Well done to the pupils in Year 5 who have put together a care blanket as part of their Romero stewardship project this term.

Each pupil wrote a prayer or commitment to help those less fortunate in a variety of ways.  These dedications were then stitched together, as you can see, to form a colourful patchwork of care.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

Whole School Worship this week was led by Miss Honeywell, our RE subject leader, and helped the pupils to understand how the presence of God can appear in all aspects of our lives.

Willing(-ish) volunteers Mrs Pratley and Mr Land, our Year 6 teacher, subjected themselves to a series of questions to see how well they know each other, showing the children how to recognise friendship in small actions.

This was followed by a role play about a scruffy royal visitor to a school who was not recognised until he donned a crown, helping the children to understand that appearances can deceptive but the important message is to look deeper to find the presence of God in all who we meet.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

At last, we are able to take full groups of pupils to the Horizon Leisure Centre in Waterlooville for swimming lessons again after the lifting of Covid restrictions.  Pupils in Year 5 will each have 6 one-hour swimming lessons to either build water confidence, improve technique, or refine skills dependent upon their swimming starting points.  As you would expect, all of this takes place under the guidance of the great swimming instructors at Horizon.

As well as this excellent opportunity to develop a vital life skill, the children also get to experience that traditional weekly competition – will it be the boys or the girls that win the race to get changed first each week?!

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

The pupils’ return to school this week reflected a range of emotions.  The joy of seeing friends, that lament of holidays being over, the shock of dark early mornings, and the relief of a return to routines.  It was always the plan to mark the Feats of the Epiphany on Friday with a school worship to conclude the Christmas season; this week, however, we added liturgies to mark the life and death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.  As a community, we reflected in our Epiphany worship on how we looked to both Benedict, and his successor Pope Francis, as a guiding light for our journey of faith on earth in the same way that the Magi followed the star to the stable.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher