St. John’s Catholic Primary School Newsletter 5 — 10th October 2025

Adopted from Luke 17:11-19 The 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C 

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten lepers came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.” When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Now, as they were going away, they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This made Jesus say, “Were not all ten made clean? The other
nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.” And he said to the man, “Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you”

Attendance Award – Year 6 – 99.6% – Well done!

Whole School Attendance – 97.4%

Superstars of the Week!

YR -Jonah for his participation in Phonics this week and being aspirational in his learning.

Y1 – Lucy for always being so engaged during carpet input and always trying her best!

Y2 – Ellie for always working hard and persevering during independent tasks.

Y3 – Elsa for great effort and participation during maths. Keep up the good work! 

Y4 – Nuhan for his positive helpful cheerful attitude.

Y5 – Alfie for being a helpful member of the class. He even helped Y3 with their computing. Mrs Curtis was also impressed. 

Y6 – Maisie for showing a positive outlook regarding a tricky concept in maths and inspiring a friend to do the same. 

Proud Work: 09/10/2025

YR – Cassandra for painting a beautiful picture of a pig during her independent learning time.

Y1 – Ethan for working super hard and sensibly to cut up and create his fruit salad in DT.

Y2 – Theo for his illustrations of the stages of the Sacrament of Baptism. Theo was able to retell the stages to his group.

Y3 – Zach for persevering through our maths lesson even though it was difficult at first. Zach showed great determination. Well done. 

Y4 – Evie Rose Harvey for the quality of writing and attention to detail in her telling of the next part of Abrahams story.

Y5 – Cailyn & Ava for planning a well thought out class worship and leading an open prayer.

Y6 – Harry for extending his learning in computing,adapting the code to improve the game. 

Numbots

Brass: Y2 Zephaniah

Steel: Y2 Nathaniel

Rust: Y3 Aiden

Bronze: Y5 Riley

Iron: Y1 Evander, Violet, Lydia, Theodore

Copper: Y2 Isaac, Y4 Megan, Nuhan

Tin: Y1 Erid, Y2 James, Y4 Lilybeth, Y5 Flynn

Kevlar: Y6 Mia

Times Tables Rockstars

Headliner – Jacob, Aurora, Jenson

Wannabe – Adam

Garage Rocker – Daniel

Support Act – Hannah

Young Interpreters Certificates

Y3 Jacinta, Joshual, Elsa, Sofia, Hannah L, Hannah S, Tymon, Y4 Aurora, Nicholas, Maria, Y6 Salvo

Homework

At the start of this year, you may have been aware that homework expectations had changed from the previous year. The reason for this was to ensure that the focus is on essential skills that can be developed at home. Spelling, reading and number fluency are skills that will support a child throughout their education. 

I have asked teachers to monitor homework completion consistently and speak to parents if work is not completed. Homework across the school is not optional; it is expected that each child will do home learning. 

We know from extensive research that children who read at home to an adult and learn number bonds and timetables are more likely to find learning in school easier and achieve higher outcomes. This ultimately is what we all want for our children. 

There is a statutory word list of spellings that each year group must learn to achieve the expected standard by the end of the year. This means each class will have spellings weekly and be tested on them. I have asked teachers to let parents know how their children score each week. 

We are aware life is very busy and homework can be a challenge to fit in, but the skills practised will support learning in school and prepare children for when they move to secondary school and the homework demands increase significantly. 

Please do speak to class teachers if you have any homework questions. Thank you for your continued support in this matter. 

Many thanks Mrs Farr

Chartwells Order Deadline Dates

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

Holly Communions

Applications forms are now available for the parish 2026 Holy Communion Programme. If you would like to register your child, please speak to Father Tristan or Deacon Tom after Mass and they will provide you with an application form. 

Thank you to everyone who came to school in yellow to support Young Minds on Thursday!

RESPECT year group overviews on our website! 

Please find our RESPECT curriculum yearly overviews for each year group on your class pages, on the school website. These contain our learning objectives for RE, RSE and PSHE. The overview also highlights where we teach children about safeguarding and British Values. Please do take a look as this will inform you of upcoming learning within our RESPECT curriculum and may help with discussions at home around your child’s learning.

Thank you for your continued support.

Miss Miles

2025/26 Term Dates!

Tuesday 14 October: Open Morning for 2026 reception starters

Tuesday 21 October: Harvest Festival and Food Donations

 Friday 24 October: children break up for October half-term

Half-term: Monday 27 October—Friday 31 October

Monday 3 November: children back to school

Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 November: Parents’ Evening

Wednesday 19 November: Friends Movie Night

Tuesday 25 November: Open Morning for 2026 reception starters

Friday 5 December: Christmas Fair

Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 December: Reception Nativity

Friday 12 December: Teacher-Led clubs end

Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 December: KS1 Nativity

Tuesday 16 December: KS2 Advent Service at Church

Thursday 18 December: School Christmas Lunch

Thursday 18 December: Stage to School Theatre Group – Whole School Pantomime

Friday 18 December: Christmas Jumper Day

Friday 19 December: Last day of Autumn Term

Christmas holiday: Monday 22 December—Friday 2 January 2026

Spring Term 2026

Monday 5 January: children return to school

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

Friends of St John’s

With Christmas fast approaching, its time to turn our attentions to the Christmas Far. We will be holding a planning meeting on Thursday 6th November from 7:30pm – 9:30pm and would love to see some new faces if you can join us. 

Rudolph card templates were sent home last week for your children to design their christmas cards. Please remember the order deadline is Friday 24th October.