St John Vianney Newsletter 26.05.23

Dear family and friends of SJV

Here we are at the end of another pleasing half term at St John Vianney School. The summer term is always such a lovely, though very busy, time of year, with exams having high importance and also the anticipation of what is to come in the next school year.

This week started with all classes’ Monday morning PSHE lesson being linked to the school’s Laudato Si' initiative that has been ongoing all year. Every member of the school community has made 3 personal pledges around how we can look after our Common Home by living more simply.All classes have also made their own class prayer which focuses on giving thanks but also asking God to help us to take better care of all of the wonderful resources we have here on earth, so that future generations can enjoy them too. It has been encouraging to see so many of our young people really embrace the Laudato Si programme. I think Pope Francis would be very proud of us all! You will have received pledge postcards too and we ask that, as families, you also join in and make pledges at home and support our young people in embedding the message within their local community and wider the wider world.

Lots of work-related activities have continued to take place, including a visit to Amazon and UA92 for some of our KS4 and 5 pupils and Key Stage 3 visits from our Connexions Officer, Ed Clark, talking about the journey our pupils will take in respect to careers information and guidance, as they get ready to move into Key Stage 4 in September. As I have mentioned previously, preparing for adult life is something we take very seriously at St John Vianney School and pupils are really encouraged to think about their future aspirations and goals. It is so rewarding to see our pupils make steps towards these aspirations and as they move into Post 16 the opportunities for bespoke work experience options are being encouraged and strengthened year on year.

In the next half term, we will be getting ready to say goodbye to our pupils who are moving on to pastures new. Some of our pupils have been accessing transition activities at their new placements and SJV staff have been attending with them, to ensure that we can support them and their new placement in making the transition as smooth and successful as possible. We will be saying goodbye to these pupils officially, at a service and buffet for them and their families on the 30th June. It is always a day of mixed emotions; one of pride as we reflect on their successes and achievements and one of sadness as we say goodbye.

Mrs Griffin has asked me to remind you that the school summer fair will be taking place on Saturday 1st July from 1-3pm. This will be a great opportunity for us all to come together for one last time on the site as it stands now, before our extensive building work commences in September.

Make I take this opportunity to wish you all a relaxing Whit half term. I hope you and your families get some rest, enjoy the sunshine and our children and staff prepare for the best half term of the year!

Best wishes,

Ms Nesbitt

Our Catholic School

‘Jesus wants to be your friend, and wants you to spread the joy of this friendship everywhere.’

Our prayer focus this week is that friendship is one of life’s greatest blessings, as we are reminded in the Gospel. How do we help our young people to develop their friendships? We look to the quote above from Pope Francis to help us.

Within our Catholic School this week our PSHE time focused on Laudato Si'; the message and the paper written by Pope Francis about care for the environment and each other.

This week marks the 8th anniversary of the Pope’s message. As a school we are going to focus on the care of our common home and look at how we can help the environments and others.

Our Post 16 leaders represented SJV in a Pentecost retreat organised by Just Youth. All the schools that Just Youth work with came together to celebrate all the good work the chaplaincy teams have done in the diocese. Ben, Amy, Blythe and Isaac were wonderful ambassadors for SJV and we have made many new friends and links with other schools.

Within RE everyone had a ‘MAD’ time where we 'Made A Difference' to our work by looking at the work that had been completed this half term, reflecting on it and seeing how we can improve on it. All the classes did well with their green pen work and were righty proud of all their hard work over the past five weeks