Dear Parents
Feast Day of St John Henry Newman (Sat 9th Oct)
Happy feast day! Today in school we have celebrated (early!) the feast day of St John Henry Newman, with Mass in the school hall and celebration activities through the day.
It is amazing to think that it is only 2 years ago that Fr Bill, Mr Flower and 4 of our school children and their parents attended the canonisation of St John Henry Newman with Pope Francis in Rome! Our whole school community celebrated with a trip to Legoland – 10 coaches worth of Cardinal Newman children and parents! The photos from the canonisation trip are on the school website here if you would like to reminisce about that special occasion for our school community.
Today in school, the school kitchen prepared a feast day lunch for the children and we were delighted to welcome a number of parents to join us for refreshments after Mass this morning! We hope the invitation to whole school Mass will filter through to our parent community – we weren’t previously able to include parents as our school hall was not big enough, so this is a new opportunity and one we hope many of our families will be able to take advantage of in the coming months. The next whole school Mass will be on the Feast of All Saints – 1st November – which is our first day back at school after half-term.
Today, Lower Key Stage Two enjoyed time in the Prayer Garden focussing on our school rainbow and the message from our Mission Statement “uniquely created and loved by God.” They found unique leaves and enjoyed creating their own “natural” rainbow.
During this month, we are focussing especially on equality, diversity and inclusion in our Flourish sessions and across the school. We are supporting all of our children to know themselves to be special and to recognise the special qualities of others. We have used books like “All are welcome” and we have sung “God made me as I am, part of Creation’s plan” in our collective worship to help the children to remember this now and in the future. We recall especially this week that Cardinal Newman wrote, “God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another.”
Next week on Thursday 14th October, we will have a special collective worship with Bishop Richard in school. Year 5 Emerald Class will lead us as we focus on Cardinal Newman’s “kindly light” of Jesus and sharing his Word with others. All parents are warmly invited to join us for the Bishop’s blessing – a very special event in the life of our school. Bishop Richard will bless our new school hall and bless our school community as we continue to work together to help our children to grow to their full potential.
Further ahead, look out for information about the Parent Consultations, due to take place on Monday 18th and Wednesday 20th October between 2:30 and 6:30pm. These will be face to face in the school hall and booking will open today at 6 pm.
Please remember that there is no school for the children tomorrow (Friday) as it is an In-service Training Day for all Xavier staff.
We wish you all a very happy weekend!
Catherine Burnham
Headteacher
