St Mary’s Catholic Primary, A Voluntary Academy

February 2016 Newsletter

Our Mission Statement

“To walk hand in hand with God, loving Him, loving each other and loving ourselves, doing our best with the gifts he gave us to make the world a richer place.”

Dear Parents/Carers,

Schools’ Day of Mercy – Friday 4th March

Pope Francis has called for a special initiative, ‘24 hours for the Lord’ to be celebrated on the Friday and Saturday preceding the Fourth Sunday of Lent (4th and 5th March). The purpose of this initiative is to highlight the particular importance of receiving the mercy of God through Eucharistic Adoration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The season of Lent is an ideal time to focus even more on God’s tender mercy for each and every one of us.

To mark this special day,Fr. David will be in school to deliver a specialliturgy on Reconciliation and will be available throughout the day to hear confession for those children who would like to receive this sacrament.

The Great Big Dance Off

We are pleased to announce that after a successful first round of adjudication in The Great Big Dance Off, our Year 5/6 dance group will now go on to perform and compete at the Albert Hall in Nottingham on the 24th February.

Athletics

Well done to the children in Year 3 and Year 4 who took part in the Sportshall Athletics Competition at the Trinity School this week. They worked really hard and, with fantastic team spirit, managed to finish in 6th place overall.

After School Clubs

Clubs for this term are as follows:

Year 3 – Maths Club (Miss Smith)

Year 3 – First Holy Communion Class (beginning 24thFebruary)

Year 4 – Science Club (Trinity School)

Year 5 – Maths Club (Miss Postolan and Ms O’Neill)

Year 5/6 – Area Band (Mellors School)

Year 5/6 – Commercial Dance (Miss Binch)

Year 6 – Basketball (Mrs North

Trinity Performance of `Into the Woods`

All children in Years2through to Year 6 have been invited to Trinity next Tuesday to watch a matinee performance based on Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The children will go after lunch and return by the end of the day.

Attendance

Thank you all for helping us to maintain our attendance which now stands at 98%-this is a wonderful achievement. We are keen to support parents with any attendance issues that may arise and in order to do so we will be working alongside Mr Shaun O’Sullivan (Trinity School’sAttendance Officer). Part of his role is to monitor our registers and contact parents where attendance is a concern.

Parent Governor

Thank youto all who have returned their slips for this very important role. Please note that voting will close on 10th February at 10am.

Parents’ and Carers’ Evening

This is an opportunity to celebrate your child’s achievement so far this year and to discuss their next steps in learning. It is also a time to answer any concerns you may have. Appointment letters are now available in classes. The dates and times are as follows:

F2-Y6Tuesday 23rd February between 3:30pm – 7:00pm

F2-Y6Thursday 25th February between 3:30pm - 6:30pm

Children are to be collected at the end of the school day as normal.

Year 4 parents please note that Mr Whyte is not available on Thursday 25th February but will have additional slots on the morning of Friday 26th February.

Dates for your Diary

Please note the Easter holidays that have been set are not straight forward this year. Our holiday sheet is on our website.

February

Monday 15thHalf term holiday

Monday 22ndSchool re-opens

March

Friday 25thSchool closed - Good Friday

Monday 28thSchool closed - Easter Monday

Tuesday 29thSchool re-opens

April

Monday 4thSchool closed for Easter holidays

Monday 18thSchool re-opens

Yours sincerely

Mrs. G Kelly

Head Teacher