Daily news at St Katherine's

School Council Election Day at St Katherine's. A process that is taken very seriously by all children! Good luck to all prospective candidates.

Following last week's newsletter challenge, the first application has been sent off to Blue Peter for a special book badge! Well done to Dakota 📚📖⭐️ Let's see how many more we can get!

We welcome you to our school tours for prospective parents where you will be welcomed by the Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and most importantly the children of St Katherine's. Tour dates: Tuesday 8th October 2024 at 9.15am, Tuesday 19th November 2024 at 1.30pm and Tuesday 14th January 2025 at 9.15am. No need to book, you can just turn up.

Respectful Canvey school praised by Ofsted

A celebration fundraising day today for 'Jeans for Genes' day.

Pupils from Year 2 attended the Team Games festival at Deanes School last week. They worked so hard, competing against other schools and managed to come third place overall! Well done children!

St Katherine's were visited by RockSteady in the second week of being back at school and treated to an amazing assembly and workshops. Band sessions have now begun and we look forward to hearing more from our very own St Katherine's School of Rock! Videos can be found on our Video Resource Centre!

Our Year 6 children were fantastic helpers to our Reception children during their transition into Reception life.

St Katherine's Heritage Day was a huge success. We all learnt so much about each other and even got to try some very tasty traditional foods. A huge thank you to parents for enabling this to happen.

Well done to our gardening club for growing such delicious tomatoes that were enjoyed by the children at lunchtimes!

Welcome back to the new school year at St Katherine's. We have had a very busy first few weeks. Children from Year 2, 3 and 4 visited Wat Tyler park for their team building activities, as always enjoyed by all.

Well done to Emily, Max and Oscar for winning the reading raffle from the last term. Enjoy spending your reading voucher on a book of your choice!

Our morning Year 6 Leavers assembly. Always an emotional moment for children, parents and staff. A special congratulations to Annabelle and Tommy who won the Fred Jeary English Award for their super achievements in English this year. We bid a fond farewell to those families whose time at St Katherine's has come to the end of an era and wish you all the best for the future

Yesterday, we celebrated our Year 6 children in style for their celebration day with a morning Bangra workshop and Holi colour festival and then in the afternoon, children enjoyed an inflatable / sports afternoon. Thank you to all parents who were able to come and join in with the colour festival, we hope you enjoyed it (it looked like you did!). First upload of photos and videos can be found in our Video Resource Centre!

Year 6 performed their production to their parents last week and wow...they were excellent! A super performance from every single child!

Thank you to Carter for playing us into assembly. A very talented musician!

Year 1 and 6 enjoyed planting seeds on the field together...

Our youngest of St Katherine's pupils performed their assembly to parents and the whole school, delivering their songs with such confidence. They make us all very proud!

One of our ex-St Katherine's pupils, Jessica Moore, returned last Friday to carry out a DNA workshop with our Year 6 pupils. Jessica is now a Genetic Research Scientist and works for Illumina. The children had a fascinating morning led by Jessica which has hopefully inspired some scientists of the future!

Well done to all Key Stage 2 children who took part in Canvey Districts Sports. Children achieved first place in field events and second place in track events!

House team winners and their treat of a film afternoon. Well done to St Peter's team!

Year 6 STEM workshop

Father's Day picnic lunch. A lovely hotdog lunch and some games on the field.

Spring and Summer term Christian Vision winners and their treat!

Our Summer Term Open Evening for current and prospective parents. The work displayed in each class was a reflection of the hard work that goes on throughout the year!

Our Reception pupils performed their assembly so well to their parents and the rest of the school. Well done children!

Our School Council presented to Governors on their achievements this year. Children spoke superbly and have had excellent impact on moving St Katherine's forward this year - well done children!

St Katherine's Summer Sports day and family picnic lunch

Year 1 visited St Nicholas Church last week for their 'mock' Christening of 'Ted'. Some children took on the roles of godparents to 'Ted'! It was a very special occasion where they all got dressed up and the children were all very respectful.

Well done to our Year 1 children today who confidently delivered their assembly to the whole school - it was amazing!

Year 6 Residential

It was lovely to see the launch of our lunchtime gardening club today. Thank you to our volunteer grandparents who are running the club. The children really enjoyed getting their hands dirty!

Mrs Brown, our RE subject leader, has turned out hall into a retreat of tranquillity today with lots of activities for the children to take part in around the theme of 'spirituality' - looking up, looking out and looking in. The children have had a fabulous day and are all now feeling very serene!

A big well done to our Year 6 children for all their efforts during SATs week! Thank you to Mrs Barker for the delicious hot breakfast provided each morning and to Little Morrisons Community Champion - Canvey Island for providing a special treat for the children for the end of this week.

A big thank you to the Deanes Sports Partnership for their donation of a bike to one of our lucky Year 6 pupils! It will definitely get a lot of use!

Our 'Bedtime Stories' event held last term for our younger children as part of our 'Graduated Residential Programme'. Thank you to all staff who helped to organise and run the event and also to SKaPA for organising the refreshments.

Key Stage 1 children enjoyed their 'Starbooks' celebration last term where children completed a set number of quizzes over a period of time. Mrs Jennings, our English Lead, said 'What a fabulous little group - so enthusiastic about their reading, so polite and so happy to receive their little reward of hot chocolate and cake - an absolute pleasure all of them!'. Thank you again to Mrs Jennings for her organisation of the event and to Mrs Barker for helping with the refreshments.

Children in our Reception class were out and about in the Memory garden this morning picking some dandelions for their work this week which is linked to the book 'The Dandelion Seed' - a beautiful book about finding strength. Children then brought the dandelions back to class and have been creating dandelion playdough, watching how the colours and textures change and also completing some artwork - making the beginnings of a dandelion. They have also set up a garden centre in class and some children have made their own garden which they were watering this afternoon - pretending to spray Mrs Barnard with the hose! I will be popping back in to see their finished master pieces throughout the week. Aisha was so excited to come and show me what they were doing, she left a little trail of footprints for me to follow!

The Police Officers who were working with Year 6, popped in to have lunch with children from all the classes today. They gave the children a chance to ask them about their jobs, what they do and also to try on parts of the uniform and look at important parts of their kit. What a lovely opportunity for all the children and a big thank you to Essex Police - Castle Point District for the time given to the children of St Katherine's today.

We have had a busy start to the week with our Year 6 children working with Essex Police today, out and about helping them enforce the law! The children had a fab day with the people they worked with and were allowed to use the speed gun and also talk to drivers who had been speeding (with their permission). They were provided with suggested questions, however, some of our children asked some quite thought provoking, emotive questions which impacted quite hard on some drivers. Well done children - a great job keeping the peace on Canvey today!

This term, we introduced a raffle for children who read every day, without fail! We draw the raffle each half term for the prize of a book of their choice. Last half term's winner was Lorelei, who chose 'Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero' by Rick Riordan. Lorelei would thoroughly recommend it and is now moving onto other books in the series. I wonder who will be the winner of this term's raffle - get reading everyone!!

Our Easter Bonnet parade winners from before the Easter holidays - thank you to SKaPA for providing the eggs and ensuring the Easter bunny made an appearance!

More photos from the Year 5 overnight stay

Year 5 overnight stay with s'mores around the campfire and then further activities from yesterday and this morning. They had a hearty breakfast and are ready and raring to go for the final activities!

One of the groups from the Year 5 overnight stay taking part in archery

Kayaking at the overnight stay

Year 5 overnight stay

On Tuesday of this week children from Year 3 to 6 had the opportunity to take part in some taster boxing workshops. It gave children a good workout and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

Year 3 taking a moment to take in nature's music and the view from under the trees. We appreciated God's creation and how wonderful it is.

Thank you to Summer and Tommy for visiting St Nicholas today to pass over the Harvest donations for the food bank.

A very big thank you to Cadence, Lexie, Isla, Dakota, Rose, Mia, Sophie and Hallie for singing at the Harvest Tea yesterday.

Canvey Island Town Council are running a 'Scarecrow Competition' which St Katherine's have entered. I think they have done a fabulous job! Once the children made the scarecrow, they gave him a tour around the grounds!

A very big thank you to all of our families who donated to the Harvest Collection this year.

On Tuesday of last week, children from Year 1 through to Year 6 put themselves forward in our School Council Election. Our hall was transformed into a polling station and every child took their turn to complete the secret ballot and post into the box. Watch this space to see the results!

On Monday, I received some exciting entries for the newsletter challenge. We have been spending time thinking about injustice in the world and how we can make a change. Below is an entry from Dakota and another from Renesmee. Both posters showing that they can change the world with their own hands. Another entry arrived from Rose, Hallie and Marisa...a video about something they feel extremely strong about. The video can be found on our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/100083359981646/videos/24138822282397852

A very big thank you to David, Dakota, Rose, Isla, Phoebe, Marisa and Millie for giving up time on Saturday to represent St Katherine's and sing at the Michaelmas Fayre at St Nicholas Church. You were all fabulous! Don't forget to pop round for your house token! An additional thank you to parents for bringing the children along to take part - we very much appreciate it and thought the children did very well. 🎤🎼

Yesterday we were so excited to invite Steve from the 'Happy Lunchtime Award' to St Katherine's. We have been looking to enhance our lunchtimes for a while by reviewing what we do. Steve carried out training with staff and interacted with the children throughout the day, incorporating ideas from everyone about how to continue to make our lunchtimes even better! We look forward to launching 'Happy Lunchtimes' very soon. Watch this space as it will feature in the newsletter each week very soon!

The first three Headteacher 'praise postcards' of this academic year have just been delivered to the postbox. I wonder who they are going to?!

Well done to Joseph for being the first to return his newsletter challenge on Monday and also to Alfie and Dakota for completing both parts of the challenge! 🌟 We have been following the journey of Moses and his almighty challenge of persuading Pharaoh to set the Israelites free. It got us thinking about the challenges we face.

Well done to our Year 2 children who took part in the Team Games competition on Wednesday of this week. They look like they had a lot of fun!

Year 6 have had a wonderful penultimate day with a Robotics workshop this morning and their celebration festival this afternoon! I think they will sleep well tonight!

Well done to St Anne's house team who won this year's award with 177 house tokens! They enjoyed a film afternoon as a treat today.

A big thank you to all of our staff and our KS1, KS2 and Signing Choirs who all helped to contribute to such a wonderful Open Evening. We hope you all enjoyed your visit.

Year 6 Bikeability sessions

Transition afternoons into new classes.

Year 5 taster day

Year 6 performed the most amazing production of 'Porridge' on Tuesday of last week!

Our Year 3 and 4 late night as part of our graduated residentials programme.

Our Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 Sunset Stories evening 📖🌅 Thank you to SKaPA for providing the refreshments.

A quick sunflower update! Some children have also decided to grow a few other vegetables & fruit - they look delicious!

A round up of June events at St Katherine's from our Father's Day lunch, musical instrument challenge, Sports Day, a special visit from Bishop Guli and finally the long awaited visit from Poet and Performer Ash Dickinson! A busy month all round!

Well done to Drew and Faith on their very engaging flashback writing based on the emotive video clip 'The Piano'

A snippet of life at St Katherine's this week from gardening in the Nursery through to very hot production rehearsals for our Year 6 class

Thank you to our KS1 and KS2 choirs for attending the Church Funday on Saturday and brightening our day with your lovely voices!

On Friday 9th June, we had a belated Pentecost Eucharist and had a special red cake for dessert at lunchtime

Year 5 adventure day

Well done to the following children for completing a Pentecost challenge over the half term! Thank you to Maisie for the very yummy cake! A special mention to Millie and Oliver who also took their First Communion on Pentecost.

Children from Mrs Everest's recorder club enjoyed a quick lunchtime performance of 'Au Clair De La Lune'. Considering some children having only been attending for two weeks, they did very well.

A huge well done to Florence for her continued perseverance and hard work in Maths! She is always popping round to my office to share her achievements and thoroughly deserves the house tokens and certificate she has achieved!

Reception had an exciting day yesterday when the caterpillars arrived for their summer term topic of minibeasts! We will follow the journey of the caterpillars as they grow!

Year 6 Residential

Biodiversity Champions! A huge well done to our budding ecologists who took part in last week's Biodiversity Challenge! The creations are making their way into our nature garden. I particularly loved 'Bugingham Palace'! Genius!

Today we celebrated the Art work across our school which looked amazing! Thank you to Mrs Still our Art Subject Leader for her excellent leadership of this subject and also to our Art Subject Governor, Mrs Bass, for visiting assembly today.

Year 1 learnt about the sculptor Mark Quinn and used his artwork as inspiration to make their own flower sculptures. They then learnt about Vincent Van Gogh and followed step by step instructions to make their own paintings of Sunflowers.

Year 2 looked at the work of William Morris who was born in 1834 and died in 1896. His patterns were inspired by nature and you can see flowers, leaves, birds and animals in his designs. They made printing blocks with their designs and then carefully applied the paint every time, before printing onto the paper.

In Year 3, children have been learning about Impressionism. They did some sketching and then used the impasto technique. This involves thick paint alongside the broken colour effect. Examples are hatching, cross-hatching and stippling or dabbing. They drew their impression of the field in the morning and then again in the afternoon to see if anything had changed, while focusing on the light.

Year 4 learned about the use of myths by the Pre-Raphaelites. They used bright, bold colours and portrayed people naturally. Children explored the art of Rubens who painted myths. He sketched using trois crayon - which means three colour. Children then created their own art work in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites using Viking Mythology.

Year 5 have been studying Retro Futurism. Retro Futurism refers to how predictions of the future were depicted in an earlier era. They started their unit of work by analysing and evaluating retro futuristic space images using artistic language. Children then used different mixing techniques to create different tones and looked at complimentary and contrasting colours. From this, they used different paint drip techniques and oil pastels to create art work inspired by Futurism.

Year 6 started their topic by looking at repeated patterns. They designed their own, drawing images that related to their own interests and hobbies. Children then looked at Maya art, linked to their History topic. They then finished by creating their own Maya art and reproducing it on binca. Children used a variety of stitches to complete the design.