We are currently raising funds for the following projects: improvements to the Early Year's Garden and new reading books for all classes.

The FUNdraising Team will meet in the new year to decide upon where the funds will be allocated. We will of course keep you updated.

We hope all the children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 enjoyed the visit from the Christmas Elf. This has also been funded by the FUNdraising Team.

The FUNdraising Team would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.