St Cecilia's News

Dear Parents,

We have reached the end of a long term, perfect for settling the children into the new expectation of their year group and getting lots of work done. We have completed 14 weeks of the school year already and have ended the term with two national inspections, it was quite a surprise to get our Catholic School Inspection so soon after our OFSTED. A big thank to all our parents and carers who spoke with the inspection teams in school, in meetings and at the gate. Several hundred survey responses were also received over the two week period, thank you for taking the time to write, the teams were impressed with the level and detail of response from parents.

It has been a busy time in school as we work to show the school community and the achievements of the children as clearly as possible to our visitors. We have been blessed with two inspection teams who have really sought to understand the work that we do here at St Cecilia's.

Both inspections have gone well and we look forward to sharing the reports with you when we receive them in January.

I can't think of a better way to end such a busy inspection season than with a few days of Christmas before we break up. Lots of Christmas jumpers, parties and good food. A time to reflect and give thanks in our assemblies and Candlelit Carols.

Thank you for all the Christmas gifts for the staff and I, it is very kind of you.

Term ends this Thursday at Midday for Years 1-6 and on Wednesday for Nursery. We look forward to welcoming the children back to school in the New Year on Monday 8th January.

The staff and I wish you and your family a very happy and Holy Christmas.

Vince Burke

Headteacher

Please join us on Wednesday evening for an hour of Christmas Carols and readings as we make complete our Advent preparation and look forward to celebrating the birth of Christ once again.

Carols begin at 6.30pm, please come along for a mulled wine, some warm mince pies and some beautiful singing from our Choir.

Thank you to our PTA for a lovely Christmas Fair and thanks to all those of you who attended on that bitterly cold Saturday afternoon, we hope that you enjoyed the fair, it was lovely to see so many of you here in school.

Fairs take a lot of organisation, planning, setting up and clearing away and I know that a lot of thought went into the stalls, well done to all those involved.

We raised over £7000 and the PTA are supporting us by putting that towards the new hall projection system which will be installed in the New Year. The children will really enjoy a much larger cinema style experience in the hall for our performing arts, school assemblies and Masses.

A hearty lunch today with lots of Christmas crackers! With all of us in Christmas jumpers the school is looking extra festive!

Our choir were invited to sing at the Diocesan Education Advent Mass at St George's Cathedral recently, they also performed the parts of the shepherds and angels in the Nativity.

We were very proud of their beautiful singing voices as they echoed through the Cathedral, a lovely start to our Advent preparation.

The children had a great day running around the school site yesterday for our fundraiser for St Raphael's Hospice. Thanks for all your support once again for our local hospice, we will come back to you in the new year with information on our grand total!

At St Cecilia’s we are really proud of our Computing Curriculum. When speaking to the children about their Computing lessons last week they all spoke so enthusiastically and confidently. It was wonderful to hear them use subject specific vocabulary such as ‘algorithms, decomposition and nested loops’, to name a few!

When asked about their Computing lessons they responded:

‘I love Computing!’ - Y4 student

‘The brain twisters challenge me, but it’s really fun.’ - Y1 student

‘I like that we learn about computers because technology is becoming more advanced every day and we need to keep up.’ - Y6 student

It was great to see such a range of Computing skills being taught, the Year Three children in particular were really enjoying polishing their BFG movie trailers. The progression of skills was very impressive throughout the school; from the Year One children enthusiastically programming the BeeBots, up to the Year Six children using Python - a complex programming language.

We are currently updating our Computing curriculum to embed the use of the DASH Wonder robots throughout KS2. This will help to deepen the children’s knowledge of Computer Science and programming skills further.

Our children are online safety experts - are you?

Online safety lessons are taught in the first week of each half term across the school and we follow the Internet Legends scheme of work by Google. Even our youngest children are able to give top tips on how to stay safe online. For more information on this please visit Parent Zone, where they help families to become safer and more confident explorers of the online world.

ECAs

Our Computing themed ECA’s have also been very successful this year. Children across the key stages have been really enjoying their various ‘Coding Clubs’, which are helping them to become more confident in lessons.

Digital Leaders

Finally I’d like to say thank you to our Digital Leaders from Year Six. They have been taking their role very seriously and becoming more actively involved in the wider school community. It has been lovely to have them visiting some of the younger classes, where they have offered support and encouragement in our Computing lessons.

The Government are changing their funding support to parents for childcare costs, more details in the link below:

From Apr 2024 - Up to 15 hours for eligible working families in England with a 2-year-old.

From Sept 2024 - Up to 15 hours for eligible working families in England with a child between 9 and 23 months old.

From Sept 2025 - Up to 30 hours for eligible working families in England with a child from 9 months old up to school age.

We have been informed that Spire Healthcare who own the land next to the school have installed car park cameras and that parents parking there might be liable to a charge or fine. Please read the signs, I would imagine that it is no longer an option for a quick parking spot.

London Road, Sutton, Surrey, SM3 9DL

Email: office@stcecilias.school
Website: www.stcecilias.school
Phone: 020 8337 4566

December

Weds 20th - Candlelit Carols

Weds 20th - Term ends for Nursery

Thurs 21st - Term ends at Midday, no afternoon childcare.

Thurs 21st - Attendance and levels for all national Curriculum subjects published Y1-6, EYFS levels for Reception and Nursery.

January

Mon 8th - return to school, first day of the Spring Term

Thurs 11th - Spring Term Mass with Father Rob for Years 3-6

Mon 15th - ECA Spring Season begins

February

Fri 2nd - PTA Disco for Years 3&4

Mon 5th - Y5 Mission Week

Mon 12th - Fri 16th - Spring Half Term which includes Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent.

Fr 23rd - report card on Reading Writing, Maths and attendance published for Y1-6.

Mon 26th - Y4 Mission Week

Thurs 29th - Guardian Consultations (Parent Teacher Meetings)

March

Tues 5th - Guardian Consultations (Parent Teacher Meetings)

Thurs 7th - Children's Lenten Liturgy - Y3-6

Mon 11th - Y4 to the Easter Story at the Baptist Church

Mon 18th - EYFS Special People Mission Week

Mon 18th - Final week of ECAs

Sat 23rd - PTA Eggstravaganza for EYFS and KS1

Weds 27th - End of term for Nursery

Thurs 28th - Y5 lead us in walking the Stations of the Cross

Thurs 28th - School closes at Midday for Year R to 6, no after school childcare

You can find our term dates for this year and next on our website, link for you below. We have just one training day left for this year, this will be notified after Christmas, it will be in the Spring or Summer terms.