As usual, the final week of school before Christmas has been very busy. In our assemblies, class worship and curriculum time we have been getting ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus and trying to make sure we keep this at the heart of our preparations and celebrations.
On Monday and Tuesday, Years 1 and 2 performed ‘A Little Bird Told Me’ to packed and appreciative audiences. DVDs of the concert will be available in January. On Wednesday, we celebrated our annual school Carol Service. Again, there was a full church to sing carols, listen to readings of the Christmas story and to hear our small school choir perform. Earlier in the day, the choir had been to the Convent of Mercy to sing and they will be doing the same in Merton Place Nursing Home on Thursday afternoon. On Tuesday, Darren Millar (AM) visited school with some great news for Bella in Year 3. She was the winner of his annual competition to design his Christmas card. Her collage of Rudolph was used on all his cards sent out this year. Congratulations Bella on your wonderful artwork. Amongst all the excitement, there was also some sadness as a few pupils will be leaving St Joseph’s in January. Some of them are moving out of the area, whilst others will be accessing specialist provision within Conwy county. At the leaving party for one of these children, in Year 1, there was an unusual Christmas visitor in the form of a large inflatable T-Rex. We will be celebrating mass on Thursday, in the evening there will be our PTA Christmas Disco and finally, on Friday afternoon, our Christmas Film Show with refreshments. By the end, I’m sure we will all be ready to welcome Jesus into our homes, this Christmas. Merry Christmas to all of the St Joseph’s family.
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On Friday, the children in Year 1 and 2 performed their final dress-rehearsal of the Nativity based Christmas Concert, ‘A Little Bird Told Me’. The staff and pupils have been working very hard for several weeks to make sure the stage is set, lines are learnt and songs are ready to be performed to an eager audience. Today, that audience was made up parents, grandparents, wider family members and the rest of the children in the school. It certainly looks like all that hard work has paid off. The children looked and sounded wonderful and the audience responded with great enthusiasm. There was a brief moment of concern as the children sang their final number ‘We found Jesus’, only to discover he wasn’t there! It turned out Mary was feeling unwell, so Jesus was being cradled ‘backstage’ by Mary, who, in turn, was being cradled by Mrs Williams!
Well, as they say, I’m sure it will all be right on the night. If this rehearsal was anything to go by, Monday and Tuesday night’s audiences are in for a wonderful early Christmas present. Well done to Year 1 and 2 and all the dedicated staff. This year, the governors agreed to develop a clearer format for the summary of their annual report to parents. The aim was to give parents a better picture of the overall performance of the school and to increase parental engagement with the important processes of self-evaluation and school development. The most obvious change to the format of this summary was the introduction of traffic light colours to indicate a judgement on current performance in each area or measure. We were really pleased that this new format has resulted an in increased desire from parents to hold a meeting to discuss the report. The governors have arranged for this meeting to be held on Wednesday 17th January at 6pm. We would encourage all parents to attend and take this opportunity to engage in discussions about the school and its future developments.
Today, the children shared some of this week’s learning experiences with the rest of the school.
Reception class have been visiting Pwllycrochan Woods and they talked about some of the activities they have completed and showed their photographs. Year 1 and 2 have been preparing for their Christmas Concert and they gave us a sneak preview. Year 3 showed us their chariots and answered questions on design and technique. Year 4 talked about their class reading book and introduced us to some of the main characters. Year 5 talked about the features of playscripts and we got to meet some of the characters from Oliver Twist. Finally, Year 6 worked their ‘Jazz Hands’ as they performed a song learnt as part of their WWII topic. It was a great sharing assembly with lots of happy faces. Thank you. |
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