St. Joseph’s RC Primary School

Mill Lane, Gilesgate, Durham DH1 2JQ

Tel/fax: 0191 3865611 Email: stjosephgilesgate@durhamlearning.net

ebsite: www.stjosephsgilesgate.org.uk

Autumn Term 2015 September 2015

Welcome back to school and an espe-

cially warm welcome to all our new

children and their families. We hope

you have all had a good summer

holiday and are well prepared for the

term ahead.

Uniform

All the children are looking very smart

for the beginning of the new school

year. Thank you to our parents for

making sure the children have the

correct uniform. It is important that

you ensure your child’s uniform is

clearly labelled—and that if you

choose to use marker pens to do this,

you check them regularly.

Open Morning:

We have an ‘Open Morning’ on

Tuesday 22nd September between

9.30am and 11.30. This is primarily

for prospective parents, family and

friends to look around and see the

school at work. All are welcome .

Holidays

Can I also remind you about new

government regulations in terms of

holidays within term time.

Headteachers are not permitted to

authorise any holidays. Please take

this into account when thinking

about booking any trips as it will be

recorded as unauthorised absence.

Holiday dates are provided on the

back of each newsletter for your

reference. If there are any changes to

these you will be notified in good

time.

School dinners:

Please note that school meals are

now £1.95 per day, which is £9.75 per

week. All monies should be sent on

Mondays, in an envelope or purse

with your child’s name and handed to

their class teacher.

Information

Please keep the ‘What’s On’ notice in

a prominent place so that you can

refer to it throughout the term.

Keep up to date with what’s happen-

ing at St. Joseph’s by checking out our

website at

www.stjosephsgilesgate.org.uk

We say a sad farewell and good luck to all our 2015 Year 6 Leavers.

We wish: Jake, Alex, Ellie, Daniel, Charlie, Ella, Lily, Saphira, Gabriel,

Kamil, Megan, Conall, Jack, Tegan, Oliwia, Anita, Steve, Faith and Zoe,

the best of luck in their future studies at St. Leonard’s. Don’t forget

to come back and visit us!

And with a goodbye we wish a happy and warm ‘Welcome’ to our new

starters in reception. We hope that: Karol, Ellie, Lola, Ashton,

Jayden, Alice, Jessica, Riley, Jakub, Jacob,

Phoebe, Daniel, Thomas, Harry, Tallulah,

George, Liam, James, David, Robyn, Justin

have many happy and enjoyable years with us

here at St. Joseph’s.

Phone Numbers

If you change you mobile phone number can you please ensure

you send new numbers into school so we can update our

records. This is essential both for receiving texts and notifications but also emergencies that may

arise within school.

Year 1 and 2 went to Forbidden Corner. We had an

amazing time exploring and trying to spot all of the

interesting things there are to see. We worked in

groups with an adult to look all over and find as many

things on the list as possible. Some of the things we

had to find were some bears playing cards, a big mouth

that you can walk through, some dragons in a pond,

some stepping stones and much, much more. There

were lots of times that you had to be careful or you

got wet. The frog fountain played a song every twenty

minutes and squirted water. All of the children tried to

get wet but the teachers tried to stay dry..

But some of them got wet anyway! Some

parts were under ground and were a bit

scary but everyone was very brave and we

didn’t lose anyone. We all had a really good time. And

we did some lovely writing about it when we came back

to school.

AUTUMN TERM PAGE 2

Huge congratulations to John Bagnall

who was ordained to the priesthood

on the 4th July at St. Mary’s Cathe-

dral in Newcastle. Fr. John Bagnall is

a former parishioner of the then St. Joseph’s

Parish. Many staff members were fortunate

enough to attend the celebration of his first

Mass at St. Joseph’s on Tuesday the 7th July,

followed by a Ceilidh in our school hall. Many

members of the local parish community

attended and the Ceilidh was a huge success.

The Ceilidh was a joint celebration

shared with Siobhan McGee, who was visiting from

Colombia, and who had asked people from the parish

who have so generously given their time and money in

helping her with her project in caring for many of the

displaced people in Ibague. She also made time to visit

school during her brief trip, ensuring she said a

personal thank you to all the children and staff, who

have raised money for the Colombia project. Her work

really is amazing and we hope to continue to raise

money, so this can continue.

we all had

tremendous fun

going on all the rides and getting

very wet (again) on all the water

rides!

We all loved our week away and

we are hoping that Mrs Boyle will

consider letting us go again this

year!

sea) and it was fantastic! We

loved the beach and made a few

trips there over the course of

the week but none as eventful as

our very first evening when we all

got extremely wet, diving into

the sea – fully

clothed!

During the

course of our

week we had

many eventful outings: went into

Boulogne town centre; to the

beach; we visited the Grottes

caves and the highlight of our

trip was a trip to Bagatelle

theme park at the end of the

week! Bagatelle was fantastic and

This year class 5

and 6 (and one

year 4 – Peter)

went on a fabulous trip to France.

We had to be at the school gates

at 4.00AM, so we could be on the

coach and road by 4.30AM! Our

coach that was taking us to France

was a Stanley coach and our bus

driver was called Dave.

Our journey to France took 12hrs -

we had to get the ferry from Dover

to Calais - which meant that we had

11hours on the bus and 1hr on the

ferry!. We were staying in Boulogne

Sur Mer (which was right by the

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside…

At the end of last year Reception, went to St Mary’s lighthouse. Armed with fishing

nets and buckets we climbed over rocks to discover what lay in the rock-pools. By lifting rocks

and tickling the water we were able to find fish and crabs. After our buckets were full we went

back to the classroom (in the lighthouse) to show each other what we had managed to catch and hold

some of the crabs we had brought back. Next we had to climb the abundance of stairs right to the top of

the lighthouse. Our legs were tired but the views were worth it – we could see the seals on the rocks.

The lighthouse keeper told us stories, about the lighthouse, from many years ago. The weather was lovely

(thank goodness) and we were able to sit outside taking in the sea views and eating our delicious picnic

lunches. After lunch we went to the beach and had a sandcastle challenge - we had to work in small groups

to make something using the things we could find on the beach. We were very creative and made a

mermaid, an octopus and a lighthouse to name a few. Finally we watched the tide come in and cover the

causeway and the lighthouse was completely surrounded by sea.

PAGE 3 AUTUMN TERM

. KS2 were in fine

voice last term -

singing and dancing

their hearts out to entertain parents

during an evening of song, music and

dance! They entertained parents with

a host of songs from past musicals -

Joseph, Lion King and On this Is-

land, along with songs performed at

the recent 'Outreach Project' at

Durham Cathedral. The children

revived their famous dance - which

was hugely successful at the Gala

Theatre last year - and saw Kaela

Kaniki share her amazing tap

dancing skills. A solo performance

from Elena Purvis was also well

received and Sebastian and

Michelle performed a super

version of Happy, backed up by a

brilliant backing group of key stage

2 singers! We even had violin

and guitar solos - with special

commendations going to Lily,

Sebastian and Michelle, who

played and performed solos.

They really are a

credit to both St.

Joseph's and your-

selves as parents.

Thank you to all

those parents who

were able to join us in

this fine celebration

of musical talent!

Cricket festival with Year 6!

We finished a sport filled year

with a squad of 11 year 6s com-

peting in a cricket tournament

at Brandon cricket club. They

showed a great attitude and

determination despite losing

their first 3 matches. Not all

was lost as they dug in deep and

ended the day on a high by win-

ning their final match! A fantas-

tic day was had by all with

everyone showing good sports-

manship and a smile!

Congratulations to the green house

team St Bede who won our end of year

sports day! We were lucky once again

with the British summer weather and

Music sounds better at St Joseph's!

School closes School open for

teaching

Holidays

23th October

2015

2nd November

2015

Autumn half

term 2015

18th December

2015

4th January

2016

Christmas

2015

11th February

2016

22nd February

2016

Spring Half

Term

24th March

2016

11th April

2016

Easter 2016

29th May

2016

3rd May

2016

May Bank

Holiday

27th May

2016

6th June

2016

Summer Half

Term

15th July

2016

To be

determined

Summer

2016

We save in Partnership with Durham Credit Union. Please

encourage your child to become a young saver and learn

about managing their finances. Savings Day is a Thursday;

please send savings no matter how small in a named purse

or envelope. Your child will be issued with a bank book

which will be filled in each week and returned.

Application forms are available from

Mrs Henderson

Last term, as part of our Anglo Saxons topic, Years 3 and 4 headed off on an outdoor

adventure to Harehope Quarry. We spent our morning building dens in the forest – a bed of leaves is cosier than

we thought! We also had to forage for nettles to make nettle soup. We learnt how to build and light a fire, and

cooked our own snack on it – nettle soup and homemade bread – delicious! After a lovely lunch break in the sun,

we were given an Anglo Saxon shopping list. We went out for a walk and had to find and collect the foods and

medicines on the list. It was quite tricky, and some of us picked poisonous plants by mistake! Our final verdict was

that it was the best trip so far, and we would all really love to go back. Needless to say the coach journey home was

a lot quieter after all that fun and fresh air!

PE Kit

Can you please ensure that your child brings their

PE kit on a Monday and leaves it in school all week.

Make sure that all jewellery is removed or they can

remove it themselves the days your child has PE.

PE Kit should include T-shirt navy for KS2 children,

team coloured for KS1, shorts for indoor and track

suit bottoms and a sweatshirt for outdoor plimsolls

for inside and trainers for outside.

Thank You

As our lives become increasingly dependent on and

intertwined with technology, we are striving at

school to ensure that our children are not only able

to use technology efficiently, but that they are also

able to use it safely. A lot of teaching and learning

around e-safety is built into the curriculum across

the school, but to be really effective – and for the

children to be really safe – the same message needs

to be reinforced at home. Each family will receive

the latest copy of Vodafone’s ‘digital parenting’

publication, and we really hope that you will take a

little time to read it. Useful – and regularly updated

information can also be found at thinkuknow.co.uk,

kidsmart.org.uk and nspcc.org.uk.