Wow! Hard to believe we are already at half-term! What an extremely busy and productive half term it has been! The children across the school have been working extremely hard and taking on board new routines and protocols. We celebrated World Mental Health Day, with this year's theme "make mental health and wellbeing a global priority". We discussed ways we can look after our mental health, e.g. eating well, reading, exercise, drawing, listening to music. Children from Year 4 and Year 5 prayed to Our Lady as the blessed statue of our Lady of Walsingham came to us at St Augustine's.
We had a day of skipping yesterday when Dave from SKIP2BFIT visited us for the day.T The children and staff thoroughly enjoyed their time with Dave. Thank you Dave and we look forward to welcoming you back soon!
At the beginning of the year, the children in each year group from Year 1 - Year 6 voted for their School Council representative. The elected children needed to represent our core values, be responsible and respectful members of their class and able to articulate their views and ideas. Reception representatives will join the school council after Christmas. Here are our school representatives this year who make our Junior Leadership team:
Staff voted for the Year 6 Headboy and Headgirl. We are delighted that Maggie and Olly both accepted the role and are great ambassadors for St Augustine's. Maggie and Olly will take the lead for future school council meetings.
We have held a couple of school council meetings this half term with pertinent issues being raised, these have included wraparound care provision, lunchtime clubs and the curriculum. The school council have said they would like to raise money for Children in Need this year which is taking place Friday 18th November. Children can come to school in their own clothes for a donation to Children in Need.
Fabulous news that our Friends of St Augustine's has been revived! Thank you to all involved. The children are very excited about the Spooky Disco tonight! Everyone is looking fantastic in their spooky costumes!
It has been great to meet members of the school community either during the consultation evenings, the coffee mornings, 1:1 meetings that we held at the beginning of the school year or at drop off or collection time. Thank you all for your kind messages and words of support, they are greatly appreciated. Have a lovely half term break! We look forward to welcoming you back on Monday 31st October. Take care Mrs K Whitehead.
Reception - We have been very busy in Reception this half term. In Phonics, we have been trying really hard with recognising and writing the taught sounds, using our beautiful handwriting to evidence this! We have enjoyed some great stories and poems in English such as Homes, Peace at Last and Little Miss Muffet. In Maths, we have had fun doing lots of practical activities within our topics. Our favourite was measuring the correct ingredients out for Miss Barnard to help her make some playdough. Recently, we have enjoyed learning about Darlington as part of our Topic, in particular local landmarks, such as The Brick Train, The Clock Tower and The Railway Station. Children have enjoyed playing in the Darlington Small World area and some children even designed their own maze for Darlington. Before this, we enjoyed looking at past and present toys and talking about our favourites. I am so proud of how well the Children have settled in this half term. Well done Reception!
Year 1 - We have been busy in Year 1 this half term. In English, we have written a story based on Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. In maths, we have been deepening our knowledge of numbers within 10 and 20 and using them to complete part-whole models and number lines. In history, we have really enjoyed studying the Great Fire of London and learning a Fire of London song. In phonics we have been using different spellings of /ae/ and /ee/ such as; ay, ai, a-e and ee, y and e-e. In RE, we have studied how God shows us love and care as well as who Abraham and Moses were in the Jewish faith. We have enjoyed improving our running, dodging, jumping and skipping skills in PE. We really enjoyed learning more about skipping with Dave from Skip 2 B fit!
Year 2 have had a great start to the year with all children settling in really well! Miss Gibson has enjoyed getting to know all children and is looking forward to the rest of the year. This half term children have enjoyed learning about lots of different topics such as materials in science and Judaism in RE. One topic all children seemed to particularly enjoy is our History topic the great fire of London. We have learnt all about how the fire spread so quickly, looked at the life of Samuel Pepys and we had one particular messy afternoon making our very own great fire of London houses and they look brilliant! Well done on a great first half term Year 2!
Year 3 have had a fabulous start to the school year! Year 3 hosted the MacMillan cake sale which was a huge success in school and showed off what excellent role models they are for St Augustine’s. We were so proud of how well the children worked as a team and for taking responsibility for the cake sale for our school!
Year 4 have been enjoying their topic of Living Things in Science. We have been searching for invertebrates in our school grounds. We have also worked in groups to create posters about the 5 different types of invertebrates.
Year 5 - It has been a delight working with the children in year 5, we have worked hard to develop our confidence through reciting poetry, singing, and playing ukulele together as a class. Our RE focussed on valuing ourselves as individuals and appreciating the gifts and qualities God has given us, which was a lovely way to get to know the children better. Children have been very excited in science separating mixtures and creating reversible and irreversible reactions. In History, our children have looked at the battle strategies and weapons used with both the Romans and the Greeks. In PE we have worked to improve our coordination, problem solving and agility through tag rugby, we were also lucky enough to begin Cycling Training. A great start to Year 5, and I look forward to the next half term and all the fun we can have.
Year 6 - started their year with a fabulous three day residential at Dukeshouse Wood in Hexham. Miss White, Mrs Graham and Mrs Coates joined Year 6 as they completed a thrilling 3 days of adventures including: archery, den building, aero-ball, bouldering, camp fires, crate stack and climbing Jacob's ladder. We were so proud of all children for their determination, resilience and perseverance in all activities!!
Staffing Update - This half term we have welcomed Miss Wales as our new School Administrator and the Breakfast Club Lead. We are also delighted to announced that Miss Outterson has been appointed as the After School Club Lead and will commence this role after the half term break. We have also recruited two midday supervisors Mrs Raper and Mrs Vardy - all are wonderful additions to our St Augustine's family.
Mrs Graham will be leaving St Augustine's at the end of the Autumn term. I would like to publicly thank Mrs Graham for her dedication and commitment to children at St Augustine's over the last 6 years. We wish her the very best for the future. In view of these changes we have successfully appointed Mr Cummins who will take on the role of Year 4 Class teacher from January 2023. Mr Cummins is an experienced practitioner, who will be a great asset to St Augustine's. We hope you will join us in wishing Mrs Graham all the best for the future and welcome Mr Cummins to our St Augustine's family.
Wraparound Care - Following the successful recruitment of a new Breakfast Club Lead and Afterschool Club Lead we are excited to announce that there will be a re-launch of our Wraparound Care provision. We appreciate all of your suggestions and feedback, we have listened to your views and the views of the children.... please watch this space for further updates!
Diary dates - A reminder of upcoming dates for your diary for next half term;
School Uniform is available to order directly through our supplier, Elizabeth's Embroidery. Just click on the link below to go to their website, this will take you straight through to the page to start the ordering process. https://elizabethsschoolwear.com/collections/st-augustine