With a good weather forecast for the final day of term, Mrs O'Connor worked hard with Fr Tim to plan our school's first outdoor end of term and leavers mass. The weather turned just as we started, it was certainly a mass like no other and took us all until the end of the  day to dry out! 
As parents and staff struggled to contain the tears saying goodbye to our fabulous year 6s,  the children beamed as they left the school with heads and hearts full of memories and friendships. We look forward to welcoming them back to school to show off their high school uniforms and update us in their progress in the future.
It was then time to say goodbye to Mrs Smith and wish her a happy retirement with her family and her chickens.......
The gatherings couldn't be huge for our farewells, but the good wishes for the future of our leavers are enormous. The staff and governors of St Joseph's would like to wish all our families a safe, happy and healthy summer. 

The weather men said it would be a dry, and even sunny day, so Fr Tim planned a special outdoor mass and we planned a socially distanced teddy bears picnic for the end of term. The weather men were wrong!!! However, the children were incredible and unphased by this and enjoyed their final day of the school year in their usual enthusiastic style! 
A  wet mass, indoor picnic, washing and sorting toys, and presenting Mrs Smith with her card and singing her Mrs Atkinson's special Goodbye rap song, brought us to the Summer holidays in an unusual but memorable way. 

The last week of term and the last week of the strangest school year has arrived.
15 fantastic year 6 pupils will be leaving St Joseph's and taking the next step in their educational journeys. We will also be saying "Au Revoir" to 5 St Joseph's families as their youngest children are leaving our school. We would like to say a huge thank you for the hundreds of hours they have given to the school as parents in the role of governors, fund raisers, costume designers, classroom volunteers, trip helpers and generally fabulous members of our school family.
Time seems to pass by so quickly, it doesn't seem long at all since the first two members of the year group joined us in nursery, no names mentioned, but they were two fun characters who were sometimes referred to as the "tiny terrors"! One term later and we were welcoming more to the group for their induction morning when we had mums crying, children crying, doors being bolted to prevent anyone escaping and Mrs P checking that we were all OK!!
​The tears soon turned to fun, laughter and learning (along with the occasional falling out over who had the pink plate for snack time and an occasional hair cutting incident in the workshop!). Appeals for reception places were made (and very fortunately won) and a waiting list to join this year group remained. As soon as someone left, another child (or two identical ones!) joined us, and another school's loss was always our gain. There seem to have been more than the average number of broken bones along the way, but these children have grown into amazing, clever, artistic, sporty, entertaining youngsters who we are very sorry to lose from our school. We wish you all well and look forward to hearing about your academic, acting, sporting, singing, dancing, creative and social achievements in the future. I hope these photographs will make you smile as they bring back happy memories of your years at St Joseph's. Stay in touch and come back to visit us. Good luck to you all.

A very proud Joshua with his gold medal for running the fastest mile for the EYFS category in the virtual mile challenge.