Congratulations to all of our Year 3 children who have made their First Holy Communion over the last few weekends. We have children worshipping in several different parishes, including All Saints, Hersham; St Erconwald’s, Walton and Christ the Prince of Peace, Weybridge, so the First Holy Communion Masses have been spread across several dates and places. As we approach the Feast of Corpus Christi this weekend, let us remember these children in our prayers and support them to receive their second, hundredth and thousandth Holy Communion with just as much joy and reverence. We are looking forward to celebrating this special occasion with all the children in school at our Going Forth Mass on the afternoon of Friday 12 July. Invitations to join us will be sent to parents of these children and also parents of the Y2 children who may be beginning their preparation for First Holy Communion next year.
This week, the Year 4 and 5 children in the Prayer Council enjoyed a wonderful trip to Worth Abbey, in Sussex for the annual Good Shepherd Celebration. We sang as part of the Weybridge Deanery Choir and presented a “loaf of bread” to the Bishop, which represented our charitable work as a school. The diocese as a whole presented a cheque to Missio for over £10,000 – including our contribution from Cardinal Newman. The motto of the charity is “Children helping Children” and it was wonderful to see children from all the schools in the diocese coming together to give thanks and to pledge support for children who have less than they do.
A new innovation this week was our first “Coffee and Conversation” Parent Forum meeting. It was great that several parents had submitted general queries and others had supplied feedback on questions raised by the school about uniform and about the website. Although there were not many attendees on the morning itself, it was a good start to enable further discussion and we will repeat it again in the Autumn Term. You can find the minutes from the meeting here.
Another new initiative for the school has been welcoming “Maths Mentors” from Y12 at Notre Dame School, who have kindly been working with some of our Year 5 children to support progress and challenge in Maths. The Year 5 children have enjoyed working with young people who are closer to their age and we are happy to be continuing to develop further links within the local community.
Year 3 have enjoyed a wonderful trip to the Roald Dahl Museum today, while Year 6 are making their way back to Hersham from Normandy this evening. By all accounts they have had an amazing time, despite a few rain showers, and we’re looking forward to hearing all about it on Tuesday!
Congratulations to the Year 6 Ball Committee! Kasia Abbs, Jess Buttaci , Julia Cox, Isabel Hargreaves and Elle Wenlock have worked really hard over many years to raise money for Cardinal Newman. They raised an amazing £6000 at this year's event and this makes a big difference to the resources we can offer our children. Many thanks from all of us!
As you know, Monday will be an INSET day, so the children won’t be in school. Staff will be working on developing our curriculum for Foundation Subjects and we certainly intend to continue the excellent curriculum-based trips which form such a key element of our learning at Cardinal Newman. Staff have been working on a new “Curriculum Intent” (below) to express what is unique and important to our community of learners, believers and friends. I hope you’ll agree they’ve done a great job of summing up what is special about the learning in our school.
