St Cecilia's News

Dear Parents,

We are almost at the end of the Spring term, it has flown by as usual! We hope that your child's start to Lent has been a good one, a prayerful time when we think of others and remember the Passion of Christ.

In school we have had special assemblies from CAFOD and the children have been fundraising through their Big Lenten Walk and the Y6 sleepout, raising funds for those less fortunate than ourselves. With Governments around the world cutting their aid budgets, it's great that we are still remembering those in the world's poorest communities.

Our Y4 children visited the Baptist Church to see a mini performance of the Passion of Christ, many of them worked with the actors to help bring the powerful message of those last few days of Jesus' life to life - see below.

We close for the holidays this Friday 4th April at Midday and reopen on Tuesday 22nd April.

A very happy Eid to all of our families of the Muslim faith who are celebrating the end of the Holy month of Ramadan this weekend.

It's been a lovely term in school, thanks for your support as always, the staff and I wish you a happy and Blessed Easter.

Vince Burke

Headteacher

Year 2 celebrated a lovely Space Day as part of their topic work this term. Thank you parents for all your support with the costumes, the classrooms looked amazing, adorned with space themed cloths and lights.

A big thank you to Mrs Parsons, Subject Leader for English, for organising our World Book Day again this year, with lots of lovely activities taking place around the school. It was great to see the children really enjoying their day in their colourful character costumes.

Please don't forget that our attendance information is now fully electronic and shared with the London Borough of Sutton and the Department for Education. Unauthorised absences, especially longer absences for holidays are subject to penalty notices which are issued to each parent of the child. Penalty notices are per child and per parent, a parent with several children absent on a holiday will receive several notices. More information from the Government below.

Thank you PTA for sponsoring the Magic Tree show for Nursery and Reception pupils today. It has been a lovely joyous way to end the week, the children are in the hall singing along as I type.

Thanks to all those who have applied, National Primary Offer day falls in the Easter holidays, we will be in touch after Easter with news of our induction programme for new families.

We have full planning permission now for our Nursery and agreement from Sutton Local Authority and the Diocese. We now anticipate building work commencing over the summer holiday, a few months later than originally thought. This will mean that the new building is likely to open in January 2026, this will restrict the number of Nursery admissions in September to our usual number.

We have informed all the parents on the admissions list of the delay.

We did send this out to you via Dojo earlier in the week, here's another copy of the most recent newsletter. Thank you to the PTA for their amazing efforts to bring parents together to support each other and the school.

Dear Parents,

Did you know St Cecilia’s PTA runs a 200 Club — a fun and rewarding way to support

our school?

It is a simple lottery-style fundraiser where parents, family members, alumni, and friends can contribute while also having a chance to win a monthly cash prize!

How to join:

1. Email us at stc200club@gmail.com or, fill in the attached form and drop it at school reception.
2. Pick your number – we will send you a list of available options.
3. Make your payment via your chosen method.
4. Get confirmed – we will send your number(s) and you will be entered into the next draw!

Please don't forget to reply to the PTA survey on families, it is for all families and we would like to hear from everyone! If you are of British origin only it is still really useful for us to know how many English, Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish families that we have. Thanks for your support!

The Hong Kong community has established a resource for children who may require special care in the UK. A group of clinical psychologists, teachers, and social workers has formed a non-profit organization called Hong Kong Well UK which provides health care services to children in need. Please note that the guidance on the site reflects a broad range of schools and not St Cecilia's policies.

Please note that our closure for the final INSET day of the year will take place on Friday 13th June, the day after Sports Day.

From the London Borough of Sutton:

"The Council will be supporting families with food vouchers for two weeks of the summer holidays this year. This is the same offer that was made in 2024. Previous to that, vouchers were provided to families for the whole of the summer holiday period (6 weeks) but the Council is unable to offer that this year based on the value of the Household Support Grant provided by the Government (which has reduced this year) and the other needs that this grant meets.

Whilst the Council has prioritised the use of the grant for families with children, there are many other households in the Borough that also need support - including low income, working age households with no children, those that are in significant financial hardship or those households that need support paying their council tax.

Any family that is struggling with their finances can contact Together for Sutton on 020 8254 2616 or visit https://togetherforsutton.org.uk/ for free and confidential advice and support. Families can also access support through the Holiday Activities and Food programme through the link below.

Details of their Easter holiday programme is also attached as a document

As part of our review process for Artsmark we have identified that we would like to extend our teacher knowledge within art and challenge our pupils more in their art work. With this in mind we have decided to change our art scheme to AccessArt.

Mrs King and Miss Fenner are the subject leaders for Art and they will be leading our work in this area as we move to our new scheme from September.

AccessArt enables us to connect with a range of different artists online and they have a lovely range of staff development courses. We will be looking to improve our work in sketchbooks and I have included a video from Access Art for you above. Jo Blaker takes us through many different ways of recording in sketchbooks. It's a lovely idea for children to sketch and record their thinking and impression of the world around them, all is takes is a sketchbook, pencil and time. I hope that you find the video useful, we are always happy to look through and recognise sketch books from home!

London Road, Sutton, Surrey, SM3 9DL

Contact us:

General queries - office@stcecilias.school

Report an absence - absence@stcecilias.school

Anything finance - finance@stcecilias.school

Extra Curricular Activity booking - eca@stcecilias.school

Childcare - childcare@stcecilias.school

Special educational needs - send@stcecilias.school

Admissions - admissions@stcecilias.school

Website www.stcecilias.school

Phone: 020 8337 4566

March

Monday 31st - Y3 Easter Workshop

April

Tuesday 1st - 0900 Y5 Walking the Stations of the Cross (parents welcome)

Wednesday 2nd - Y6 Boys Sutton and Cheam Cup Semi Final

Wednesday 2nd - Headteachers of local Catholic schools are visiting

Thursday 3rd - End of Term for Nursery

Friday 4th - End of Spring Term - School closes at Midday

Tuesday 22nd - Start of Summer Term, Y3 Swimming Fortnight begins

Thursday 24th - Reception Height and Weight Check

Friday 25th - Girls Football v All Saints Benhilton

Saturday 26th - Y6 Netball Rally

May

Monday 5th - Bank Holiday, school closed

Tuesday 6th - St Monica Mission Week

Friday 9th - Y1&2 Disco

Monday 12th - Y6 SATs Week

Tuesday 13th - Y5 Tower of London

Monday 19th - Y6 Bikeability Cohort 1

Monday 26th - Friday 20th - May half term

June

Monday 2nd - Bikeability Cohort 2 and Y4 Multiplication Check Week

Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th - PTA Kapla Design Event at the Church Hall - info to follow

Thursday 5th - Y1 Visit to the Lookout, Bracknell

Thursday 12th - Sports Day 2025

Friday 13th - School closed INSET Day

Monday 16th Bikeability Cohort 3

Friday 20th - Y5/6 Borough Sports in the afternoon

Tuesday 24th - "Talk Consent" Workshop for Y6 parents and children

Friday 27th - Annual reports published via email

July

Tuesday 1st - Proposed date for Communion Going Forth Mass
Wednesday 2nd - Secondary Transition Day

Monday 7th - Y6 Residential

Thursday 10th - Reception Class to Bocketts Farm

Friday 11th - Y2 visiting Wisley

Thursday 17th - End of Year for Nursery

Friday 18th - End of Year for Years R to 6 at Midday, no after school childcare

You can find our term dates for this year and next on our website, link for you below.