St John Vianney Newsletter 12.05.23

Dear Parents and Carers,

I do hope you have had a good week?

Another half term at school is flying by, especially after having 2 short weeks back to back. We now only have 2 weeks left to the Whit term break. The additional bank holiday to mark the occasion of the King’s Coronation has allowed for some long weekends; it is a shame the weather over the last few weeks hasn’t been as helpful! I hope however, it has provided time for families and friends to spend some quality time together.

A significant part of our school improvement activity continues to be around raising aspirations of pupils and developing appropriate work related learning experiences for all our children.

The process begins in Key Stage 3 with Careers information lessons delivered to all classes by our Careers’ Advisor. In Key Stage 4 and 5, we begin to arrange work experience opportunities for our older pupils. We feel we have made an excellent start in this area and it is great to see the pupils engaged in a range of activities that our external partnerships are able to provide. Key Stage 3 pupils this term have been to Asda in Trafford Park, to look at the range of employment opportunities that the supermarket offers and have really enjoyed the experience.

In KS4, we have a class of pupils taking part in weekly employment tasks in School working with the estates, catering and admin teams each Tuesday. Additionally, another class have weekly work experience at the Bishop of Salford’s residence at Wardley Hall, where they are undertaking horticultural activities. All our Year 11 pupils have also had full-day experiences working in the Office/Reception, Dining area and Bookshop at the Cathedral Centre in Salford. I am told all our pupils have been excellent ambassadors for the school and have been really helpful in their volunteer roles. Some of them have been asked back to do extra days in the autumn term, which is wonderful news.

In Key Stage 5 our students are involved in work activity at CAFT, the Salvation Army and the Bread and Butter thing, which complements their preparation for adulthood learning at Greater Manchester Outdoor Learning. These opportunities are further enhanced by personalised work experience opportunities for students in local Coffee shops, Florists and Restaurants in the Chorlton and Trafford areas. We are really pleased with the progress we are making in this vital area to give our pupils aspirations and ambition for their next steps. If any parent is able to support us in providing work related experiences for a group or individual pupils it would be great to hear from you. Please do let me know if you are able to offer us anything?

We are starting now to compile the end of year reports for your child. We will be sending these home to you in early July, so you can have a complete record of the achievements made by your child in school this year.

I hope you have another great weekend.

Best wishes,

Mr A Moloney

Name? Leon

What I have done this week? We have done our school work and we went out on a trip

What is the best thing about being in SJV? The teachers!

It would be even better if…? We had 'Taco Tuesdays'!

What are your hopes and dreams for the future? I'd really love to be a mechanic one day and work on fixing cars.

Our Catholic School

We are reminded in the Gospel this week to put our Trust in the Lord; it is in trusting in Jesus that we will find security and hope.

‘Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s care’.

St Augustine of Hippo.

Within SJV, as part of our whole school prayer and reflection, we are looking at St Augustine of Hippo. He reminds us that we are never on our own and that we should put our trust in God.

Within our Catholic school, it is an exciting time for the Chaplaincy Team, as we are updating our Chaplaincy prayer. We wrote the prayer a number of years ago when the team first formed and we felt that it was time to update it. This will allow us to reflect on how much the team has changed and to be more inclusive.

The Chaplaincy Team leaders have supported the team, helping them to make the important decision of which prayer to choose going forward. Once all members have voted for their favourite prayer, we will be able to share it with you.

In RE this week, Key Stage 4 and 5 have continued to look at marriage within different religions and cultures. What struck the classes most is the many similarities there are among the different religions and cultures.

Mrs Garfin

Can you help us please? We are looking for donations of sports shirts (used or new football tops, cricket and rugby shirts) that we will collect and recycle for our partner school in Africa. Please donate those used shirts that no longer fit your children and also ask friends and family if they can donate too. These donations will make a real difference to many vulnerable children’s lives in Africa; please support the appeal.

Please send in any donations to School and we will forward them to Mr Foden, who is coordinating the appeal at SJV through to the end of June.

Many thanks for your support!