Headteacher's Message
Dear Parents and Carers,
I do hope you and your families are a keeping well?
The snow and ice has caused us some issues with getting pupils into school this week. Despite this, our attendance to School has continued to be very good, since the first week of January and this has allowed us to ensure a wide range of activities can be planned for, for our pupils.
I do hope you take up the opportunity to read the School newsletter each week and that it continues to keep you up to date and provides you with a good understanding of our provision at SJV. It is usually my last task of the week; to check the newsletter on a Friday afternoon and it certainly makes me smile when I am able to see the pictures of our pupils and the vast range of activities they encounter in a typical SJV week.
We really are blessed with opportunities that our children can engage with. This week we have had pupils attend the Children’s Adventure Farm Trust for Forest School and Work Related Learning, offsite for PE lessons, Cronkshaw Hall Farm for animal welfare activities, Greater Manchester Outdoor Learning for Duke of Edinburgh and Preparation for Adulthood activities, Ants in Your Pants for play sessions, Stretford Leisure for swimming lessons, Crucial Crew training at Mersey Farm and Longford Park for cycling activities. We are really proud of our enrichment offer and our pupils participation, which certainly helps bring learning to life for many of our children and young people.
Additionally, it is lovely to see many pupils staying behind for extracurricular activities, with Mr Freshwater and his team again each Wednesday evening. This continues to be really well attended and appreciated by families.
The KS3 and 4 groups are starting to plan for their Residentials at Bendrigg and the Calvert Trust in the Lake District. These take place in March. Mr Dumville and Mr Donovan are forwarding the details to parents and I know the pupils are very excited about these excellent team building and outdoor education opportunities, that we provide.
As explained last week we have a big drive on our environmental activity (our Laudato Si work) in School and continue to ask you to reinforce these key messages at home with your pupils (please see below). Habits become practice, if reinforced well enough. Thank you for your support
We hope you have a great weekend with your families.
Mr A Moloney
Headteacher
Extra May Bank Holiday 2023
Please be informed that on Monday May 8th 2023 the School will not be open. This is because of King Charles’ coronation on May 6th. The Government have announced Monday May 8th will be an extra Public Holiday in Great Britain. This is in addition to the May Day Bank Holiday, which falls on Monday May 1st 2023.
Our ‘Laudato Si’ School; taking responsibility and care for our Common Home.
Pope Francis tells us;
Meat free Mondays; we have now started to not eat meat in School each Monday Having at least one plant-based day a week is a fun and easy way to do something good for the planet and our future.
Did you know?
• It can take 30 bathtubs of water to produce just one beefburger.
• An area of rainforest the size of a hundred football pitches is cut down every hour to create room for grazing cattle
• Almost a third of all land on Earth is used for livestock production
Meat Production and consumption across the world has the following effects
• Animal agriculture creates vast amounts of harmful greenhouse gases
• It depletes precious resources – land, water and energy
• It is a major contributor towards climate change
A reduced meat free diet can;
• boost our health
• reduces animal suffering
• helps alleviate world hunger
• helps protect biodiversity
Why not give it a go and help reduce food bills in the home too.
Want to know more then please visit
Stars of the Week
Aiden-For always being kind to others and trying to work more independently.
Megan-For always giving her best with such a positive attitude
Amanda-For a positive attitude and great effort in class
Zachary-For having a fab week - he's worked really hard in all of his lessons, and has been focused with every task. Well done Zac!
Inaaya-For excellent work in food tech and being very helpful
Kalen-For staying for lunch and is engaging really well in lessons.
Jake-For doing tremendously in his Maths lessons and during extra Maths.
Adam-For a great week and another offsite visit. Well Done Adam
K-leum-For showing great leadership skills this week!
Shea-For improved attendance this week and completion of work
Filip-For coping with some difficult situations at break time and listening to staff and peers.
Rome-For being more mature and helping his friends.
Aidan-For being very kind and helpful with his friends in class and also engaged positively whilst off site.
Class News
Class 3
This week the boys have been looking at electrical conductors and insulators in Science, and how they impact a circuit! On Wednesday we did some travel training, taking the tram to Altrincham and being directed by the boys the whole way. On Friday we did some core strength games with City in the Community, playing a 'floor is lava' game that the boys all got really involved in!
Class 6
This week Class 6 went to Forest school. We did some whittling and with pieces of wood we made our own fires around the fireplace. We also enjoyed toasted marshmallows and some yummy hot chocolate.
Our Catholic School
Our focus this week in SJV is God’s message from Pope Francis; ‘Let us ask the Lord to help us bear shining witness to his Love, in every area of our lives’
By this point in January lots of people are feeling a bit low or will have given up on resolutions, so at SJV we are trying to focus on sharing and reflecting God’s love - and being positive.
Within our Catholic school we worked with our Chaplaincy leaders and Father Nick. We wanted them to really step up and be fully involved in events, such as Lent and Easter planning what we are going to be doing and our charity work. We looked at our Code of Conduct and how they can be role models and example for the rest of the School.
Let myself or the school know if you have any good ideas for Lent and fundraising, we do have a lot of exciting things planned.
In RE this week we have in Key Stage 3 looked at Moses and the Laws he received from God that shape our moral way of thinking. Within Key Stage 4 we continued to look at the theme of love and how we have a duty to remember all kind of love, especially selfless love and the work we do for the poor and the vulnerable. in Key Stage 5 we have focused on the message of the Beatitudes and how important these values are for living a good life. Following Pope Francis 'We are counting our blessings'.
Mrs Garfin
Eco-Committee
Some of our Eco-Committee met recently and conducted our Environmental Review. It was lovely to see the children completing the review with such independence, during their own time. The outcome has shown us just which areas we can improve on at St John Vianney and we have decided to focusing on three areas; improving the recycling we do, reducing litter in the community and developing energy saving ideas this school year.
Mrs Jordan
Credits:
Created with images by Rawpixel.com - "Shiny golden stars glitter festive background" • khumthong - "butter isolated on the white background" • mnirat - "Orange light bulb on the ceiling at a cafe,idea concept" • Piman Khrutmuang - "Empty red shopping cart with supermarket aisle with seasoning and cooking vegetable oil bottles product shelves interior defocused blur background" • Dusan Kostic - "Tractor spraying soy field in sunset." • Bob - "A forest of ponderosa trees after a snow storm near Sisters, Oregon." • splitov27 - "Headphones with audio cassette. 80's synth wave and retrowave glowing triangle futuristic aesthetics. Old fashioned abstraction concept" • underworld - "donkey in front of wall, photo as background" • Pixel-Shot - "Sweet chocolate cake on color background" • pingpao - "Young plant growing in soil on green bokeh background" • daizuoxin - "Pick up the plastic bottle" • rolffimages - "Abstract"