Daily news at St Katherine's

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.