We are always looking for ways that we can improve what we do here at Our Lady’s to ensure the very best for the children and families of our community.

We are therefore looking at any ways we may be able to make improvements to our communication around issues of safeguarding and have asked the Local Authority to help us review our current systems. We therefore have a short survey for parents as we would like to here your views about any areas you feel we undertake well/could improve upon or simply that you would like to know more about.

The link is here to take the short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/NHFC3KX

But we will also send it as a text message.

Thank you for your support and please ask if there is anything you would like to know more about.

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A reminder that Our Lady’s is holding our annual ‘Maths Day’ on Thursday of the first week back after half-term.

This is a wonderful day when we can celebrate our wonderful maths learning and focus on what makes maths fun! We ask that all children try to dress up as a calculator, dice, ruler, a famous mathematician - or just a number!

Please see letter below.

Maths Day letter

Tickets are now on sale for the forthcoming ‘Merchant of Venice’ First Encounters production by The RSC which will be performed in our school hall at 7pm on Tuesday 8th October.

This is such a wonderful opportunity for the whole family to come along and enjoy a simple version of this Shakespeare play. So even if you have never seen any Shakespeare before, the First Encounters productions are accessible for all. You may even remember some quotes from the play from when you studied it!!!!!

Tickets are only £5 and are selling fast! So either come along to school to buy your ticket from the school office or call us on 01253 762833 to reserve your ticket.

The month of October has ben designated by Pope Francis as an Extraordinary Month of Mission.

As a wonderful start to this month on Friday, our Year 6 celebrated mass with other Year 6 children from our local Lancashire Catholic schools. This was a very special time when all the children were asked to consider the responsibility of being a disciple of Christ. Fr Peter reminded them that just as Christ is the light of the world, they too are called to be lights for others. The children truly did praise the Lord with their beautiful singing. During the mass, a child from each of the schools lit a candle to signify their mission in the world. This candle was then blown out at the end of the mass and taken back to their schools. Following mass, we walked to the Parish Centre where a team from Castlerigg, lead by Sister Rose explored this theme further asking the children to think about how they are using their gifts to bear witness to Christ.

It is now up to the children to bring this light alive in their schools - how can they bring light to others? What a beautiful way to start this month of mission which officially begins tomorrow on the Feast of St Therese of Liseux.

Each of our children will be thinking about what they can do as their ‘mission’ during October. Please click on the image to reveal more from the day of mission.

We also have tickets on sale for the forthcoming ‘Merchant of Venice’ First Encounters production by The RSC which will be performed in our school hall at 7pm on Tuesday 8th October.

Tickets are only £5 and are selling fast! So either come along to school to buy your ticket from the school office or call us on 01253 762833 to reserve your ticket.

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On Thursday 26th September we will celebrate European Day of Languages. To celebrate this day, each class will learn about a different European language and the children have been asked to dress in the colours of that country for the day:

Reception - English - red and white

Year 1 - Italian- green, white and red

Year 2 - French- blue, white and red

Year 3 - Greek - blue and white

Year 4 - German - black, red and yellow

Year 5 - Spanish - red and yellow

Year 6 - Polish - white and red

During the day the children will engage in activities about the chosen country and its language. Thank you for your support in this day!

After our Summer Holidays I look forward to welcoming everyone back to school for a year of new dreams and new possibilities!

Our Autumn Term starts at 8.45am on Tuesday 3rd September 2019.

I’m sure you will all be really excited to see friends and get settled in to your new classroom and get to know your new teacher.

We are all really excited too - to see how much you have grown and changed over the Summer! We all look forward to the wonderful things ahead in this new school year, knowing that God is there to help us and give us the strength to face all the challenges that lie ahead.

We will be talking about Saint Ignatius when we get back to school - so I wonder if you can find out anything about him and his life before we get back???

School Gates…

To make all visitors aware…

Our main school entrance gates (at the front - where staff and deliveries enter) will remain locked from September to safeguard all our children.

We do apologise for any inconvenience caused - as it will mean that, if coming to office during the school day, a quick call will have to be made to ask a member of staff to come and let you in to building. Hopefully another solution can be found in the longer term, but for this term, the gates will be closed.

Many thanks for your patience and understanding with this matter.

school gates.png — Main School Gates

Will remain closed from now on!

Our main school gates will remain closed fom September due to safeguarding issues.

We need to make sure that our school perimeter is always secure and leaving the main gates open means that this is not the case.

We ask therefore, that if you do need to come to the school office during the day that you call the office to let us know when you will be arriving and the pedestrian gate (on Common Edge Road) will be opened by staff.

We hope you can join us at our Shakespeare Festival on Wednesday 26th June. There will be games, stalls and showcases from 11 local schools.

We are holding an own clothes day on Friday 21st June, where children can come to school in their own clothes, with a donation of a chocolate bar for the chocolate tombola stall at the festival.

So many achievements…

What an exciting and eventful week we have had at Our Lady’s this week.

We have seen the children triumph in a variety of different areas and shine in all that they do. We are so proud of their wonderful achievements.

In particular over this last few weeks our amazing High 5 Netball squad have won strongly in 5 out of their 6 matches against other primary school teams. Huge congratulations to them and to Miss Dixon who has spent many weeks coaching the team!

We have also had a tennis coach who has worked with classes this term.

Following this, 4 children from Year 3 and Year 4 were chosen to represent Our Lady’s at a Blackpool tennis tournament. Lennon, Lila, Gabriella and Vinny all took part and won the tournament! Another amazing achievement and this means that the children will then have the opportunity to represent Blackpool at the Lancashire Year 3-4 Mini Tennis County Final 2019!

This is due to take place on Friday 21st June in Preston. Well done to all the participants and we wish you lots of luck for the final in a few weeks time!

And the successes don’t even end there……

On Tuesday evening Blackpool Music Service held their annual ‘Pop Idol’ competition for singers from KS2 to KS4. Jessica from Year 6 went for a school audition and was chosen to represent Our Lady of the Assumption at the nail-biting final.

There was a lot of stiff competition. The standard of the singers was very high. We sat right until the end when the winners were announced…. and Jessica was awarded First Place out of all the Primary singers!

It was a fabulous night and huge congratulations to Jessica for a wonderful performance!

KS2 Pop Idol Winner 2019 with judges Ged Mills and Scott Gallagher

Shakespeare Ambassadors

Our wonderful Shakespeare Ambassadors went on a very important trip on Monday 20th May.

They were asked along with Ambassadors from the other Associate Schools to present some of the important work they had been doing in their schools to The Royal Shakespeare Company Education Leads at The Swan Theatre in Stratford. The children travelled down on a coach and, following their wonderful presentations to the Directors, they had workshops with some of the RSC Actors, a stage tour, a costume tour and a visit to Shakespeare’s Birthplace.

The Directors were delighted and amazed at their wonderful presentations and Mrs McVey and Mrs Ormerod were very proud of all the Ambassadors.

Well Done to you all!

Other News….

We held a KS1 ‘Bring a teddy to School’ Day yesterday - organised by Mrs Hodgkiss and our School Council.

KS1 children had a lovely day and have raised some money for the great cause of CAFOD. See the pictures on our ‘Pupil Voice’ page

Many of our Year 3 children are currently undertaking preparation to receive their First Holy Communion over the coming few weeks. Some children have actually made this exciting step in their faith journey and received First Holy Communion at Our Lady’s Church last Sunday 19th May. Others will receive the Sacrament at St Cuthbert’s Church and another group are receiving sacrament at Our Lady’s Church this coming Sunday at 10.30am mass.

We are so delighted for all of you and all of the children taking their sacraments at this time.

Half-Term

Just a reminder that we break up today for our half-term holiday. School will return at 8.45am on Monday 10th June. I’m sure this will be yet another very busy term as we prepare for the transition of the children to their next year group, prepare for our Year 6 children moving onwards to their new high school on the next stage of their learning journeys, and also get ready to welcome our new intake from September.

From September we will also have a few staffing changes in school.

Mrs Ormerod will be out of class undertaking a role of SENCo from September for a year. Miss Slater will be teaching Year 6 from September and we will be welcoming a new teacher for these next 12 months who will be teaching Year 4 from September. Her name is Mrs Cunningham-Kay and we are delighted to welcome her to Our Lady’s School Community.

We have further exciting events to look forward to in the next half term, including a Blackpool Spelling Bee, a choral speaking competition, our Lancashire tennis finals and lots more!

We wish you a lovely half-term and look forward to seeing you again on June 10th!