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Early Years & Year 1

League tables have been published, and, out of the 86 schools in Walsall, St Francis’s Early Years team has scored a ranking of 29th (which gives them a

colour-coding of ‘green’).

Year 1 Phonics test scores in the summer produced an even better Walsall ranking of 28/86 schools for

St Francis (also green).

We will share the whole school findings in the next ‘Tweet’.

Holiday Dates 2014 School closes for the half term holiday on Friday 24th October 2014 at 3.15pm. School re-opens for pupils on Monday 3rd November 2014.

Term Dates 2014/15

Fri 24th Oct –Fri 31st Oct 2014 Half Term Fri 19th Dec 2014 – Fri 2nd Jan 2015 Christmas Holiday Fri 13th Feb – Fri 20th Feb 2015 Half Term Fri 27th Mar –Fri 10th Apr 2015 Easter Holiday Mon 4th May 2015 Bank Holiday Fri 23rd May – Fri 29th May 2015 Half Term School closes for Summer Holiday - Mon 20 Jul 2015.

24th October 2014

Diary Dates TRIPS DATES

CLJ WEEK – 8th December

THEATRE VISITS KS2 Monday 15th Dec

KS1 Wednesday 17th Dec Nursery Visit to Cadbury World Thursday 18th Dec

Message from the Acting Head Teacher

Half term holiday We wish you all a happy and enjoyable half term holiday and look forward to seeing all pupils back at school by 8.45am on

Monday 3rd November. Have a wonderful time, everyone!

WRITING TASK (3) Here is a work-related entertaining challenge to do over the

holiday. It is Point 3 of our weekly writing tasks series:

3. “Choose stimulating, purposeful challenges for writing - with plenty of scope for children to get emotionally 'fired up'. Role-play can help here - let them feel the need to write the

grovelling apology, the gentle warning, the desperate appeal, the angry complaint, or a nostalgic memory”.

These points are taken from Wrigley, S: National Writing Project (NWP),

National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE): http://www.nwp.org.uk/1/category/national%20curriculum/1.html

Using this as a starting point, can you help your child/ren to

write for fun at home this week?

Enjoy!

WORDS OF THE WEEK

This week’s winners are: Alfie Lawley (Key Stage 1); and

Charlotte Coley (Key Stage 2 winner)

Winning sentence (KS1): “Superman flew too fast to meet Lois Lane for their meal for two”.

Winning sentence (KS2): “Buckingham Palace is opulent: full of sparkling chandeliers, velvet-covered chairs, and real gold

is intertwined in the pure silk curtains.”

Here is the target word for Key Stage 1 pupils to use in a sentence over the holiday:

magic

The Key Stage 2 target word to use is: curiosity

Good luck, everyone!

PLEASE SEE OVER

A* Stars ‘Walk to School Week’

Thank you to the families who joined in with our ‘Walk to School Week’ this week.

It was a great success. Many thanks to Mrs Haywood for organising the event.

Parents’ Evening

Thank you to all parents and carers who came along to the informal Parents’ Evening last night. It was lovely to see you.

A big thank you, too, to the teachers and support staff.

If you were unable to attend, but you would like to speak to

your child/ren’s teacher, we would be happy to arrange another time for you to see your child’s class teacher on an

informal basis.

The EYFS Team helps other schools

I am delighted to report that the EYFS team has devised a

system for tracking pupils’ progress that is so effective that several Walsall schools have now adopted this system for

themselves.

Congratulations to the EYFS Team!

Junior Leadership Team

Shadow Cabinet interviews continued this week, and this process will continue after

half term.

September is the month of the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

PiXL update PiXL stands for ‘Partners in Excellence’, and

this is a national organisation that helps schools to improve.

Using PiXL resources, we now do regular PiXL-style spelling tests, for example.

Pupils have a spelling test each Monday morning. This test is designed to show

exactly which spelling patterns or spelling rules that each child understands – or needs

to work on.

Having identified each pupil’s gap in knowledge, we work all week on that

particular gap.

We then re-test the pupils every Friday to make sure that they have learnt – and can

apply – the week’s new knowledge.

For more information, please see

For more information, please see www.pixl.org.uk

STARS OF THE WEEK As you know, the two best pupils in every

class from Reception to Year 6 are rewarded in assemblies every Friday.

This week’s ‘Stars of the Week’ are:

Owen Cawley, Sean Carolan, Sarah George, Ruby Weston, Katie Wright, Poppy Tolley,

Taliah Bourne, Ruby Stokes, Ryan Tse, Sophie Jones, Oliver Blatchford, Katherine Flood,

Alice Bakewell, Declan Jordan

Congratulations to them and their families!

Have a great holiday, everyone!

Diwali Day Pupils study The Faith throughout the year and every unit of work in the Religious Education curriculum focuses firmly on

Catholic Life.

However, in order to comply with national requirements, we also have discrete one-off World Faith Days during the

academic year.

As it has been Diwali this week, the school had a Diwali Day today.

This involved a carousel of rotating learning activities which included making Diwali lights out of clay; cooking; designing

and producing Rangoli patterns; writing; music, art and dance, etc.

Dancers from Streetly School performed for the pupils and

then the visiting pupils led dance workshops for some of ours.

It was a great day, packed full of exciting learning.

Thanks to all staff and pupils. Special thanks go to Mr Probert, Mrs Wellings, and Mrs Keeling.

TOAST Just a reminder that toast will not carry on after Half Term, thank you to everyone who gave up their time to help.