Nursery – St Mary – Mother of God – Page 9 – St Adrian's Catholic Primary School

RE Home learning for the whole school

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales have designated 2020 as ‘The God Who Speaks’: A Year of the Word to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Verbum Domini – Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation on ‘The Word of the Lord’, and the 1600th anniversary of death of St Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin. Cardinal Vincent Nichols has launched the Year of the Word across the diocese and further information can be found here: https://rcdow.org.uk/faith/2020-year-of-the-word-the-god-who-speaks/

As part of their RE home learning over the Christmas holiday, all children across the school are invited to think about the bible and the stories that are important to them. Maybe they have stories from the bible that they love to read and talk about. Share stories from the bible with your child and talk about what the stories mean to them. When your child is ready, think about what story they would like to create a poster for to advertise the story to their friends at school. Your child’s poster should include a clear title of the story or book from the bible and a beautiful image from the story. Feel free to let your child add a description of the story and what it means to them. We are looking forward to making a wonderful display of the posters and this will be a lovely way for us to start celebrating The Year of the Word in school. Please return posters to your class by Wednesday 15^th January.

2020 will be a year of celebrating, living and sharing God’s word, through a range of events, activities and resources, available across the Diocese of Westminster. A lovely activity that is particularly pertinent to the time of year can be found here: https://rcdow.org.uk/faith/the-nativity-at-night

We look forward to seeing the posters that the children create to celebrate God’s Word.

Emma Hayes (RE Subject Leader)

Space Chase: Summer Reading Challenge 2019

The Summer Reading Challenge 2019 theme is Space Chase, an out-of-this-world adventure inspired by the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.

Children taking part in the Challenge will join our super space family, The Rockets, for a thrilling mission to track down books nabbed by mischievous aliens!

Space Chase will feature bespoke artwork from top children’s illustrator, Adam Stower, and will celebrate adventure, exploration, reading and fun!

Illustrations © Adam Stower 2019 for The Reading Agency

Taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge

The Summer Reading Challenge is aimed at children aged four to eleven and it is run in almost all libraries in the UK.

Visit your local library during the summer holidays to sign up – the sooner you go, the longer your child will have to read six books!

Staff will register your child for the Challenge and give them some fun materials to get them started.

Many libraries will also offer pre-school activities suitable for under-fours, including specially designed Summer Reading Challenge materials. Visit your local branch to find out more.

The Summer Reading Challenge is the UK’s biggest free reading for pleasure event for children. It is run by the national charity The Reading Agency in partnership with the UK public library network.

The aim of the Challenge is to encourage children to read any six books of their choice from their library during the summer holidays.

Children receive special rewards each time they finish a book and there’s a certificate for everyone who completes the Challenge.

Donations required!

When you return to school on Tuesday you may notice a new addition by the gate in the playground … it is our new recycling bin!

As you can see, it clearly states which materials are accepted and we would love for you to get involved by donating some clothes, towels, sheets, blankets, curtains or even shoes. The bank holiday weekend is the perfect time for a spring clean and all donations are greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance,
Miss Costello and the Eco Council

We’ve been sharing stories!

We’ve been celebrating World Book Day this week with special assemblies where teachers have taken it in turns to share favourite stories or poems with the children in their key stage.

We hope that the stories we share will inspire the children to read on and read the books for themselves or find other stories by those authors.

We will list the books we have share on this page.

Monday

Mr Hayes (whole school):
- Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, from Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Mrs Hayes (key stage one):
- Mrs Wobble the Waitress by Allan Ahlberg
- All Join In by Quentin Blake
Mr Hayes (key stage two):
- The Rise of Wolves by Kerr Thomson

Tuesday

Mrs Teixeira (key stage one)
- Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen
- Please Mrs Butler by Allan Ahlberg
Miss Costello (key stage two)
- Little House in the Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Wednesday

Mrs Ruffell (key stage one)
- The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
Mr Sallis (key stage two)
- ‘Infinity and Me’ written by Kate Hosford and illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska

Celebrating 60 Years of St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, St Adrian’s 60th Anniversary took place. We felt that this occasion should be marked and so to begin our school year, we would normally hold a Mercy Mass. The Sisters of Mercy founded the school and it opened in September 1960. The Maryland Associates, the lay people in St Albans, still advocate their work and very kindly donated a tree and a plaque in commemoration of this special anniversary.

Previous Headteachers, Sr. Margaret, Mrs Yvonne Hawkes and Mr Dominic Bedford joined us for the celebrations. As well as some original pupils whose names were in the first register.

Previous Headteachers join the celebrations

Past pupils who attended in 1960, the year of the school opening

Report of the day written by Lily- Year 6

On Wednesday 5th October , we celebrated the Mercy Mass for our school (it had been postponed because of Covid) and I am very happy that I got my Chaplaincy team tie and I am part of our new Chaplaincy Team. I also got to see my old Headteachers like, Mrs Hawkes and Mr Bedford.

There was also another Headteacher, which was the Headteacher when my mum went to this school. Her name was Sister Margaret. I knew this mass was a very joyous occasion because Brother Nelson Dionne, Father Michael O’boy as well as Bishop Paul Mc Aleenan were all there. We got gifted from Mrs Cath White the secretary of the Maryland associates who carry on the work of the sisters of Mercy, a tree which we have planted at the main entrance where the parents and staff members came to watch.
Then, all of the classes planted little flowers around this tree. There are also ribbons around this tree which the old Head teachers put on there . They put the word ‘TRUTH’ and the colour of the ribbon was red for the martyrs who spoke the truth of God’s word. They tied the word PEACE – blue is the colour of tranquility. We work for peace and tranquillity in our school and the world. Finally , they tied the word JUSTICE with a yellow ribbon witch is the colour for true happiness. The Chaplaincy team, parents and teachers and the priests attended the ceremony.
I was worried about it because I had a reading. The reason why I was worried was because of the amount of people that were there but it was all OK. It was a very good day. It made me think more about our school motto ‘To learn, to love ,to live as a community of God with Christ as our teacher.’ It was a good day. It made me feel like I was important because of the new tie and that I could be part of our Chaplaincy Team.