Parent Questionnaires

What an evening. Am writing this at 8.30pm having eaten dinner whilst reading some more of the questionnaires from parents. I felt inspired to write this now, even if it’s not posted until tomorrow.

On behalf of the entire St Jude’s family, I’d like to say a huge thank you to all the parents that completed the questionnaire over the last few weeks and to say your positive comments are gratefully received.

As honesty is one of our school values we would like to also share with you some of the areas we felt we could develop and we thank you for your openness with this also.

Here are some of the things you said or asked and what we have or are doing about them.

• You said- “Do we have a daily act of worship?”
• We say - “Yes - on a Monday Collective Worship is either led by Miss Waelend or Canon Peter, on a Tuesday we have Key Stage Collective Worship and Class Worship, Wednesday is our class led Worship and once a half term we are joined by Gareth Benton from Kings Church, Thursday’s worship is led by Reverend Duff and his team from St Jude’s and on Friday’s we share our weeks successes, Big Questions and think forward to the week coming, while saying thank you for the past week.”
• You said - “I don’t know if I’m allowed to join the school for Collective Worship”
• We say - “We’d love to have you and warmly welcome all our families, friends and stakeholders to Collective Worship on a Monday or Class Worship on a Wednesday if you have relations in that class.
• You said - “Can there be a time outside of the school day where we can meet together to worship?”
• So we - “Currently have a team of parents working on starting a prayer group - look out for more information soon”.

I have a few more to read through and will post any more suggestions as soon as I can. In the meantime, if there is something you are unhappy with, would like to ask, or have a suggestion then please do email us - all staff emails are available on the contact us page of the website or failing that pop in and see us.

Must go…. It’s starting to rain and I’ve got washing out.

Be a Hero

This morning in Collective Worship we talked about the importance of loving one another and about not being a bystander if things are going wrong.

Miss Waelend, who led today’s worship, read to us from the Bible and made us think about how Jesus wants us to ‘love our enemies’. We know that this can be hard and we talked about the reaction we would get if instead of saying something back to someone who was unkind, we said something nice. We reminded ourselves that our amazing school is underpinned by four values, of which one is LOVE.

At St Jude’s we all care very much about how people feel, just like the Big Question a few weeks ago- we are one big family and although sometimes things are hard, we love, care and support one another.

Today children were introduced to our new email address hero@st-judes.portsmouth.sch.uk

This email address is for any child, parent or carer to use if they wish to talk to us about something they’d rather not discuss in person related to any behaviour that concerns them.

Just like the moral of today’s story…..

ANYONE can be a bystander - but it takes a very special person to be a HERO!

 

Strawberry Parfait and a Handshake

Afternoon all,

I thought I’d share a little something I found online today. Now I’m not normally one to get caught up in reading celeb news or flashy adverts or articles on how to look 10 years younger with one store cupboard ingredient until….

Whilst searching online for something completely unrelated, I stumbled across the National Calendar of Days which informed me that, amongst other things, today is National Handshake day.

The National Handshake Day takes place on the last Thursday of June every year.  The tradition of handshaking goes way back:  “Archaeological ruins and ancient texts show that handshaking was practiced in ancient Greece as far back as the 5th century BC”.

So, I started thinking about handshakes and greetings in genera l- every day we greet children with a friendly smile, a good morning or a cheery ‘how are you?’, all part of The St Jude’s vision and value of Love?’ but I’ve never greeted them with a handshake.  So next week, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Now it turns out today isn’t just promoting the ‘good old fashioned handshake’ but something altogether more delicious! The Strawberry Parfait. Now I spotted some year 2’s tasting their home grown strawberries yesterday - I wonder if they’ve saved any?

Musing over Museums

Another great morning is well underway at St Jude’s today. We are very pleased to welcome our Governors who will spend some time in school this morning and then meet together this afternoon.

The Year 6 leavers rehearsals are going well and while one Year 6 class is out cooking, the other have taken over both rooms and are practising routines, songs and other delights to wow us with very soon.

I wanted to focus today’s blog on the current search for Museum of the Year. I listened to a short announcement this morning about the selection of the 6 finalists. BBC news describes it as “an eclectic group. There's a Georgian National Trust country house, Dunham Massey in Cheshire, that was converted to look once again like the military hospital it had been during World War One, the Tower of London, which housed an evolving installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies in its moat last year, Oxford University's Museum of Natural History, Belfast's Metropolitan Arts Centre, Manchester's The Whitworth and London's Imperial War Museum are the others shortlisted.”

This got me thinking about the local museums we have and whether we are making enough use of these community treasures. With this in mind I have started discussions with different teachers about using the museums, their resources and in some cases their architecture to inspire learning in next year’s topics.

 

Website Makeover

Some of you may have noticed that our website has had a bit of a makeover.  So I thought I’d spend a few minutes sharing the changes that have taken place. We have reduced the number of tabs at the top of the page but we assure you all the information you need is still there. We also noticed that some things were a good few clicks away and took you off of the site to different documents - we’ve tried to reduce the number of clicks needed to access a document as much as possible and where we could; we’ve added the document directly to our site to keep things in one place.

Home

Click on our Home tab to -

Read a short greeting from the head.
·         Locate direct links for Ofsted, Parent-view, Frog, The Cathedral and St Jude’s Church.
·         Access the diary, noticeboard and news-page.
·         Read and comment on our Senior Team Blog.

Our School

Click here to -

·         Find out about St Jude’s C of E.
·         View our prospectus.
·         Check our Collective Worship plans, read the Lord’s Prayer and share in our Big Questions.
·         View our Vision and Values statement.
·         Read our policies.
·         Find out who is who.
·         Check our school results.
·         Find out about inclusion, SEN, our Local Offer and Pupil Premium.
·         View our Ofsted reports.

Our News and Events

Click here for -

·         Diary dates and upcoming events.
·         Our weekly newsletter.
·         Class letters.

Our learning

Here you’ll find -

·         A link to FROG and home-learning tasks.
·         Award winners – including Headteacher awards and attendance winners.
·         Galleries of images- showing the exciting things going on.
·         Class links.
·         Curriculum information.
·         Links to clubs and sporting achievements.

Our Community

Click here for -

·         Governor info.
·         PTA news.
·         Parent information- including vacancies and courses

We hope you find this all useful - if something isn’t where it should be just let us know.

 

 

 

Picasso, Vikings and Tadpole Rescue

Phew…. What a busy day today’s been and its only 3:15!

Today I had the pleasure of joining Buzzards as they created their own Picasso style masterpieces in paint or pastel- the children could talk about how they had been learning how  to use different art resources over the year and were now choosing which media to use to create their ‘Magnum Opus’.  We talked about their colour pallets and what made a happy or sad Picasso style piece- I look forward to seeing the finished pieces soon.

Then The Vikings took over as I spent some time in Kestrels class finding out about why Vikings chose to settle in England in the first place, the children have been looking at historical cause and effect and were putting themselves into the mind of a Viking and recounting their experiences- they were then cleverly answering the questions they had thought of- this is an excellent way of writing like a reader and reading like a writer!

The morning ended with a dramatic life-saving event in Early Years!

Because we love the world we try really hard to recycle things we no longer need. After a busy morning tidying our wildlife area we noticed lots of algae on the pond. So Mrs Peters (our Forest Schools expert) skimmed it off and used it as a fertiliser around some of our trees. However…. Our curious year R children, who were watching this, noticed that some tadpoles had got caught up in the algae and were now out of water! It’s a good job our children are such quick thinkers, in the blink of an eye the children had jugs of water and the rescue mission started- we are very pleased to say that all the tadpoles survived and after a few minutes of being watched by the children, were returned safely to the pond. Based on what we saw today we should have lots of little frogs hopping around very soon.

Izzy Lewis

Double Whammy!

Oops….. I forgot to post yesterday’s blog - forgive me. It’s been posted today so do spend a few minutes having a read - it’s a nice one…if I do say so myself!

I’m watching from the office as the Early Years equipment continues to be secured in its new home and we can’t wait until it’s all settled and the children can use it.

I thought I’d focus today’s blog on literary heritage - a key concept that we are exploring as a school.  The 2014 curriculum says we must “appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage”.  So we ask, what does ‘our’ actually mean - we left this to the staff and while some people read it as ‘our-British’ others read it as ‘our-personal’ and who’s to say whose right?  Then there’s the question…. What is a heritage books? Is it a classic - Bronte, Austen, Shakespeare? If so…does a modern classic count?

We decided to give the staff the opportunity to name their classes for next year with literary heritage in mind and there’s a real variety in the names chosen. Some teachers have chosen authors that have written modern classics, while others have ventured further back in time, some have picked authors who are close to their hearts and others have chosen authors they think the children will enjoy hearing in the new year. We look forward to sharing our new class names with you in the very near future. To confirm, at St Jude’s we see Literary Heritage as a term for the literature which has been passed down to us from the best authors who wrote in English in the past. It would include great British writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dahl and Blyton, but also writers in English from the Commonwealth countries and the United States, as well as the works in English of authors like Conrad and Nabokov for whom English was a second language.

Izzy Lewis

What a Character!

Yesterday I was scouring the BBC News pages - as teachers often do - and I came across an article posted on the 5^th June about “Instilling Good Character”. This was the first time I’d seen the article and for a few seconds I wondered how I’d missed it.

With the new vision statement now proudly displayed around school and our four values ringing through the corridors - it seemed like something I should have seen sooner. Though while slightly annoyed at my lateness in finding this, it felt great to know that we are using our values and vison to instil good character in everyone that’s part of the St Jude’s family.

These values don’t just sit on the surface of St Jude’s but permeate fully through the school life. They are used in learning time, free time, play time. They support our behaviour management strategies, lesson planning and opportunity giving. We expect to see these demonstrated by staff, governors and families because we genuinely believe in them being a great foundation for life and a super platform for character building.

So a huge well done to everyone who wears the St Jude’s badge proudly, you are amazing individuals and we are ALL so proud of the characters you are.

Izzy Lewis

Fantastic Friday Everyone!

Good afternoon, as I write this it’s just started to drizzle outside and I’m sure the flowers will be grateful of the drink! It’s been another busy day here (as always) and we hope you enjoy the photos of our Headteacher’s Awards and Attendance Cup winners.

Year R, 3, 5 and 6 staff met with Miss Waelend and myself today to talk about progress of groups and classes and as of 3 o clock today all staff have seen the new tracking grids for writing – this will be shared with you all in the very near future.

This lunchtime Miss Waelend and I were lucky enough to share in the company of some lovely year three children; we discussed the previous Big Questions and even started a discussion on “What is a family?”  It was this conversation that led to us chatting about what jobs people in our families had and what jobs the children would like in the future, we have a potential teacher, gymnast, ‘you-tuber’, rugby star and interior designer amongst our lunch party today.

As you will see from today’s newsletter, we have made the decision to rename our classes next year to link with our Literary Heritage.  New names will be shared with the children soon and we hope they enjoy hearing the reasons for our choices.

Wishing everyone a restful and relaxing summer weekend, click the link below to see what’s on around the city over the next few days- http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/what-s-on/going-out/what-s-on-for-friday-june-12-2015-thursday-june-18-2015-1-6793771

Izzy Lewis

It’s a hat trick!

It’s been a very thought full Thursday today - The St Jude’s leadership team spent time with individual teachers discussing the progress of the year groups and distributing our new tracking documents for writing. Year 3 marvelled at the magnificent Mary Rose and learnt about what life would have been like on board Henry V111’s warship and some year 6 pupils shared their ideas about starting a newspaper!

Pupil Progress

Today we met staff from year 1 and 4 and started looking at the progress children had made over the school year so far. It was a great opportunity for staff to talk about ideas for the rest of term to ensure progress continues to be a priority - while planning new opportunities for next year - we look forward to carrying these discussions on tomorrow with Year 3 and 5 and catching up with Years 2 and 6 next week. We were also able to share our new termly tracking system for writing which will show individual target areas and how successfully a child has met and objective - we look forward to sharing this with our stakeholders very soon.

Mary Rose

As part of their learning this term, Pipits and Swifts spent the day in Old Portsmouth visiting the Mary Rose Museum and finding out about the sinking of the great ship in 1545. IF you would like to find out more, why not visit the site http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection.

Newsflash

Perhaps we have some budding journalists in our midst.

This afternoon a group of year 6 girls started planning, researching and trialling their interviewing technique as they began to put together a Year 6 newspaper.  With a pot full of ideas stewing nicely, I look forward to helping put together the final piece - under their watchful eyes of course! 

Hoping everybody has an enjoyable, sunshine filled Thursday evening!

Izzy Lewis

So here we are... Blog entry two in two days!

We started off our wonderful Wednesday with Swifts class assembly. They worked very hard and delighted us with their thoughts on Love, which they linked beautifully to the story of The Good Samaritan. Well Done Swifts and a huge thank you to the families that came to watch.

Also today, Mrs Jowers and I spent some time in Early Years looking at the opportunities children have to explore Mathematics outside the classroom. As well as number displays, counting games and shape finding we also had the privilege of counting woodlice (and their legs) as children linked Mathematical and Science skills.

Some of you may start to notice that our website is undergoing a little ‘make-over’, this is to make sure it is as accessible as possible and that it really highlights what an amazing school St Jude’s is.

Tonight the staff  have a Professional Development Meeting so the Senior Team can share the School Improvement Plan with staff.  We look forward to sharing this with the rest of the St Jude’s community in the very near future- so keep an eye out.

Until tomorrow….

Izzy Lewis

Welcome all, to the new Senior Team Blog!

It’s a pleasure to be given the opportunity to write a regular post to keep our families and friends up to date with the exciting things happening at St Jude’s.

I’m very pleased to be able to start this post by sharing our exciting new vision.

Last week the Senior Team had some time together to work on our new School Improvement Plan (that we will share with you very soon) and to talk about how we were moving forward as a school. We went right back to the start and spent some time looking at our vision and values statement. While we all agree that our four values of Love, Honesty, Forgiveness and Hope underpin everything we do, we decided that our Vision statement had become a little cloudy and needed a tweak so it was shorter, easier to remember and could become a starting point for all discussions. We came up with some ideas and shared a draft with the staff last week- after a final few adjustments I am pleased to present our new Vision Statement.

Vision Statement

Awe and wonder sit at the heart of the St Jude’s family. All adults and children work together to create thriving, independent, passionate people who have a fired imagination and a love of learning. We believe that we all learn best when we are happy, safe, valued and inspired to take on the challenges of God’s world.

We are sure you will agree that although similar to our previous vision, this is clearer and really promotes the sort of learning and learner that we strive for. With awe and wonder as our opening line, we are spending time with teachers and subject leaders planning to inject some real excitement into our curriculum- so watch this space…marvellous things coming very soon!

On the second of our SIT days, we were joined in the morning by Reverend Mike Duff of St Jude’s Church who worked with us as we evaluated the distinct Christian character of the school. Last week children bought home a questionnaire regarding this and we look forward to finding out what our parents and carers think are our strengths and areas for development. We also spent some time sharing our new Collective Worship plans and talking about how the Big Questions we ask each week are promoting deep thinking, shared viewpoints and spirituality. We hope you are enjoying the Big Questions also and feel they are a great family conversation starter.

Here is what some of our children thought about our first Big Question- “Is God always happy”?

Year R - "Yes, he's happy because he sent his message into a stone and I picked up the stone and it whispered into my ear-'he is happy because he's always got us'". 

Year 3- "Yes, because when people do things wrong it's not his fault".

 

Year 5 -  "God cannot be happy all the time because of all the bad things that happen in the world like rich and poor, homelessness, selfishness, disease and starvation". 

Our Big Question this week is- “What does love look like?” and as I write this I can hear Mrs Eldrid leading Key Stage one Collective Worship and discussing the children’s ideas about love, and … if I’m not mistaken I can hear whispers of The Beatles- All you need is Love, in the background.

What a great way to start a Tuesday!
Izzy Lewis