As many of our year 6 children went to spend the day at St Augustine's RC school, the rest of the children moved up a year group for the morning and we welcomed many new children into our classes. It was a hot and tiring day, but despite a one or two tears there were lots of smiles and lots of happy, excited children exploring their classrooms and learning areas. Lunch time ran smoothly with the new year 6 buddies doing a great job of helping the younger children.

Friday, 22nd June was national "Wear Yellow for CF" day. Millie's sister Sophie and many other local children and adults suffer from this illness. Even the sun shone it's brightest yellow for the day and Mrs Smith thought she had come to the wrong school when the usual green of St Joseph's uniforms was replaced by yellow for the day. Mrs Bailey's class started the day with a fantastic assembly demonstrating how, unlike many other illnesses, cystic fibrosis isn't obvious to see. After listening to the children and watching a short film our children should now have a better understanding of cystic fibrosis and why it is important to raise money to try and find a cure. Sophie watched the assembly with her mum before attending yet another hospital appointment for her condition.   
The generosity of our families at St Joseph's was clear to see with an amazing £180 being raised on the day. This is being donated directly to the cystic fibrosis trust via a local fundraising event which starts next weekend. A local man Stephen Taylor, who has a 6 year old grandson with CF,  is walking 1150 miles from Lands End to John O'Groats to raise funds and awareness. Due to our fundraising donation being over £100, our school will be the official sponsors for his walk on July, 16th. Parents may wish to follow his challenge via his Facebook page Walking4cf. Joseph Bear already has his picture on the page proudly wearing his yellow CF buff!   

The inter-house Athletics was won by St. Bernadette.

Mrs Bailey's class presented an assembly to raise awareness of Cystic Fibrosis. Everyone in school was wearing yellow in support of the CF Trust (more on a later post!) The class were amazing and spoke very clearly to the rest of the school. At the end of the assembly Lilly showed her Greek dance which was fantastic. 

While the key stage 1 and 2 children took flowers to the statue of Mary at Stonyhurst as part of their May procession, the Foundation Stage children stayed at school to take part in their own celebration of Mary's month of May. Sam and Gus laid a blue cloth in front of the statues of Mary and Joseph before Maria carefully placed a crown of flowers on Mary's head. Alfred, Reuben and Sophie all put a branch of blossom flowers into the vase, each one in the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Freddy, William and Zach then added the flowers they had brought from home. We lit a candle and had a few moment's silent reflection before saying a Hail Mary.  

It has been another busy half term in school, with the reception children working hard to achieve their Early Learning Goals and nursery children developing their learning in all areas of the curriculum. Warmer days have allowed increased opportunities for high quality outdoor learning. Our tadpoles have grown into froglets and then frogs and have now been safely returned to Mrs Bailey's pond.
In mathematics we have been practising counting in 10s, 2s and 5s, sharing objects into equal sets and revising the names and properties of 3D shapes. We have also been using cubes to weigh and measure a range of objects. In literacy nursery children are practising hearing initial sounds and rhyming sounds in words and are gaining confidence in independent writing activities, while the reception children have written and illustrated their own magic beanstalk stories. Every morning we take part in 10 minutes of healthy exercise, making sure we run, skip, cycle or climb fast enough to make our hearts beat fast!