This weekend we celebrate Christ the King, the last feast of the Church year before Advent begins. It’s a time to remember that Jesus is King of the Universe and think about how we can make Him King in our own lives by showing love and kindness every day.  To mark this special occasion, we created a beautiful Christ the King Garden to take to Mass on Saturday evening. Each of us wrote something that helps grow God’s Kingdom—words like kindness, peace, and sharing—on a colourful flower. Our garden reminds everyone that even the smallest acts of love can make a big difference. 💚✨ We can’t wait to share our Christ the King Garden with our parish family and celebrate the wonderful ideas we have about living out God’s message. Look out for our display at Mass!

Over the last few weeks, Nursery has had great fun learning about Autumn. We have focused on animals like squirrels, hedgehogs and owls. We read ‘The Squirrels who Squabbled’, The Very Helpful Hedgehog’ and ‘Owl Babies’. We are looking forward to learning all about bears next week.

We welcomed our Reception parents into school today for our English Café. In the hall, Miss Green talked about the importance of reading to children and the positive impact it has on their vocabulary. Parents were shown how a phonics session works and how it supports children in developing their reading skills as well as learning to write. Finally, parents joined us in the classroom for our Drawing Club session on The Gingerbread Man . We enjoyed drawing the Gingerbread Man, acting out the story, and making him out of playdough!

Today all of the children had a wonderful time playing outside in the snow.

This week in RE, we began our Advent topic by exploring our big question: “Is waiting always difficult?” To help us think about this, we took part in a challenge. Everyone was given one sweet that they could eat straight away — but if they chose to wait for five minutes until the timer finished, they would receive a second sweet. After the challenge, we discussed how waiting can sometimes feel difficult, but it can also be rewarding. It was a great way to start thinking about the themes of patience and preparation during Advent.

In English this half term, we have been learning about fables, focusing on the story The Mouse and the Lion . We have used drama to help us remember the key events, making our lessons fun, active, and engaging. By practising the story through actions, expression, and a detailed story map, we have been able to orally retell the story with great accuracy. These activities have deepened our understanding of the text, and we are now able to retell the story clearly, confidently, and with growing independence

On Friday, our Reception children concluded their unit of work on Baptism. We gathered to share what we had learned and celebrated together with a class liturgy. During the liturgy, we began by singing “All Are Welcome” to remind us that Baptism is the time when people are welcomed into the church.  We talked about different ways we can make people feel welcomed and drew these in our books. Miss Green then marked a cross on each child’s forehead with oil, symbolising the oil used by Fr Jonathan when he baptised our class baby. At the end, we sang “Christ, Be Our Light”  as a reminder that, through Baptism, Jesus shares His light with us.

Yesterday, we started the 'Your Into University Journey' with a careers in action workshop.  We learned about the different skills needed for some of the careers we discussed, then used some of these to take on the role of museum curators, product designers and civil engineers.

Professor Steve Bunce led us in an amazing 'LEGO Essentials Space' lesson, last week. We all started from the same point but then ended up with our own unique space buggies.  We were then able to program them so to that they could travel across the room!

It has been a very busy week in Nursery. Nursery wore odd socks for anti-bullying week. They have been learning about how being kind can make the person you are kind to feel happy but how it also makes you feel really happy too. We talked about why we wear poppies and discussed who keeps us safe. Then we used apples to print poppy pictures. It has also been Children in Need Day – so the children came dressed in their pyjamas. We decorated some biscuits with Pudsey Bear spots. The children really enjoyed playing with a big box, making into a train, bus and aeroplane. We have also continued our learning about Autumn, focusing on hedgehogs.

This week in school, we have been marking Anti-Bullying Week by focusing on the importance of kindness and how small actions can make a big difference. The children have taken part in discussions and activities about what it means to be kind, how to include others, and ways to show respect in everyday life both in and out of school. Together, we’ve explored how simple gestures like a smile, a kind word, or helping someone in need can help make our school a happier, safer place for everyone.

We are blessed to have a great selection of texts to choose from and we have chosen a variety of books, including poetry and non-fiction texts, as well as lots of different fiction books. Having some quiet reading time was the perfect way for us to enjoy pyjama day for Children in Need.