St. John’s Catholic Primary School Newsletter 25 – 27th March 2026

Wednesday Word – Taken from the Gospel of Sunday 29th March 2026. Matthew 21:1-11 (Passion/Palm Sunday)

When they were near Jerusalem, Jesus sent two disciples into a nearby village to collect a donkey. He said to them, “If anyone stops you, tell them that it is for the Lord, and that the donkey will be returned.” So the disciples went out and did as Jesus had told them. They brought the donkey and Jesus sat on it. As he set off, great crowds of people spread their cloaks on the road, while others were spreading palm branches on the path in front of him. The crowds were all shouting, “Hosanna! Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heavens!” When Jesus entered Jerusalem, everyone was excited and some asked, “Who is this?” “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee,” was the reply.

Attendance Award – Year  6 – 96% – Well done!

Whole School Attendance – 94%

 Superstars of the Week!

YR -Maria for being a good steward and helping to tidy our classroom! 

Y1 -All of Year 1 for their amazing behaviour during our trip to the planetarium.

Y2 -Ariela for her participation and working for the Common Good in our Maths. 

Y3 – Megan for her amazing contribution at the Y3 athletics event this week. She was so keen, enthusiastic and had a great time. Mariana for her aspiration, enthusiasm and participation during every lesson. 

Y4 -Alice for her consistently enthusiastic and positive attitude to all her learning and all her school activities. 

Y5 – Mati and Maija for their fantastic Cross Country achievements.   Eden for showing great resilience this week despite not feeling 100%. 

Y6 – Maximus for a conscientious approach towards his learning; Maximus completed missed work under his own initiative.

Samuel B for his fantastic effort and determination running at Cross Country! 

Proud Work: 27/03/2026

YR -Richard for his beautiful painting of the cruficxtion

Y1 – Amelie for her beautiful writing in English this week creating her own story called ‘The Shooting Star’. 

Y2 – Katia for her use of past progressive tense in English this week.

Y3 – Holly for her articulation and understanding of a reading from the stations of the cross at church. Well done, you read beautifully. 

Y4 – Heevan for his thoughtful and inspiring contributions to class discussions, this week in particular for his reflections on the significance of Our Father prayer. 

Y5 -Nellie for her amazing clay sculpture inspired by Henry Moore. 

Y6 – Salvo for working hard to include the non-negotiables in his narrative, editing his work to make improvements. well done! Cuba for embracing Reception’s space topic and pushing himself to produce ever increasingly inviting snack displays.

Silver Reader – 100 reads

Y3 – Zachary

Y4 – Eloise

Y5 – Arina

Y6 – Emelia

Magnificent Reading Award – 250 Reads

Y2 -Sofiia P

Spelling Shed Certificate of Achievement

 Y1 –Natan

Y2 -Mia

Y3 – Kieran

Y6- Vincent

Y5 – Cailyn

Times Tables Rockstars

Rockstar:  Blu D

Garage Rocker : Ayda C

Battle of the Bands

Year 5 is the highest scoring group!

Chartwells Order Deadline Dates

Please order by the dates below to ensure your child has a hot lunch in the Spring/Summer Term.

2026 Term Dates!

Summer Term

Monday 13 April: children return to school. Class and Leavers Photos (full school uniform)

Monday 20 April: Whole school Mass – 9am school hall. Teacher led After School clubs begin this week. 

Thursday 23 April 7-8:30pm: PTA Summer Fair planning meeting

Friday 24 April: PTA Fundraising Line Dance Evening, St John’s church hall 7:30 – 9:30pm (see below)

Thursday 7 May: Whole school mass to celebrate First Holy Communion, 2pm school hall

Monday 11 – Thursday 14 May: Year 6 SATS week

Friday 22 May: children break up for May half term

Monday 1 June – children return to school. Year 6 Bikeability week

Friday 5 June: Y5 Bikeability Taster Day

Monday 8 – Thurs 11 June: Y4 Multiplication Check & Phonics Screening Week

Thursday 11 June: Break the Rules day!

Friday 12 June: INSET day

Friday 19 June: International Food Festival day – Save the Date!

Thursday 25 June: Sports Day

Saturday 27 June 11am – 2pm: Summer Fair

Sunday 5 July: Save for the date! Horsham Children’s Parade. Years 2 & 4 to participate.

Monday 13 July – Teacher led After School Clubs finish this week.

Monday 20 July at 2pm: Leavers Mass at Church

Wednesday 22 July: children break up for Summer holidays

To keep up to date with future school events, please visit the school calendar which can be found on the parents page on our website.

Parents – St John’s Catholic Primary School

 General Announcements

• Please see our recent MCAS message for Summer Term After School Clubs. Teacher led clubs will begin the week after we return from Easter holidays (Monday 20 April).
• For any absences on our return from Easter, please log as usual via the MCAS app or calling the school. This is the fastest way for us to process them. 
• School photos will be the first day back from Easter! Please have children in full smart school uniform and arrive promptly as photos begin at 8:45am. (For children with PE that day, please send their kit in a bag for them to change into later). 
• Wishing you all a lovely Easter break and we will welcome children back to school on Monday 13 April! 

Choral Day at Christ’s Hospital 

On Monday the 23rd of March a group of Year 5 children took part in a Choral Day at Christ’s Hospital School.

This fantastic opportunity was led by David Lawrence, director of the Young Voices Choir.

The children were taught four new songs during the day and then had the chance to perform these, along with 80 other children, to their parents and carers.

All the children had a lovely day enjoying a delicious lunch and watching the CH band. Well done children, your behaviour and enthusiasm was fantastic! I was very proud of you.

Mrs Clough

Did You Know….?

As a whole school we have introduced more sensory breaks throughout the day. 

What is a sensory break?

• An opportunity to escape or attain sensory stimulation
• Sensory activities usually focus on the three core sensory systems: vestibular, proprioceptive & tactile
•  Provide enhanced sensory input
• May include a combination of sensory input
• Sensory break may happen outside or inside the classroom. In general, any activity or action which stimulates or removes sensory input from a sensory system is a sensory break
• Deep Pressure – Tends to be calming and can dampen down sensations in other sensory systems.
• Light touch and messy play tend to be alerting 
• Vibration – Tends to be alerting
• Vestibular- Tends to be alerting
• Proprioception – Tends to support the child to pay attention and to focus (calming and alerting)

When and where to provide sensory breaks?

• Breaks can be scheduled or unscheduled.
• Sensory breaks can be whole class or individualised depending on the needs of the child.
• Whole class breaks at the desk can be unscheduled, if the class teacher sees that the class are becoming restless, lethargic or losing concentration – use of the zones of regulation visuals may be useful to indicate to the class why they are taking a sensory break
• Sensory breaks are proactive not reactive

We are excited that we are getting new playground equipment in the KS1 front playground after the Easter Holidays. The trees that were removed a few weeks ago are being replaced with a climbing structure and slide. The works for this will start on Wednesday April the 15^th and will mean that the access to the playground by the reception classroom will be unavailable and access to the playground will need to be from the road entrance, both at

the beginning and end of the school day whilst the works are happening. Please be mindful of this area until the works are complete to ensure everyone stays safe. The children will be using the back playground and field during playtime until the equipment is safely installed and ready to be used.

A Big thank you to the Friends of St John’s Catholic Primary School for their fundrasing and donations towards this project. Without their support this project would not have been able to be achieved!

Cross Country at Christ’s Hospital 

On Tuesday the 24th of March a group of children from years 3, 4, 5 and 6 took part in the Horsham schools annual Cross Country event at Christ’s Hospital School. The children all performed brilliantly, running around the challenging course. There were a total of 13 schools taking part. Our children did St John’s proud. 

Some stand out performances were our year 3/4 boys team who came 2nd overall with Huey in year 4 finishing in 6th individually.

In our year 5/6 races Mati from year 5 claimed an impressive 1st place overall. Both Mati and Maija, also year 5, qualified for the County championship.

Well done to all our children  who ran so well. We had a strong team, with the majority of our children finishing in the top 30. Thank you to Brad and to Seb (his work experience lad) for all their help, support and encouragement at this event.

We were all so proud of your efforts children especially as it was a chilly day!

Mrs Clough

Cross Country – Thursday 26 March 

Congratulations to Maija and Mati from year 5 who both competed at the Cross Country County event  on Thursday the 26th of March. A fantastic achievement to make it to the finals and for Mati, he came an amazing 3rd place out of 180 children.

Congratulations also to Samuel Bradley in year six who took part in the county championships. He performed fantastically well in such a high demand event. Samuel was running as part of the West Sussex Central team and, as a team, came a very impressive 2^nd overall. Well done, Samuel. I am so proud of you.

As PE lead in school, I am so very proud of all our children for their efforts but to have 3 children representing our school at county level is amazing. We may well be a small school, but we are ‘mighty’ when we compete in sporting events! Congratulations to all our children who have recently represented our school at any sporting event!

Couldn’t be prouder of you all!

Mrs Clough

Year 1 Planetarium Trip

On Wednesday Year 1 went on their school trip to the Planetarium. The children were so excited to learn about the different planets in our solar system and how astronauts travel up to space and live on the space station for many months at a time!
The children were all very well behaved and we were very proud of them!

Year 3 Athletics Competition

On Wednesday the 25th of March a group of children from Year Three took part in an Indoor Athletics event held at The Bridge. They competed against 8 other local primary schools doing events including standing long jump, vertical jump, speed jump and various individual and relay races.

Our children were superb and finished an impressive 2nd overall.

Thank you to Brad and Seb (his work experience lad) for their help and support. Thank to Pola and Aria, from year 6, for timing all the races. 

Well done Year 3 you were all fantastic and we were so proud of you as this was your first competition! Great team effort!

Mrs Clough

Year 5 Maths Challenge at Christ’s Hospital

On Wednesday the 25th of March, in the afternoon, four children from Year 5 took part in a Maths Challenge at Christ’s Hospital School. The competition was tough as the children had to complete 5 different mathematical problems against children from other schools. They showed great perseverance, patience and focus. Well done children, you all tried so hard. I think the best part was having sausage and chips at the end!!!

Mrs Clough 

Celebrating Our Students’ Successes – Tanbridge House Book Quiz

The first image shows our team at the recent book quiz held at Tanbridge House School. To prepare for the event, the students read three books and then competed as a team against other schools. We are delighted to share that they achieved joint first place and won a selection of books for our school. Congratulations to Olive, Maija, Charlotte and Cailyn for their fantastic effort and teamwork. The group also made the most of the day by enjoying the many biscuits on offer!

The second image features part of our team who took part in a maths challenge at Christ’s Hospital. Working in pairs, the students tackled a series of mathematical problems and competed against teams from other schools. They showed great determination, collaboration and problem-solving skills throughout the event.

Well done to all students involved for representing the school so positively!

Thank you to everyone who took part in the Easter egg competition and Easter raffle. Congratulations to all the winners – we have some incredibly talented children, and the designs were absolutely lovely. 

We are now starting preparations for the Summer Fair on Saturday 27th June, 11am–2pm. Please pop this date in your diary and consider volunteering if you can. We simply couldn’t run this event without the support of our parents, and it is the school’s biggest fundraising event of the year as well as a firm favourite with the children. A planning meeting will be held on Thursday 23 April 7-8:30pm (venue to be confirmed). Please do come along to see how you could help or to share any ideas.

Have a lovely Easter Break! From the Friends of St John’s

Catholic School Inspection Report

Please see the following link to our recent inspection report: St John’s Catholic Primary School (126039) 20-03-2005 

With many thanks to all for contributing to such a positive report.