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Sir Simon McDonald visits St. Mary's
Fri 22 Nov 2019This afternoon, we welcomed a very special visitor to St. Mary's. Our most famous former pupil, Sir Simon McDonald. Sir Simon is the Permanent Under Secretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service.
Sir Simon started the afternoon by introducing himself, telling us a little bit about his work and also about his life at St Mary's. He used to attend school at St. Mary's during the late 1960's and early 1970's, when Mr Woolf was the Head Teacher. Sir Simon enjoyed his time as a pupil at our school, and his future achievements were built on the foundations of the education he received here.
Mrs Raynor shared our five core values with Sir Simon, whilst Sir Simon told us that the most important thing that we can all do is to work hard to achieve and inspire others. Any of us could be the next Prime Minister, or could be the person who discovers the cure for cancer, or could find a way for us to travel further into space than we have ever gone before. We all have to work hard, take in as much information as we can whilst we are at school and aim high, and anything is possible.
Next, Archie from Year 6 explained how our School Council works. He explained:
"Our School Council is based on a democracy for all the children in our school, where everyone has the chance to have their say. We believe that everyone has a right to have their own ideas, be listened to and be respected for what they think. Our democracy begins in classrooms, where we have Class Meetings led by our School Council Representatives. They gather together our ideas about what we think can be improved, and take these to the School Council Meeting.
"At the full meeting, all the Councillors share their ideas with one another and Mr Johnson. Recently, our School Council asked for tropical fish as a pet and for better dictionaries and thesauruses to help our work in English."
Our School Councillors then got to ask Sir Simon some questions about his life and work, followed by more questions from the rest of the school. We learned that:
- His favourite subject at school was History. After leaving St Mary's, he went to De La Salle College in Salford and then on to Cambridge University.
- He wanted to be a pilot when he was at St. Mary's, because he wanted to see the world. However, when he was at De La Salle he read a leaflet about working in the Foreign Office, and realised that he could do a job in one destination for three years before moving somewhere different in the world and doing another job for three years, and so on. This really appealed to him.
- He started work in the Foreign Office in 1982 when he was 21. He had to do three different sets of tests before he got the job! He spent the next 37 years working hard and has been in his current position since 2015.
- He loves his job even though it is difficult, because when he does it well he is able to help a lot of people.
- Sir Simon meets Her Majesty the Queen once a week when he takes new foreign diplomats to see her at Buckingham Palace.
- He works closely with our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and his Foreign Office base is on the opposite side of Downing Street to Number 10.
- He has met lots of famous people, including the Pope!
- Sir Simon was one of five children, who also came to St Mary's. He now has four children of his own, who are all grown up. He also has a famous pet cat called Palmerston, who has a Twitter account and 93,000 followers!
We all had a great time meeting Sir Simon, and we are honoured that he came home to visit us and we are so proud of him and everything he has achieved. Thank you Sir Simon - you are an inspiration to us all!
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Year 3 put Road Safety into Action!
Fri 22 Nov 2019On a Thursday Year 3 enjoy their swimming lessons at Pendlebury Pool. As it was Road Safety & Awareness Week we put our knowledge into practise.
We looked at safe places to cross and gave advice on how to keep safe when crossing the road:
- Always find a safe place to cross the road.
- Always hold the hand of an adult, or sensible person, when crossing the road.
- Never cross the road between parked cars.
- Always wait for the green man AND check it is safe to cross.
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Promises
Fri 22 Nov 2019Year 3 performed their Celebration Assembly this morning and it was all about Promises. Not just the importance of making and keeping Promises to each other but also to God. In class we have been learning about the importance of Baptism and the reasons why our parents and Godparents make the promises on behalf of us.
The children sang a brilliant song about Standing with the promises of God - a bit of stage fright with so many people watching though as they forgot to dance!
Well done Year 3 and remember to keep those promises.
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KS1 Maths Club
Thu 21 Nov 2019Maths Club for year 1 and year 2 got underway today with a large quantity of children attending. The club was organised by Mr Johnson and with the help of the KS2 maths mates, the children in KS1 were able to experience aspects of maths through the use of playing games such as connect four, snakes and ladders, mathshed, purplemash etc
It was lovely to see the older children helping the younger ones during this time. I feel that this will help to develop their mathematical knowledge and understanding.
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Year 1 Road Safety Week 18th - 24th November
Thu 21 Nov 2019Year 1 have been finding out about how to keep safe crossing the roads.
They all sent a postcard home to one of their lovely grown ups!
Dear Grown up,
Please help to keep me safe when we are crossing the road.
1. Always find a safe place to cross the road with me.
2. Always holds my hand when we cross the road.
3. Never cross the road between parked cars.
4. Always wait for the green man and check it is safe to cross
Thank you
Love ME X
Find out more about safe and sustainable travel for your family at brakezebras.org/families
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Year 2 film their own Traction Man Films
Thu 21 Nov 2019Traction Man is here to save the day! Our Year 2 class are really enjoying Mini Grey's 'Traction Man is Here' and his wonderful missions rescuing toys and household items in need. Today the class were setting up their own scenes and filming missions for their own stories next week. They took turns to be directors, narrators, camera men and editors.
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Purple Mash Pyramids
Thu 21 Nov 2019Year 3 have combined History and Technology this week as the children used Purple Mash and search engines to create a report about the construction of pyramids.
There are explanations about the materials used, methods of transport and surprisingly the amount of workers that were used in the construction. Most of us thought that the majority of the 50'000 who worked on the site would have been slaves but many were skilled workers, engineers, architects from Egypt and neighbouring countries.
The most astonishing fact was it would have taken almost 10 years to complete the larger pyramids. As yet we have only discovered 130 across Egypt but new technology has revealed there may be thousands more!
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It’s Road Safety Week next week.
Tue 19 Nov 2019Year 4 have been looking at the dangers associated with roads and the ways to avoid any unnecessary risks when using them. Road Safety Week is the UK’s biggest road safety event and it happens every year.
We looked at two very different streets and thought about whether we could make safe and healthy journeys on these streets.
We discussed the following statistics:
- Around the world, more than 1.3 million people are killed on roads every year
- Road crashes are the single biggest killer of young people aged 5-29, worldwide
- 48 children under the age of 15 were killed on roads in Britain in 2018
- 2363 children under the age of 15 were killed or seriously injured on roads in Britain in 2018
That means that more than six children under the age of 15 are killed or seriously injured EVERY DAY on roads in Britain. About a third of people of all ages who are killed on roads in Britain are people who are walking or cycling.
One reason that people get hurt on roads is that too often roads are designed for traffic not for people.
We looked at safe places to cross and gave advice on how to keep safe when crossing the road:
- Always find a safe place to cross the road.
- Always hold the hand of an adult, or sensible person, when crossing the road.
- Never cross the road between parked cars.
- Always wait for the green man AND check it is safe to cross.
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Teddy Bear Onesie Day
Fri 15 Nov 2019Today we held our Teddy Bear Onesie Day !! The children had been learning about Bears and wanted to have a Teddy Bear's Picnic too! Everybody brought their own Teddies from home and we all shared a lovely picnic together !!
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Save Energy - Switch Off Fortnight 18th - 2nd December
Fri 15 Nov 2019St Mary’s is taking part in the Pod’s Switch Off Fortnight campaign in November, which is sponsored by EDF Energy this year. More than 1,500 schools across the UK (and beyond) are joining in to take action and to change the way they use energy.
The Eco Council had another meeting to discuss ways in which the school could save energy, money and the environment.
Over the fortnight, the children will explore different energy sources, debate which ones should be used to power the UK and learn about the actions we can all take to use this important resource in a way that minimises the impact on the environment
On a practical level, the Eco-Council will focus on saving energy at school by running an energy audit and identifying where energy is wasted. The main aim of Switch Off Fortnight is to inspire long-term behaviour change and to help people understand the actions they can take to use energy efficiently.
The campaign is fun for the children, whilst sparking energy saving behavior and making a real difference to their school’s energy bill. They also tell us that it’s a great way to get parents involved saving energy at home too.
