Latest News

Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Chetham’s School of Music Workshop

  Fri 19 Oct 2018

  This week Year 2, 3 and 5 took part in their first cross curricular workshop with Chetham’s School of Music.  We warmed up with some rhythm and beat, and music control activities then started our “Journeys”   project. First we looked at ways of travelling on our journey and had to create a soundscape for different modes of transport including cars, boats, bikes and planes. Then we looked at some of the different ways of saying hello across different countries in Europe, with a song, and created our own verse. Next we had to listen to music from these countries and guess where they were from. Finally we listened to different instruments from all over Europe, including castanets from Spain, the whistle from Ireland and Scotland and the accordion from France.

  

• Prayer Stations

  Fri 19 Oct 2018
  Today all classes from Reception to Year 6 took part in a special prayer and worship based on the prayer of the Our Father. Our Pupil Missionary Disciples have spent the last few weeks preparing several prayer stations using different media and today they lead and managed the activities. Each station focused on a different part of the Our Father Prayer and children explored prayer with paint, colour, bubbles, playdoh and other craft materials.

  

• Champions!

  Fri 19 Oct 2018

  After a few years of trying, the Rugby Squad have won through to the Manchester Games to represent our part of Salford. The squad went to the Salford Reds schools tournament at the AJ Bell stadium and performed brilliantly. You can see the real focus on sports coming through as the school winds award after award.

   

  The members of the squad were made up from Year 5 & 6 and at the trials we had over 40 children looking to make those twelve places. Every single player in the trials did themselves proud and we settled on the final 12 of Diego, Oscar, Gabriel, Niamh, Poppy, Alexander, Conor, Joshua, Brad, Bobby, Christian and Daniel (replacing Archie who was unfortunately ill on the day.)

   

  The team went unbeaten all day with some very tough games to get out of the group. A very hard fought and fairly played game from us saw the team beat last years winners and then in the final two games all our players were gelling, working hard for each other, communicating and leading the way.

   

  Well done and deserved Champions from both Mr Worrall and Mr Chadwick. See you at the very prestigious Manchester Games in 2019.

  

• Musical Bananas! Must be a trick…

  Fri 19 Oct 2018

  Musical Bananas! Who has ever heard of such a thing?

  Year 5 turned the classroom into a musical masterpiece of vegetable, computers and sounds. To highlight how computers require a human ‘input’ top get the ‘output’ we decided to see whether we could make music out of everyday objects. And we did!!!!

   

  The next step was to create a game controller out of anything the children saw in the classroom. We had children using rubbers, pencils, books, dice and even their own heads! The Makey Makey machines teach the children about circuits also so a fantastic tool for science – each group had to ‘earth’ their circuit and what better way than using themselves!

   

  We at St Mary’s believe that everyone is creative, inventive, and imaginative. We believe that everyone can create the future and change the world. We believe that the whole world is a construction kit, if we choose to see it that way.

  
  We want to help people start to think of themselves as makers and agents of change.

   

  Musical banana smoothies for all!

  

• Vikings Beware. The raid on Holy Island happens again…

  Fri 19 Oct 2018

  All term the children have been learning about the life and times of Vikings. We now know they are from Scandinavia, how they lived, why they travelled and of course the important reason of why come to Angleland? The children have research the Viking Gods and why all Vikings were happy to go to Valhalla.

   

  So the Term homework challenge for Year 5 was to create a Viking Shield and the children worked really hard on their designs which were fabulous. Many thanks to the parents who had helped the children create them. We shall be using some in school as a display because they are just that good! To cap it off, why not have a Viking raid using their shields (and the odd sword) as weapons. Look at the Viking snarls as the beserkers went to work.

  We learned about the attack on Holy Island and raiding churches and taking prisoners. We then discovered that the Vikings doidn’t stop there but drove King Alfred back to the land of Wessex. Given to him after the Heptarchy (Seven Kingdoms) was overrun by the Viking raiders.

   

  We discovered that the Vikings had a knack for sailing and with their unique longboats could travel across previously impenetrable oceans. The vikings weren’t happy with life in the British Isles alone and moved further West to Iceland, Greenland and finally the East Coast of America. A truly magnificent culture who finally assimilated into Christian life but not before they had provided us with so much.

  

• St Mary’s Weather Station is on line

  Tue 16 Oct 2018

  St Mary’s children are the proud owners of our own Weather recording station.

   

  This easy to use weather station is the perfect tool for recording the conditions in the school grounds.

   

  It logs internal and external temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, wind direction and rainfall.

   

  The data is stored on the console and can be exported for data analysis.

   

  Luckily it includes a solar cell to increase the battery life so we are making use of renewable fuel sources.

   

  We can use the information for any subject – computing, geography, maths and more.

• Harvest Poetry

  Tue 16 Oct 2018

  Last week was not only the Harvest Assembly but we also celebrated National Poetry Day. To really immerse the children in the theme of Autumn we went outside into the playground, listened to the sounds from the natural and man-made worlds, trampled through leaves, felt the wind on our faces, observed the different colours of the day and then returned to write some stunning poetry.

  

• The Holy Rosary

  Fri 12 Oct 2018

  October is the month of the Holy Rosary.  We will be celebrating this by holding a Rosary Club every weekday morning before school, where children will be able to take a set of Rosary Beads and pray a decade of the Rosary.  A decade consists of one Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s and a Glory Be.   Each morning before we begin our decade, Mrs Prescott or Mrs Raynor will read out a short description of The Mystery of the Rosary that we will be celebrating that day.  Everyone in school is welcome to come and join us.

  

• Online Safety – Oscar’s Adventures in the Online World

  Fri 12 Oct 2018

  The National Online Safety Team have kindly provided us with a link to a copy of their Award Winning e-book about Online Safety.

  It deals with Oscar and his travels through the World Wide Web and the perils that he may face and the best way to avoid, report and overcome them. It is a great visual book that parents and children will enjoy reading all about and hopefully provide even further information about being safe online.

  Happy Reading.

  http://online.fliphtml5.com/rotpe/jksg/

  

• Year 4 First Holy Communion Mass

  Mon 08 Oct 2018

  Father Paul led this very special mass for our year 4 children. The children did some beautiful readings during the mass to celebrated this part of their faith journey. After the mass, the children’s families and the children of St Mary’s joined in with celebrations.