St Thomas More RC Primary School Thorndale Road, Belmont, Durham, DH1 2AQ Tel/Fax: 0191 3847025 Email: stthomasmore@durhamlearning.net

Autumn Term 2016 September 2016

In July we said goodbye to our friends in Year 6,

as they moved on to secondary education. We

would like to congratulate them once again on

the successes they had while at St Thomas More

and we wish them the best of luck for the future.

May we also take this opportunity to thank Mrs

Atkinson for the fabulous cake that was

thoroughly enjoyed by all of the children at the

leavers’ party.

In May, Year 4 and Year 5 attended Darlington Civic Theatre

to watch a performance of David Walliams’ Gangsta

Granny. The children enjoyed many laugh out loud

moments.

Welcome back, we hope you have had a good summer. We extend an especially warm welcome to all our new children and their families. It has been a pleasure to see how quickly and easily our children have settled back into school. The atmosphere in school over the first few days of term has been calm and purposeful and the children have shown that they are ready to work. We hope you enjoy reading about the events that have taken in our school over the last term.

We welcome Miss Helen Hunt who will be with us this academic year as she trains to be a teacher. She is very welcome, has thoroughly enjoyed her first week with us and will be a wonderful addition to our school community.

It is vitally important that we have the most up-to-date information so that we are able to contact you in case of emergency. Please inform the school office of any changes to contact details and update any medical information.

This year we are going to use our website to keep you up to date with information about school events and celebrating achievements. Our key documents are available on the website and the calendar will keep you updated with events in school. Please use it and save it as one of your favourites.

www.stthomasmorebelmont.durham.sch.uk

Page 2 Autumn Term 2016

Sometimes our older children inform us that they will be walking home alone. This is not a problem, however we request that parents complete a consent form so that we can be sure which children are allowed to walk home alone.

On 12th July the school held their annual sports day. During the morning, the children completed a range of activi-

ties on the school field. Examples of just some of these activities were long jump, javelin throw, target throwing and

a penalty shootout. After completing each event the children were awarded with one, two or three points depend-

ing on how successful they were and these points were added to their house team’s total. On the afternoon, par-

ents and family members joined us for the races. All of the children completed in an obstacle race, an egg and

spoon race and a sprint race, again earning points for their team. The children tried their very best and did fantasti-

cally in all of the events, with Team Hild being crowned the Sports Day Champions 2016.

The school would like to thank all of the parents for turning out to make the day a huge success. We would also like

to congratulate the school’s sports leaders; Jack, Molly , Evie , Megan and Lily who ensured that the afternoon’s

races were organised perfectly.

Thank you so much for ensuring that your children have returned (or started) school looking very smart, in the correct school uniform. We often receive compliments on our school uniform, thank you for your help with this. Please ensure your child wears the correct PE kit, which is burgundy t-shirt, black shorts and trainers. We enter many sports competitions and this makes it easy to identify our school teams. It is important that your child’s uniform is clearly labelled—and that if you choose to use marker pens to do this, you check them regularly as this does fade.

Increase in price to £2.00 a day. Please can we politely request that all monies are sent into school sealed in a named envelope with your child. The children can then give these to their teachers who will ensure that the office staff receive them. REMINDER - All children in Key stage one are entitled to a free school meal, a saving of £10.00 per week. Menu choice available from office.

During the summer term, Class 4 did

Orienteering with Mr Hunt. The children

were taught how to use a map correctly and

how that skill can be applied during the tasks.

The children were then split into different

teams each week to find different locations

around the school grounds. They soon

realised that for their team to work well they

had to be organised, efficient and be able to

communicate well with each other. As if this

was not challenging enough, when the

children reached their different locations

they had activities to complete and puzzles to

solve that gave them their clue to their next

location. All the children loved it and learned

many new skills from a range of subject

areas.

Autumn Term 2016 Page 3

Years 1 and 2 were very lucky to be invited to the

multi – skills festival at Maiden Castle. The sun was

shining and there were a lot of smiles as the

children enjoyed a range of different practical

problem solving activities. They thoroughly enjoyed

the treasure hunt and they quickly solved the

Olympic themed clues! The space hoppers and

parachute were the favourites and their skipping

using the giant rope made us all laugh. I think we

need some practise before next year’s events.

In the lead up to the Olympics and Paralympics the

school held a Rio 2016 Day. The children worked in their

four house teams for the whole day, with pupils from

Reception to Year 6 all working together.

Throughout the day the children visited four different

stations that allowed them to learn more about the

Olympics and Paralympics, as well as this year’s host city

and its culture. The children created three tasty

smoothies with Mrs Salmon, Mrs Dickinson and Mrs

English; Maracana Mango and Banana, Paraiso Papaya

and Copacabana Berry Blast. When the children visited

Class 3 they worked with Mrs Clark, Mrs Evans and Mr

Norman to make Brazilian arts and crafts such as

carnival head dresses which they then paraded around

the school. Mrs Dryden had prepared an Olympic

workshop to learn about the history of the Olympics,

the values of the Olympic rings and the symbolism of

the torch. The children had the opportunity to hold one

of the actual Olympic torches from London 2012 before

making their own torch.

On the school playground the children got to experience

some Paralympic sports, with Mr Hunt and the Sports

Leaders. Whilst wearing blindfolds, the children played

goal ball and completed an obstacle race. Then they

played boccia and sit down volleyball. All of the children

and staff really enjoyed the day and discovered new and

interesting things. The day was made even more special

when a video message arrived from Team GB rower,

and former St Thomas More pupil, Nathaniel Riley-

O’Donnell.

Class 3 visited Harehope Quarry, Bishop Auckland, in the summer term.

They learned about naturally occurring rocks and tracked the formation of

rocks from the beginning of time to the present day. The children went on a

fossil trail and hunted for fossilised rocks in the Limestone reservoir. The

class had lots of fun making plaster of Paris fossil rocks and they were able

to take them home as a reminder of what they learned.

Class 1 had a very exciting and cold trip to Tweedle

Farm last term. They enjoyed feeding lots of the

animals including horses, calves, lambs and the

greedy goats. The children were also very brave

and held baby chicks and stroked a rare white

hedgehog! A special thank you to our lovely parent

helpers, Mrs Duncan, Mrs Palmer and Ms Harrison

who braved the cold and wind and helped make our

trip even more special!

Autumn Term 2016 Page 4

In County Durham, there have been some issues reported by youngsters using the ooVoo app, who have received

offensive and sexually explicit contacts from strangers.

Children and parents should be advised that the app is not suitable for children under the age of 13 and that the

default privacy settings (which allow complete strangers to videoconference with the user ) can render it quite

hazardous even to older children.

ooVoo‘s terms and conditions limit the use of the app to children over 13. However this does not make its use

illegal, just in breach of their agreement with ooVoo.

We would like to remind parents to regularly check their children’s devices, discuss the use of social media apps

with their children and to ensure parental controls are enabled on devices.

For older children it would be wise to change the privacy settings so that they set them so no strangers can

contact them. In the settings section, go to ‘Privacy & Security’ and it asks ‘When people search ooVoo, who can

find me?’ They should then either select ‘People who know my email address or ooVoo ID’ or ‘No one’ .

If a child reports either receiving or being asked to share sexually explicit images this should be regarded as a

safeguarding concern, the device should not be used ( to preserve any evidence ) and your local police should be

informed in the usual way.

As there are many shared events between St Thomas More RC Primary School and St Joseph’s RC Primary School,

photographs will be taken containing children from both schools. We would like these to appear on the websites of

both schools. If you object to your child appearing on the St Joseph’s website, please inform the St Thomas More

school office.

Reminder - Names of children will never be attached to images.

The whole school enjoyed a visit from Ten Ten Theatre. The day began with an assembly for all the children and we were grateful to those parents who were able to join us. Throughout the day there were three age-specific plays, all of which provided great opportunities for reflection on the Year of Mercy.

On behalf of the staff, I would like to thank you all for your kind words, cards and lovely gifts that were given at the end of the last term. We are always grateful for the support that we receive from parents in our school. It is much appreciated.