St Mary’s Catholic Primary School

Newsletter 74 20th June2011

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”(Matthew 18:20)

CONGRATULATIONS:

We offer our congratulations to Mrs Brown who will be leaving us at the end of this term to take up the post of Deputy Head at Holy Family. We wish Mrs Brown well in her new post.

Mrs Foster will be acting as Team Leader for the Early Years until such times as the post being advertised.

We also congratulate Miss Charlotte Curtis who has been appointed as teacher on a fixed term contract until 31st August 2012. Some of you will remember Miss Curtis who did her final teaching practice quite recently at St Mary’s.

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FAREWELL:

We also say farewell to Mr Sugden who will be leaving us on June 30th to take up a completely new role as a detention officer with the Wiltshire police. Mr Sugden has worn many hats in his time at St Mary’s. Not only has he been Caretaker, but also Senior Midday Supervisor both at lunch time and for the Breakfast Club as well as a Teaching Assistant helping out with P.E. and football. We wish him well at this new stage in his career.

Congratulations to Mr Alan Priday who has been appointed Site Manager for St Mary’s School. This will be slightly higher profile job than Caretaker and will also incorporate the running of the school grounds as well as working in the outdoor environment with children.

BREAKFAST CLUB:

Miss Julie Clarke will be taking on the responsibility of Senior Supervisor at Breakfast Club. When Mr Sugden leaves the format of Breakfast Club will slightly change in that the children will no longer walk down to school in the form of a walking bus from the church car park, but will be dropped off at school for 7.45am. Mr Sugden will be in touch with regular users of the Breakfast Club about this change of format.

COMMUNITY CO-ORDINATOR:

When Mrs Iannetelli left last Christmas, it was decided to incorporate the role into an already existing Teaching Assistant role with an alteration of the job description. This role of Teaching Assistant/Community Co-ordinator was offered internally to anybody who was interested. Miss Julie Clarke expressed her interest and from September she will spend 0.5 of her time on community aspects as well as first aid and care plans and the rest of the 0.5 of her time as a Teaching Assistant in the classroom.

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LONG WEEKEND:

Can I remind everybody that the school is closed on Friday 1st July and Monday 4th July. This is because we are taking Friday as the Royal Wedding extra day and Monday is a Teacher Training Day. The Teacher Training Day is taking place in a different venue from school so the school will be shut.

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CHRISTIAN MEDITATION:

We will be introducing Christian meditation for children from September. Some members of the World Community for Christian Meditation are coming to work with us on Monday 4th July as part of our Teacher Training Day.

We are very excited in being able to offer to our children the opportunity to learn to be still in the presence of God and to create a sacred space within themselves. This is exactly what Pope Benedict asked of young people on the steps of Westminster Cathedral. He said this to the young people :

This is the message I want to share with you today. I ask you to look into your hearts each day to find the source of all true love. Jesus is always there, quietly waiting for us to be still with him and to hear his voice. Deep within your heart, he is calling you to spend time with him in prayer. But this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline; it requires making time for moments of silence every day. Often it means waiting for the Lord to speak. Even amid the “busy-ness” and the stress of our daily lives, we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God, and in silence that we discover our true self. And in discovering our true self, we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his Church and the redemption of our world.

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School is delighted that we can respond to Pope Benedict’s request for deepening prayer through the introduction of Christian Meditation twice a day from September.

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