Sadly we were unable to have our stations of the Cross outside due to the rainy weather. However the whole school listened to Mr Crabtree as he described each of the stations. The behaviour of the children was excellent as they followed the last hours of Christ. Each child had made their own cross which they brought to the service. 
After our Stations of the Cross Father Tim Curtis and Canon Brian McConkey presented each child with a fairtrade, Real Easter egg as a gift from the parishes and school.

Friday assembly was led by Sean Ryan the Caritas refugee resettlement officer for the North West based in Manchester. He spoke about the Hummingbird project which is inspired by the words of Pope Francis when he encouraged all Catholics to be involved in the resettlement of refugee families. 
Sean led parents, staff and children in an all action welcome song in preparation for the arrival of a refugee family which is to be supported by the Catholic and Anglican parishes in Hurst Green. 

 The tournament began before Christmas with over 30 entrants. Eventually there was a three way play off for the top spot between Bert, Michael and Jacob. The standard of play was very high and the matches had to be played twice to find an eventual winner. Congratulations to all three players. The final winner was Michael from St. Michael's house for the second year in succession .  

St. Joseph's had a good evening at Roefield Leisure Centre at the Prosport Unihoc tournament.  We had two teams entered and they both performed well with one team eventually winning the whole competition. 

Friends of St. Joseph's encouraged pupils (and staff!) to turn up to school with wild hair styles. Each person was charge £1 and this money is to help fund the Friends Float for the Hurst Green Fete Day. 

We celebrated Fair trade fortnight at school today. We started off with a family breakfast feasting on fair trade treats, coffee, tea and hot chocolates. Thank you all who supported this event. We then held an assembly in which Year 5 and 6 interpreted the parable of the Good Samaritan with a fair trade message. They were led in this work by David Jacques and Clare Hyde from st. john's , Hurst Green. David and Gill Jacques and Clare Hyde attended our assembly.

We have had some busy Friday afternoons so far this term, with children developing their DT and computing skills as part of their topic work. The first half term's topic was "Explorers", so each child decided where in they world they would like to explore and then designed and made a suitable vehicle. Many children displayed great skill in using saws to cut the wood for the axels for their vehicles. Mrs Geldard is pleased to report that none of her fingers were lost in the process!
This half term's topic is "Growth and Green Fingers", so we have been using real flower parts to make pictures. Miss Smith, our work placement student assisted children in improving their computer skills, the result is an amazing assortment of cards for our special mums! The next task will be to plan and make some fruit treats.

At the end of our skipping day we held an assembly to show some of the things we had learned during the day. Children from each group showed skills they had mastered. 

As part of an initiative to get all the children in school more active Skipping Workshops came into school today to work with pupils of all ages. Nursery and reception learn to use elastic for french skipping, KS1 tried a mixture of French and rope skipping and KS2 began to learn some skipping tricks. 

St. Joseph's Tag Rugby team did the school and Mr Crabtree proud when they triumphed in the First ever Pro-Sport Rugby competition. They scored four out of four victories and came home with the trophy.