St Charles Newsletter

7th March 2025

Dear Parent/Carers,

This week, we marked the beginning of Lent with our annual Ash Wednesday Mass. Every child participated beautifully and with reverence.

Lent is a holy time when the Lord invites us to make a fresh start by examining our lives with Him through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Your children have completed their Lenten Promises and are committed to starting afresh and fulfilling their promise to God over the next six weeks. They know that it’s not just about ‘giving up something’ or ‘doing without’, but also about how they can make a difference and help others. As a school community, Lent gives us an opportunity to support worthy charities and encourages us to put others first. Together, we hope to make a difference to the lives of many.

Healthy Packed Lunches

As a healthy school, if your child has a packed lunch, it should be nutritionally balanced. It must not contain fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolate or cakes. A balanced packed lunch should contain:

· Starchy foods – eg. bread, rice, potatoes, pasta etc.

· Protein foods – such as meat, fish, eggs, beans and others

· A Dairy item - this could be cheese or yoghurt

· Vegetables or salad, and a portion of fruit.

Please do not include any nut-based products as we are a nut free school. There are children at the school with nut allergies. Nutella and any other related products must not be included either.

Thank you,

Wishing you a lovely weekend,

Ms Hampton

Executive Headteacher

New diary dates will continue to be included weekly

Attendance

Our whole school attendance is currently at 93.6%

We are working towards achieving 96% attendance this academic year. Please help us to achieve this by ensuring that your child attends school each day and by not booking any holiday during term time. Please be aware that holiday leave in term time cannot be authorised.

In line with the Department for Education guidelines, where pupils miss school without a good reason (including a holiday), the Local Authority and schools can intervene, and you may be issued a fine.

There is strong correlation between good attendance and good progress. So together, let’s give our children the best possible chance of reaching their potential.

Shrove Tuesday

Year 4 enjoyed celebrating pancake day together as a class🥞

Ash Wednesday

During the Ash Wednesday mass, the school community gathered to receive the blessed ashes from Fr Peter. The ashes remind us that, without faith in God, we are as useless as dirt and ash. It was good to join the parish community to shar this important service and begin our Lenten journey together. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the celebration of the Mass. In preparation for Lent, every child made a promise to God on the them of fasting, giving or praying. They wrote these on paper leaves which were used to create our Lenten Promise Tree in the hall. During Lent, all children will attend a class Lenten Mass and children in KS2 will attend a Reconciliation Service in preparation for Easter.

World Book Day

What a wonderful celebration of books and reading we had to mark World Book Day! The costumes were amazing! Even the teachers joined in. Can you guess which books they relate to?

To make the day even more special, we received a generous donation of books from the Children's Book Project which means that every child in the school will be able to pick two books to take home. Watch out for these over the next couple of weeks.

Look What We Have Been Doing! -EYFS and Key Stage 1

Reception

A fantastic half-term in PE for our Reception Class! Students enjoyed a variety of activities, including hockey, where they practised their skills and showed great teamwork. We're proud of their progress and can't wait for more PE fun ahead.

1D

Year 1 are amazing mathematicians!

This week, we have had lots of fun comparing different lengths using key vocabulary.

2C

There was lots of excitement in 2C for World Book Day this week. There were many wonderful costumes inspired by the children's favourite stories. They especially loved having a visit from 5M in the afternoon to read together 📖