St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

Weekly Newsletter 15.9.23

This week...

What a lovely group of families you are! After already loving your amazing children, I'm now getting the opportunity to get to know some of our families better too. I'm not the only new member of staff (Mr Craigen, Mrs Hough and Miss Savelli are newbies like me too), and we've all commented on how welcoming you lot are!


Thank you for being so supportive and kind. It definitely feels like we are part of the St Joseph's family.


We look forward to working with our families so that together we can...

Live, love and learn with the Lord.


Mrs Ronicle

Virtue - help us please!

Our current virtue is respect and courtesy. Our morning worships are focused around the virtue. When we have seen respect or courtesy demonstrated around school, we have been celebrating it.


We would love to have you on board with celebrating our virtues too! This helps our children understand the importance of living out our virtues at all times - not just in school hours!


If your child shows respect or courtesy at home, please share this with us (feel free to email me or let me know on the gates in the morning) and we will celebrate this in school too!

Positive Behaviour

As you may be aware, we have reinstated the historic 'house teams' across school. Your child is now allocated a team (Matthew; Mark; Luke: or John) and will be able to collect team points throughout the week. The team winners each week will be announced in our Friday Celebration Assembly and will gain the much-coveted trophy!


We have also introduced gold and diamond cards. A gold card may be awarded if super behaviour choices or achievements have been spotted by staff across school. We will notify you via text if your child receives one. A diamond card is awarded in exceptional circumstances, when your child has gone above and beyond! You will also be notified of this.

Celebration Assemblies

It was so wonderful to see so many of you in school this morning, celebrating our amazing children and all their fantastic learning!


Each Friday morning at 9:10am, we will hold a whole school celebration assembly in our school hall and families are welcome to join us.


Refreshments will be available after, and it's a great opportunity for me (Mrs Ronicle) to meet you all and have a chat.

Award winners this week!

St Nicholas Star of the Week: Della

St Francis Star of the Week: Lily

St Bernadette Star of the Week: Dylan K

St Patrick Star of the Week: Owen

St Therese Star of the Week: Harrison

Headteacher's Award (for showing our virtue of respect): Oscar O


Congratulations to all of our award winners, who were invited to sit on the GOLDEN TABLE at lunchtime (and enjoy juice!)

This week we have been learning...

St Nicholas (Nursery and Preschool)

We have been learning about God's creation and the wonderful world He made! The children drew pictures of what they are thankful for.

St Francis (Reception / Y1)

St Francis have been learning about Andy Warhol. We discussed what we liked and disliked about his art. We learnt that he is a pop artist who used printing to create art work that was the same print, different colour. We imitated this using handprints and chose which media we wanted to use.

St Bernadette (Y2)

In St Bernadette's we created Lego structures in RE only to have them destroyed! This made us think about God's creation of our wonderful world and how upsetting it is when people destroy it or we don't help look after it.

St Patrick (Y3/4)

In St Patrick’s class we have enjoyed building up our story about Theseus and the Minotaur. We have looked at the setting and key characters, including the dreaded Minotaur! We are looking forward to finding out what happens next!

St Therese (Y5/6)

In science this week, St Therese Class have been learning about forces, and friction in particular. We carried out an experiment by putting different objects on a whiteboard, lifting one end of the whiteboard, and measuring how high up it was before the object began to slide. We noticed that the roughness or smoothness of the material affected when the object started to slide.

Curriculum maps

Shortly, you will receive a welcome letter and curriculum map for your child's class. These will help to inform you of the learning that will be taking place this term.


If you have any further queries or would like to know how to support your child in their learning at home, please contact: your child's teacher at the end of the day; me (Mrs Ronicle); or the school office.

Our new Mini Vinnies!

This Wednesday, Mrs Ronicle and Miss Savelli held a selection process to appoint our new school Mini Vinnies! Our Mini Vinnies will put their faith and concern for others into action, by living out their mission of see, think, do, across our school and local community.



We received some lovely letters of interest and are pleased to announce our new Mini Vinnies Team:


Jessica, Theo M, Arabella, Sam W, Rosie, Matilda, Skye, Dollie, Oscar, Caspian, Aoife, Charlotte, Darcie, Dylan D, Lottie.


Our first meeting will be next week and their first act of service will be to help us write a school prayer!


If you would like to find out more about Mini Vinnies, have a look at their website:


Mini Vinnies | St Vincent de Paul Society (svp.org.uk)

School renovations!

We are thrilled to have completed our renovation of the KS2 toilets and to now have a super intervention room! The children commented that the toilets feel like a 5* hotel - you don't get higher praise than that!

Uniform and PE Kits

This year, children will come into school in uniform each day.


I have been made aware that the current uniform policy states that children should have jumpers and t-shirts with the school logo. As a parent of two children myself, I appreciate how costly this would be to maintain! With this in mind, I am more than happy for children to wear the correct colour jumper and t-shirt without logos!


The PE days for each class are as follows:


St Francis (Reception/Y1): Thursday

St Bernadette (Y2): Friday

St Patrick (Y3/4): Monday

St Therese (Y5/6): Monday and Wednesday


Swimming is on a Wednesday afternoon for Years 1-4. Children need to come in uniform with their swimming kit in a bag please.

Families Survey

Thank you for your responses to our families survey - it will be really helpful for us to know your thoughts about our school. Just like you, we want the best for our children.


We are now collating your feedback and will use this to help us determine priorities moving forward.

After School Clubs

We are delighted to be offering after school clubs this term. As the year progresses, we hope to offer a wider variety of clubs. Please bear with us - I'm sure you can appreciate that there is a lot on our to-do list at the start of the year and with several new members of staff!


Please contact the school office ASAP if you would like a place at any of the following clubs:


Monday - Futsal Sports Club

Tuesday - Craft Club

Wednesday - Multi-sports Club


For those of you that have asked what futsal is (I didn't know until last year either!), have a look at the website of our provider:


Futsal Partnership (thefutsalpartnership.com)

Car Park

Just a polite reminder that our staff are not supervising the children outside of the gates in a morning, so please ensure that you keep an eye on them as they move through the staff car park. Thank you!

Upcoming Dates


Whole School Welcome Mass (in Church - families welcome): Wed 27th Sept, 10am

St Francis (Reception/Y1) Stay and Play: Wed 27th Sept, 2:30-3:30pm

KS2 SATs information Evening: Thurs 28th Sept, 6pm

Whole School photos: Thurs 28th Sept

Macmillan Coffee Morning: Fri 29th Sept (after celebration assembly)

Harvest Festival: Fri 6th Oct, 9:10am

Reception New Starters' Liturgy: Wed 11th Oct, 9:10am

How to get in touch

We love hearing from you!


If you have a query or concern, please feel free to speak to me (Mrs Ronicle) at the gates in the morning or via email (headteacher@st-josephs-tadcaster.n-yorks.sch.uk); your child's class teacher at the end of the day; or our school admin team at the front entrance.


If this is not possible, feel free to phone or email the office who can forward any messages to staff. Please note, our class teachers do not use their email addresses or Class Dojo to contact parents/carers/families.


We are a proud member school of the Bishop Wheeler Catholic Academy Trust:

https://www.bishopwheelercatholicacademytrust.org/

Our Parish Church

Families (and children of all ages) are warmly welcomed to celebrate Mass at our parish Church:

St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Tadcaster.


Mass times are as follows:


SUNDAY Mass 9am

WEDNESDAY Mass 10am

FRIDAY Mass 10am


Please visit the Church website for further details:

https://www.stjosephstadcaster.org.uk/

Community events:

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