St Mary's RC Primary School, Whickham

Congratulations to you all for working hard and listening well during money week in school.

Stars of the week 20th January 2012

Click the link below to see who our really good listeners are;

Celebration ass 21-01-12.doc

Year 6 have enjoyed a visit to the Durham Light Infantry museum and making their own Anderson shelters.

At the DLI the children learned all about what life was like in the home guard. They experienced wearing WWII uniforms and actually held many original artefacts from the war.

They also enjoyed making their own replica Anderson shelters. Some were fantastic and contained all the things found inside one.

A very busy half term - now the hard work for SATs starts!!

Thank you so much for all the kind cards and generous gifts that we received for the birth of Gabrielle Holly Sutcliffe. She is now 3 weeks old and is doing really well.

Mr and Mrs Sutcliffe

Congratulations to you all for working hard and trying hard in other areas around school.

Stars of the Week 9th December 2011

Click on the link below to see who is in the Gold Book for trying hard this week

Celebration ass 9-12.doc

Congratulations to you all for working hard and caring for others.

Click on the link below to see who is in the Gold Book this week

Celebration ass 5-12.doc

Congratulations to you all for working hard and taking care of your belongings in the classroom and around school.

Stars of the Week 25-11-11

To find out this week's Gold Book Awards click the link below:

Celebration ass 25-11-11.doc 

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and good manners around school.

This week's stars 11th November 2011

To view the children in the Gold Book this week click on the link below.

Celebration ass.doc

Congratulations to Mrs Joyce who gave birth to a little girl, Katie Maeve, on the 2nd October 2011.

Further congratulations to Mrs Haighton who gave birth to a bouncy baby boy, Ben Haighton, on 17th October 2011.

Looking for something to do this half term? There are lots of activities going on for all ages of children.

Click the link below to see

Poster st Mary's.pdf

Half Term Activities in Gateshead.doc Oct 2011.doc

Congratulations to this week's winners. You have listened well and worked very hard this week. Well done!

Stars of the Week 21st October 2011

Click the link below for Good Listeners

Celebration ass.doc

Congratulations for your hard work and working independently. Keep it up!

This weeks stars 30th September 2011

Click on the link to see the who's in the Gold Book

Gold Book Awards.doc

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and having good manners in school.

Stars of the Week 16th September 2011

Click on the link below to see our Gold Book Awards

Gold Book Awards.doc

Well done to all our children on this first week back at school for being kind and working hard.

Gold Book Awards.doc

There are so many stars to congratulate this week that they wouldn't fit on the photograph, so well done everyone.

Congratulations to the children for the Gold Book Award for their good listening.

                                      Our good listeners this week

Six weeks can be a long time if you have nothing to do so click on the link below to find twenty free things you can do this summer.

20 FREE things to do in the summer holidays 2011.doc

Congratulations to this weeks stars for your hard work and trying hard in school.

Stars of the Week 24th June 2011

Please find attached the Holiday Dates for next academic year September 2011 - 2012

Holiday Dates for PUPILS 2011 -2012.doc

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and caring for others. 

       Stars of the week 17th June 2011

Congratulations to these children for their Gold book nominations.

Click on the link below to see the Gold Book Awards this week.

Celebration assembly 10th June 2011.doc

Good manners are important and when our children use them they are noticed by other people. Well done to the children this week in the Gold Book.

Even though the weather wasn't brilliant there were plenty of families came out to enjoy a family picnic on Sunday afternoon. 

Congratulations to this weeks stars for working hard and being kind to others in school. Please click on the link to see who is in the Gold Book this week,

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and good listening.

Stars of the Week 6th May 2011

Gold Book Entries for this week showing which children have been good listeners. Click on the link below

6th May 2011.doc

 Just a quick post to say a HUGE thank you for all the lovely wedding cards and messages that we have received from parents, children and staff. It is lovely to know that so many people were thinking about us. The balloon from Y2 is still bobbing around in our living room and we plan to use the vouchers that we received wisely when we eventually get a bigger house!

We had a great wedding, a wonderful honeymoon and the children in Y2 are better at remembering my new name than I am!

Thanks again

Mr and Mrs Broomhall

Congratulations to you all for your hard work.

Gold Book Awards for this week show how thoughtful the following children were and how they were willing to show good deeds for others:-

15th April 2011.doc

Congratulations to this week's stars for working hard. Children in the gold book have been trying to have kind thoughts and do good deeds throughout Lent, well done!

Gold Book Entries for this week showing which children have kind thoughts and good deeds, Click on the link below.

25th March 2011.doc

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and good listening, well done.

This weeks stars 11th March 2011

Gold Book Awards for 11th March 2011.

Please click on the link to see which children have demonstrated how well they can use their listening skills.11th March 2011.doc

Fun for all the family

The details for buying school uniform are as follows:

School Uniform.doc

Please see the link below to have a copy of the Holiday Dates for this academic year.

Holiday Dates for PUPILS 2010 -2011.doc

The following are additional INSET and Occasional days when the school will also be closed to pupils. 

 2010-2011 EXTRA days.doc

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and caring for each other in school.

Stars of the week 18th February 2011

GOLD BOOK AWARDS for 18th February

Once again there were some great examples of children showing others how kind and caring they can be.Read all about them here..

18th February 2011.doc

It is exciting to see the new design for our school website, it looks GREAT and it is easier to use. I hope that those families already in our school community will use it regularly to see what is happening.

Welcome to any visitors who are finding out about our school for the first time. The staff and governors work together to provide a caring and safe environment in which children thrive. We encourage the children to be independent, responsible, and enthusiastic learners. We enjoy working in partnership with parents to achieve the best outcomes for all our children. We have a broad and balanced curriculum which offers rich opportunities and challenges to all children and enables them to develop intellectually, physically, emotionally and creatively.

Our School Council enables the children to have an input into many aspects of school life and gives the children a strong sense of community and involvement. We have a very active and dedicated PTA know as The Friends of St Mary's who have most recently given our outside fitness trail and Reception class outside area a complete makeover! They work tirelessly for the school providing a range of resources and activities for all our children.

The school has strong links with the parishes of St Mary's, Whickham and Immaculate Heart, Lobley Hill, also with the local community, local businesses, other local primary and secondary schools, with many visitors from the local community. We have strong links with partnerships schools in Europe (currently, Italy, Poland and Turkey) and global links with schools in Kenya (Nakuru and Elbugon) who visit our school to help enrich the curriculum and the range of experiences available to our pupils.

Mary McMillan
Headteacher

Congratulations to you for your hard work in National Story Telling week and for looking after your belongings.

GOLD BOOK AWARDS for 4th February

The following children have shown how careful they can be with their own belongings and also with school equipment.

4th February 2011.doc

We have had a wonderful 2 days with our visitors from Turkey, Poland and two schools in Italy. They have enjoyed sharing in our lessons and finding out about our local area.

Enjoying a coffee at the Sage, Newcastle

Congratulations to you for working hard and showing you have good manners in school.

This week's stars 28th January 2011

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and being kind to others.

This week's stars 21st January 2011

Congratulations for your hard work and good listening.

The following children have shown good listening skills in class this week and their concentration and work has reflected this good effort.Well done.

14th January 2011.doc

Happy New Year and congratulations to you for working hard and trying hard in everything you have done this week. That is a really good way to start the new year keep it up.

Stars of the week 7th January 2011

GOLD BOOK AWARDS for 2011

2011 Starts off with the Gold Book Awards for children who have tried hard with everything in school this week. Congratulations keep up the great work.

7th January 2011.doc

Congratulations to this week's stars for working hard and being nominated by their teacher for Celebration assembly. 

Stars of the week 10th December 2010

Congratulations to the following children who have impressed everyone in school this week by showing their Good Manners, their names are in the Gold Book Awards.

10th December 2010.doc

Congratulations to you all for your excellent work and trying hard all week.

The Gold Book Awards for this week were for children who showed extra effort in 'Trying Hard'.  Well done on your achievement.

12th November 2010.doc

Congratulations to you all for working hard and showing how much you care for other.

Well done to the children in the Gold Award Book this week for showing how much they care for others.

5th November 2010.doc

Stars of the Week 5th November 2010

Scholastic Books are coming to our school on the week beginning 8th November.

 
The book fair will be open Monday till Wednesday 8.30 - 8.55 and 3.15 - 3.45

Thursday AM only

You are welcome to come along at any of the above times

Congratulations to this week's stars for your hard work and looking after your belongings.

Stars of the week 15th October 2010

Gold Book Awards 15th October 2010

Here are the children nominated this week for showing how to "Care for Belongings"

15th October 2010.doc 

Congratulations to our Junior North Runners who enjoyed the sunshine on September 18th.

Junior North Run - roll of honour.doc

This week the Gold Book entries show some excellent examples of children showing how to be kind to others.

24th Sept.doc

Congratulations to the stars of this week for your beautiful work and good listening.

This week's stars

Year 2 have been very, very excited about the hen's eggs that they have been incubating for the past 3 weeks. Their patience was rewarded when our first chick was born today at 2:45!

Fenwick Lawson visited year 6 and brought a special gift with him.

Reminder for parents

E-safety parents information evening on Monday 26th April 2010 at 6.00pm

Year 2 have been very, very busy this half term and so has Peter the Puffin!
The children in Y2 have been learning all about Katie Morag and her life in the Highlands of Scotland in their geography lessons.

Kerem with his pal Peter!!!

Robbie Lowthian and Emily Walters report on what happened at the KS1 Multiskills Challenge at St Thomas More. Over to you Emily and Robbie!

Congratulations to you all for your hard work and working independently.

This term has been an exciting one in Y2. We have been learning about lots of new and interesting things. In science we have learned all about electricity and how to use it while staying safe. We even directed our own T.V adverts to make other children aware of staying safe with electricity!

Please open the links below for information on various activities going on in the Gateshead area during half term and in March and April.

February Half term activities

March, April activities

March, April activities 2

Congratulations to this week's stars for their hard work and looking after their belongings.

Lucy Wood in Year 3 raised money and very kindly donated this to St Anthony's Primary School in Kenya.

Children from Class One with books they bought with the money.

Congratulations to you all for working hard and being kind.

Please see the documents below about football activities during February half term.

Half Term Course

Saturday Morning Soccer

Sorry the school will be closed all day today, Wednesday 6th January due to the heavy snowfall.
If the school remains closed we will post another notice on the website and inform Real Radio.

St Mary's are now the proud owners of a GOLD Investors in People Award!
Mrs Kebbell, our Chair of Governors, Mrs Wright and Mrs Noble received the award on behalf of the school at the Marriott on Friday 6th November.

How time flies!! Alice Isobel Haighton- the spitting image of Daddy :)

Children from Yr3,Yr4,Yr5 and Yr6 enjoyed a treat at the CLC on Wednesday. Several poets were invited to share their ideas and poems for a poetry festival and we were lucky enough to book up quickly.

On The 29th of June 2009 Y6 from St.Mary’s School went to Whitaugh Park on a Residential trip. It was great although the bus journey took a long 2 ½ hours.

We are proud to present an exhibition of art painted by the pupils of St Mary's Primary School.

MONDAY 18th and TUESDAY19th MAY

Viewing sessions from 2.45pm to 6pm, Monday( last admission 5.30pm)
and 8.45am to 9.30pm Tuesday
50p entrance fee which will include refreshments and a free raffle.
Please use the main entrance.

Congratulations to this week's stars. Well done to you all.

Congratulations to all our star workers this week.They have been working very hard and taking care of their own belongings.

A fantastic effort was made by KS2 on Wednesday 25th March, spurred on of course by Nora and Frank!

Congratulations for all your lovely work and for trying hard.

Y6 are building up a very exciting relationship with The British School of Tokyo as part of their topic on Japan!

Congratulations to you all, good manners and good work. Wow!

This week we have 14 stars for good work and giving and taking in the class and around the school. Well done.

On the 4th of March we went to Felling to compete in the West Gateshead Local Swimming Gala.
When we got there we were all extremely excited however, we were also very nervous.
We were all their by 5:15 wearing our school tracksuits and when we all marched round the pool with our banner, on the way we spotted our future medals.

Well done to all these children nominated for good work and respect.
This weeks stars are here below;

St Mary's has been recognised as providing "Exceptional delivery within the PE and Sport Strategy" for 2008.

Didn't we have fun in the snow.

One of our balloons that were released on Sports Day, 4th July, has made its way all the way to Northumberland!

The lady that found the balloon returned the ticket with a letter;

Poem from Mrs Briggs

Sadly Mrs Briggs left our school last term after many years of looking after the children during lunchtimes. She was presented with gifts and cards from all the children and staff and left us with a poem of some of her memories.

Two of St Mary’s ex-pupils have been nominated and then elected as Head Boy and Head Girl. They are Ben Ostell and Ruth Gordon – our congratulations to them both on this marvellous achievement! We wish them well as they go into their final year (13)
They are a credit to both schools!

Best Wishes from Mam x (oops I mean Mrs Ostell!)

This morning David Milliband the Foreign Secretary came to visit Y6 and the pupil council in response to the wonderful letters that they wrote to the Prime Minister and Mr Anderson, MP about the situation in Kenya and our links with St Anthony's in Nakuru. They put on a fab assembly and Mr Milliband and the other visitors were all very impressed.

Mrs Briggs has been one of St Mary's loyal lunchtime assistants for the last 22 years. She is leaving on 23rd May and going to enjoy a well earned rest.

Anyone visiting St Mary's School today will be very surprised to see many of the children wearing different colours to our normal school uniform.

Today was a special day for some children in Reception and Year 1.

The year 6 SATs take place next week! All of year 6 have worked hard and have nothing to worry about. All they need to do is remember to try their very best, make sure they have a good nights sleep and a tasty breakfast before a test and arrive at school promptly. They also need to remember to bring in their P.E Kit and anything they need for Kenya work every day...and remember their things for their party on Friday.
Oh yes and they also need to keep smilling!
Click on this post for the SATs week Timetable.

Dates for your Diary Summer 2008

Today our local MP Dave Anderson visited Y6 in response to their letter they wrote to him about their views on the political situation in Kenya.

Well done to KS1 and KS2 for taking part in the sponsored skip or the sponsored walk.

Congratulations to all the children of our three parishes who made their First Reconciliation this week.

The whole world will know how much we love our mum's on March 1st when some of our entries will be published in the Evening Chronicle!

St Mary's has been awarded the Basic Skills Primary Quality Mark.

The photos from our session this morning at the CLC have now been uploaded to the Gallery.

Click here to view them.

Salut

Advent Reading

Silent Night

Brring

Christmas Letters

Dance

Away in a Manger

Coming soon....podcast of our performance!

Find out how our school celebrates Christmas....

Download Powerpoint (3.3MB)

Here's our new member of staff!
Can you think of a good name for him/her?
Use the Comments feature below to give us your ideas.

Look on the right hand side of the site...and see if you can make the cat purr and meaow....

It's that time of year again when the Samaratin's Purse launch their appeal for shoe boxes.

Congratulations to all the parents and children of St Mary's who have sent in Shoe Boxes for Operation Christmas Child run by the Samaratin's Purse. The gifts and items inside these boxes will be distributed to children who are in need.

The staff of St Mary’s invites parents and governors to join them in Breast Cancer Awareness week, by wearing something pink on Friday October 19th and donate £2.00 to the cause.
Why not ask a friend to join you!

Please send donations care of Mrs. Ostell –thank you

Congratulations to our netball teams.

They did very well.
B team - Emma Spoor, Joshua Corrigan, Amber Gill, Lauren Porteous, Hannah McAloone and their captain, Marie Stanley.
A team - Christine Bertie, Jordan Symonds, Madeline Emptage, Rachel Grant and their captain, Elly Mains
The A team came 1st and the B team came 3rd.

Comenius Partnership

We are linked with schools in Germany, Italy and Spain for three years.
During the first year of our partnership all the pupils in each school studied artists of their home region.
Would you like to view our pictures?

On Mercredi 3 octobre quatorze [14] Year 5/6 children went to Dryden Professional Centre to take part in a Modern Foreign Languages [MFL] Showcase organised by Madame Barrett and the Primary MFL Team at Dryden.
Mrs McMillan popped in to see the performance and was very pleased and proud.

“Six weeks zoomed by!”
Dates for your diaries Autumn Term 2007

Mon 3rd Sept INSET Day for staff
Tues 4th Sept Pupils return to school- Home visits for incoming Reception class
Thurs 13th Sept Whole School Mass 9.30 all parents are welcomeNorthumbria Water visit Yr 5
Tues 18th Sept Friends of St Mary’s meet 7.30 in Gibside Hotel, all are welcome
Thurs 20th Sept Music Workshop visit school for Yr 1 and Yr 2
Mon 24th Sept We welcome Reception class full time today
Thurs 27th Sept Year 5 class mass 9.30 all parents are welcome
Tues 2nd Oct School Photographer- Individual, Family Groups, ClassParents information meeting for Yr 2 6pm
Wed 3rd Oct Parents meeting Yr 6 pupils –Kingswood-Dukeshousewood 6pm
Thurs 4th Oct Year 6 class mass 9.30 all parents are welcome
Fri 5th Oct CAFOD Family Fast Day – Walk the World
Tues 9th Oct Governors Working Party Self Review 4pm
Thurs 11th Oct Year 4 class mass 9.30 all parents are welcome
Mon 15th Oct Comenius Visitors in school all weekYr 6 visit to Eden Camp
Half Term Monday 22rd OCTOBER – Friday 26th October
Mon 29th Oct Return to school for pupils
Thurs 1st Nov All Saints Day- Holy Day whole school mass 9.30 all welcome
Mon 5th Nov Pupils find out about another faith this week JUDAISM
Thurs 8th Nov Year 5 class mass 9.30 all parents are welcome
Tues 13th Nov Governors Meeting at 4pm
Wed 14th Nov Basketball Tournament 4-6pm for selected pupils
Thurs 15th Nov Year 3 class mass 9.30 all parents are welcome
Mon 19th Nov Parents appointments for Yr 5 & Yr 6 in hall this afternoon
Tues 20th Nov Parents appointments for Yr 1 & Yr 2 in classes this afternoon
Wed 21st Nov Parents appointments for Rec in class this afternoon
Thurs 22nd Nov Key Stage 1 mass 9.30 all parents are welcomeParents appointments for Yr 3 & Yr 4 in hall this afternoon
Thurs 29th Nov Year 4 class mass 9.30 all parents are welcome
Fri 30th Nov St Andrews Day
Wed 12th Dec Yr 5 & Yr 6 2pm in hall Christmas Production
Thurs 13th Dec Yr 3 & Yr 4 Advent Assembly for parents
Mon 17th Dec Yr 5 & Yr 6 Evening Performance 6pm
Tues 18th Dec Rec, Yr 1 & Yr 2 Christmas Party afternoon
Wed 19th Dec Yr 3 & Yr 4 Christmas Party
Thurs 20th Dec Whole school mass 9.30 Yr 5 & Yr 6 Christmas Party
Fri 21st Dec School ends tonight for Christmas Holidays
End of Term - Return Monday 7th January 2008
Mrs Caroline Hopkinson (Friends of St Mary’s) organises and manages the 200 club on behalf of the Friends of St. Mary’s. It is drawn each month in school by a different class. Thank you to Mrs Hopkinson for all her hard work and effort with this very important aspect of regular fund raising for the school. She will shortly be asking you for your continued support for this academic year from the parents of any new pupils in school.

Download file

Holiday Dates for PUPILS

Academic Year Sept 2007 – August 2008

From To Half Term
Autumn Mon. 3rd Sept. 2007 Fri. 21st Dec. 2007 Mon. 22nd Oct. Fri. 26th Oct 2007
Spring Mon. 7th Jan. 2008 Fri. 4th April 2008 Mon. 18th Feb. – Fri. 22nd Feb. 2008
Summer Mon. 21st April 2008 Fri. 18th July 2008 Mon. 26th May – Fri. 30th May 2008

All dates are inclusive.
There is only 1 training day for teachers this year

INSET day – School closed for pupils
1. Mon. 3rd September 2007

Easter Bank Holiday weekend is Friday 21st March and Monday 24th March 2008
Bank Holiday is Monday 5th May 2008

A day will be held in reserve for General Election and will be taken second half of the Summer Term, the date will be sent out nearer the time.

Newsletter Update

“Summer Term has been and continues to be very busy with a huge range of activities taking place. I hope this update helps to show what this has involved.��?

·

St Mary's has worked so hard this year and all this work has been well rewarded.
Healthy School Award
First, we have achieved the Healthy School Award from Gateshead. These children represented our school at the presentation by performing a fantastic skipping display to show how we make physical activity fun!

Rights Repecting School Award

Next, we are one of the first schools in the North East to receive an award from Unicef

We have also achieved the requirements to be awarded the Impetus Award; this is a relatively new award. The presentation of this award will be made on Tuesday 10th July at the Civic Centre. Pupils who represented the school at the assessment session are invited to attend the award ceremony. The aims of the Impetus Award are outlined in detail on the Summer Newsletter update.

Welcome back to Mrs. McMillan, Mr McCarthy and Miss Hunt after their trip to Kenya to visit St Anthony's Academy. The staff and children all send their good wishes and thankyou all for your kind donations. Our staff had an exciting stay, Fr Humble joined them and said mass to very large crowds. They visited many interesting places and got very close to the local wildlife!

Once again Dr Maths organised a Maths Trail in Newcastle. This year it was along the Quayside and some of the children from KS2 accompanied by parent helpers had to follow the trail and solve the puzzles. This event is to show the chldren that maths is important in our everyday lives, not just in lessons at school.

Click here to read some of the thoughts about the trail from children in Year 3 and Year 4.

Congratulations to the swimming team who came 2nd overall in the Civic Swimming Gala at Felling Pool on 27th March.

We are delighted to welcome to our school, Sr Sylvia, Lucy Mbuthia and David Wachira. They will be with us from 16th to 30th March.

They teach in St Anthony's school in Kenya. The school now have a new headteacher, St. Anisia.
The previous head teacher, Sr Joyce has been welcomed into our school and parish on several occasions, she has now been moved to a new school with new challenges.

Our visitors are interested in shool life and our lifestyles. It is very different to their own.

St Mary's has been linked with other schools in Europe for the last 3 years.

We now have 3 new partner schools in Italy, Germany and Spain.

Each year there is a different focus where we share our local interests and cultures.
This year the theme is artists.

St Mary's have chosen Ivan Lindsay, who is a local artist based at Tynemouth.

We are very lucky at St Mary's as we have nice school fields to play in, but these are always really muddy in the Winter. During half term a Nature Trail has been built on some of the area so that the children can enjoy more space and have plenty of excercise while having fun at the same time.

KS1 children are very lucky, not only do they have very elegant new coat hooks and shoe racks but they are also surrounded by a fantastic mural depicting bible stories

On the opposite wall they can have fun finding the rhyming words and phrases, a dog on a log or a wizard with a lizard, although this can take rather a long time to hang their coats up!

All of KS2 have enjoyed their first performance of Panto Pandemonium today! There is still time to catch the show if you have not done so yet on Tuesday 12th at 10am or on Wednesday 13th at 6pm.
Reviews and photographs to follow!!!!

Dear parents and Children

We thank you for all the shoes we collected for the Blue Peter Appeal. We collected an astonishing amount of shoes, around about 250 pairs. Last friday we loaded them all in to Miss Hunt's And Mr Mc Carthy's Cars and took them to the collection point at Clarks shoes in the Metrocentre .As you know we are sending them to Malawi to exchange for money and equipment for the children’s corners in Malawi. Blue Peter gives many thanks to those who brought shoes in to our school to help the Aids Orphans in Malawi. But we don’t stop here! We stop collecting the shoes on the Friday the 15th.

Many Thanks

The Make Poverty History team Fraser,Matthew and Nicholas.

A special well done to Fraser for organising the collection at school! Also thanks to Anna and Kate who helped carry all the shoes to the Metrocentre.

Our annual Book Fair was a great success once again. I hope you managed to buy a few Christmas presents. We raised a total of £625 in sales and so were able to buy books to the value of almost £400 for the school. Huge Thanks from everyone and thanks to my Y6 HELPERS.
Mrs Barrett

What a wonderful time we had selling, buying and eating the tremendous amount and variety of cakes and biscuits kindly donated by all of you. We had so many items left after the first day that we had to sell again for 2 further days. In total we raised just over £175 which we have made up to £200 in school. Thanks to the Pupil Council and Y6 for their help in setting up and selling. AND THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR GENEROSITY ONCE AGAIN.

We reached a marvellous total of 78 shoeboxes for the Charity this year. Thank you so much for your continued support. The organisers wish me to pass on their thanks and say we will make a huge difference to the Christmas that some children have this year.
WELL DONE!

Key Stage 2
Panto Pandemonium Monday 11th December 2.00pm
Tuesday 12th December 10.00am
Wednesday 13th December 6.00pm

NativityThursday 14th December Years 5 and Reception children will be at the Metro Centre performing a small nativity play in The Town Square outside Woolworths at 10.00am

Years 1 and 2
Cock-a-doodle Christmas
Wednesday 13th December 2.00pm
Thursday 14th December 2.00pm

On Tuesday 18th July, Whickham Police visited St Mary's and put on a brilliant dog show. The dogs showed their skills and caught a couple of very strange characters!

After settling in well, the children have experienced many opportunities over the year.

One of our most successful ventures has been the Buddy System. The Y5 children tried very hard to welcome your children into school. We hope they remain firm friends next year and who knows after that.

We enjoyed performing our Nativity Tableaux live at the Metro Centre. It was a daunting task in front of such a vast audience, but they rose to the occasion and I was very proud of the children!

This afternoon, Peter Bolger (GGfL Manager) will lead an introductory session outlining our new school website. The session will cover site functionality and interactivity, the context of weblogs and a demo of how to publish to the site.

On the days of the England matches pupils are allowed to come to school in either and England strip or red and white. The first day was on the 9th June and many pupils dressed up.

Mrs Anastasia Patu and Miss Tabitha Kamau, teachers from St Anthony's Academy in Kenya are visitors to our school. They are here until Thursday 15th June. While they are here they have been observing lessons and teaching the children traditional African songs as well as visiting Beamish with Year 6 and seeing how we used to live.
Our link is with St Anthony's school in Kenya. The head teacher is Sister Joyce wgo visited our school earlier.

This week we have six teachers from Germany and two teachers from France visiting our school. Our staff have been to their schools and it has been interesting to compare teaching styles.
They will be with us until Thursday and will be spending time in school and visiting interesting places, such as York and Edinburgh.
We have been linked with Germany and France through the Comenius Project. This is our third and last year with these schools.