Our week...

Today, Year 5 led the whole school in a service, on the theme of inspiration, in church where we welcomed the Diocesan Our Lady of Lourdes statue from Holy Family school.  The Our Lady of Lourdes touring statue has come to us as part of the Diocese of Lancaster’s centenary celebrations. This specially commissioned statue, symbolising Our Lady of Lourdes, the patron of our Diocese, has journeyed to every Catholic school on the Fylde Coast. The statue will remain with us in school and each class will engage in reflection, encouraging prayer and deepening devotion to Mary, over the coming weeks.

Well done Year 5 for helping make this event special!

Golden tickets and Extreme Reading Challenge

Just a reminder that during the Summer term, the whole school will continue taking part in our reading challenge. Children will receive a golden ticket each time they read and get their reading diary signed three times. At the end of each half term, during our celebration assembly, we will draw a golden ticket from each class’s box, and one winner from each class will receive a reward. Please encourage your child to read regularly and bring in their signed reading diary so they can continue collecting their golden tickets. Good luck everyone!

Thank you to all those who have already taken part in our  Extreme reading challenge, we now have a display in school and photos can be viewed on the website.

If you’ve not yet taken part, please send your photos to admin@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk so we can display these in school and on our website. We can't wait to see your pictures! Thank you for your support!

Performing at the Royal Shakespeare Company!

Well done to Natalia from Year 5 and Emilia, Harriet and James from Year 6 who have gone to Stratford this week to perform King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Other Place. It has been an amazing opportunity for them to perform alongside other children from the local High Schools ,who are part of our Associate School Partnership, in Shakespeare’s home town. Well done all of you! 🎭👏🏻⭐️

Our award winners:   

Golden Award (LEARN)  - Aibhin

Writing Award - Eleena

Maths Award - Emily

Our learning this week…

In English we looked at an extract from the text and identified effective verbs and adverbs and had a go at changing them for more powerful ones. We’ve also explored characters from the story and identified their characteristics.

The focus of our maths this week has been adding and subtracting decimals to solve problems.

In RE the children worked with Mrs Mannix to prepare for today’s receiving of the Mary statue from Holy Family.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Hallie Jayne, Gabriel and William. The theme of their liturgy was Eat and Be Satisfied. The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ celebrates Jesus’ greatest gift to us - His very self in the Blessed Sacrament. The prayers this week lead the children towards Jesus in a new way, in the Blessed Sacrament (Adoration).

The crowds followed him and welcomed Jesus Luke 9:11b-17

In Science we have looked at the changes that take place in old age.

In art we have worked on our own drawings inspired by the work of Chris Ofili.

In Spanish we have learnt new vocabulary for items of food and drink in the cafe.

The new BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition started this week and runs till the 18th July. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1154 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:  

1st Ronnie       Year 6 13332

2nd         Macie     Year 4 8791

3rd Matilda Year 4 5979

4th Elsie       Year 6 3773

5th Zachary Year 5 3256

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Nintendo Switch 2 This free guide explores the Nintendo Switch 2, covering how its new features – from GameChat to a plug-in camera – could affect children’s privacy, spending, and screen time.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Wednesday 2nd July Year 5 St Bede’s Taster day. We’ll be there for the day and be back in time for the end of the school day. Year 5 will need to wear full school uniform and bring a water bottle and a packed lunch (normal school packed lunch rules apply). Bring a coat for break times as we will be outside.

Friday 4th July  Year 5 Drumming Showcase 11am to 12 pm. Change of date due to unforeseen circumstances - we're sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, and hope you're still able to join us at your child's performance.

Monday 7th July Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre for end of Tales Retold project - please see email sent to you last week. This included a link where you can get free tickets to watch Year 5’s reflection on the stage.

Tuesday 8th July (9.15am start) KS2 Sports Day - provisional subject to weather🤞🏻. (Please note KS1’s will be the day before.)

Thursday 10th July (9.15am start) Alternative KS2 Sports Day if it doesn’t go ahead on the 8th July. (KS1’s alternative date Wednesday 9th.)

Friday 11th July Year 6 Leavers mass whole school and families in church.

Friday 11th July Summer fair 3.15pm until 5.30pm

Thursday 17th July Our Lady’s Got Talent Contest.

Friday 18th July Close for Summer 3.15pm

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Psalm 8:1

Our award winners:  

Golden Award (CARE)  -  Leo

Writing Award - Matilda

Maths Award - Beaux

Our learning this week…

In English we’ve explored new vocabulary and synonyms for words in our text. We’ve begun to look at character and also the use of figurative language within the text to give it a more richness and depth, often comparing things to other things (using similes) to create an image in the reader's mind..

The focus of our maths this week has been identifying percentages and expressing equivalent fractions and decimals.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Hallie Jayne, Gabriel and William. The theme of their liturgy was The Work of God’s Fingers (Psalm 8:1,3-8)

The Psalmist wrote that God is great - because He is! This week’s prayer created an opportunity for us to reflect on and explore the many ways that God is amazing, and to offer our own praises to God.

“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Psalm 8:1

In Science we have looked at growth in children and have investigated different ways children’s growth is measured.

In art we have worked on our own drawings inspired by the work of Chris Ofili.

In Spanish we have learnt new vocabulary for items of food and drink in the cafe.

The new BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition started this week and runs till the 18th July. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 668 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:  

1st Macie       Year 4 8346

2nd         Matilda     Year 4 5359

3rd Finlay Year 4 3779

4th Zachary       Year 4 2962

5th Annie Year 5 2109

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about YouTube Kids This guide examines YouTube Kids, a child-friendly version of the video-sharing giant, and explores the risks that may still persist despite the platform’s safety-focused design.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Wednesday 2nd July Year 5 St Bede’s Taster day. More details to follow.

Friday 4th July  Year 5 Drumming Showcase 11am to 12 pm. Change of date due to unforeseen circumstances - we're sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, and hope you're still able to join us at your child's performance.

Monday 7th July Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre for end of Tales Retold project - more details as they become available.

Tuesday 8th July (9.15am start) KS2 Sports Day - provisional subject to weather🤞🏻. (Please note KS1’s will be the day before.)

Thursday 10th July (9.15am start) Alternative KS2 Sports Day if it doesn’t go ahead on the 8th July. (KS1’s alternative date Wednesday 9th.)

Friday 11th July Year 6 Leavers mass whole school and families in church.

Friday 11th July Summer fair 3.15pm until 5.30pm

Thursday 17th July Our Lady’s Got Talent Contest.

Friday 18th July Close for Summer 3.15pm

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

‘Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”’ John 20:19-23

Last weekend, the church celebrated the Feast of  Pentecost. Pentecost is one of the most important feast days of the year that concludes the Easter season and celebrates the beginning of the Church. Pentecost occurs 50 days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and ten days after his ascension into heaven. When the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles, they preached the Good News of Jesus Christ. Miraculously, people of many different languages and nations could understand the Apostles in their own languages. This miracle reflected God’s desire for the Gospel to be preached to all, and for all the peoples of the earth to be united in faith.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Alexander, Callum and Jackson. The theme of their liturgy was Every Good Tree Bears Fruit Guided by the help, inspiration and encouragement of the Holy Spirit, the Church grew and the disciples were recognised by their love for one another; the fruits of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives. Today, we will focus on the fruits of the Holy Spirit as we begin to recognise those fruits in our actions and the actions of others.

‘Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”’ John 20:19-23

Golden tickets and Extreme Reading Challenge

Just a reminder that during the Summer term, the whole school will continue taking part in our reading challenge. Children will receive a golden ticket each time they read and get their reading diary signed three times. At the end of each half term, during our celebration assembly, we will draw a golden ticket from each class’s box, and one winner from each class will receive a reward. Please encourage your child to read regularly and bring in their signed reading diary so they can start collecting their golden tickets.

We’re also asking the children to take part in our extreme reading challenge. Your challenge is to take a photo of yourself reading somewhere extreme (but safe!) and send it in to school. Thank you to those who have already sent theirs in - these will be uploaded soon to the website at the location shown in the photo below.

Please send your photos to admin@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk so we can display these in school and on our website. We can't wait to see your pictures! Thank you for your support!

An Ode to Blackpool

Earlier in the year, we took part in a workshop with the Royal Shakespeare company. During the workshop, the children wrote lines as an ode to Blackpool. This week, the RSC sent us the finished version of our very own Ode to Blackpool. 👏🏻😊

Our award winners:  

Golden Award (RESPECT)  - Year 5 for their respectful behaviour during our visit to St Mary’s. Well done!

Writing Award - Year 5 for working together in groups to sequence illustrations by using adverbials of time, place and manner.

Maths Award - William Kirby

Our learning this week…

In English this week, we have been sequencing illustrations from the text and using adverbials of manner, place and time to help the flow of the story.

The focus of our maths this week has been identifying, comparing and ordering decimal numbers.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the story of the Prodigal son.

In science, we were visited by the school nurses who came to talk to the children about the changes that affect boys and girls through puberty.

In computing the children have continued to use the coding program called Scratch to create music.

In DT, the children tested their Truss bridges made from spaghetti. Alexander, Callum and Jackson won the challenge by making a bridge which could hold over 300 cubes and was still standing. Well done boys!

The new BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition started this week and runs till the 18th July. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 5th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 326 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Matilda       Year 4 2550

2nd Finlay     Year 4 1651

3rd Priya Year 4 977

4th Annie       Year 4 939

5th Martha Year 5  799

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Generative AI Safety This free guide explores the risks and rewards of children using generative AI tools, highlighting dangers such as misinformation, privacy breaches, and reduced critical thinking, while offering essential tips for safe, positive use.

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Emojis This free guide explores the modern digital language of emojis, revealing how they can subtly shape young people’s communication - and sometimes conceal deeper concerns.

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Ofcom Media Reports 2025 This special edition unpacks key findings from Ofcom’s 2025 Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report on children’s digital habits, spotlighting trends in screen use, gaming, social media, and attitudes towards online safety.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Friday 20th June – own clothes for chocolate donation to our PTFA summer fair

Wednesday 2nd July Year 5 St Bede’s Taster day. More details to follow.

Friday 4th July  Year 5 Drumming Showcase 11am to 12 pm. Change of date due to unforeseen circumstances - we're sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, and hope you're still able to join us at your child's performance.

Monday 7th July Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre for end of Tales Retold project - more details as they become available.

Tuesday 8th July (9.15am start) KS2 Sports Day - provisional subject to weather🤞🏻. (Please note KS1’s will be the day before.)

Thursday 10th July (9.15am start) Alternative KS2 Sports Day if it doesn’t go ahead on the 8th July. (KS1’s alternative date Wednesday 9th.)

Friday 11th July Year 6 Leavers mass whole school and families in church.

Friday 11th July Summer fair 3.15pm until 5.30pm

Thursday 17th July Our Lady’s Got Talent Contest.

Friday 18th July Close for Summer 3.15pm

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

We are Super Scientists!

We are the Edina Trust’s Bulb Project Runner ups for England!!

As you already know, Year 5 were involved with the Edina Trust’s bulb project this year. During the year, we planted daffodil and crocus bulbs and were required to submit rainfall and temperature data daily and data for each bulb once it had flowered. We are delighted to have been picked as the runner up winners for England and we’ve won some pencils, seeds and vouchers which can be used for Science resources in school . The data that we collected has been collated, alongside data from all the other schools that took part, to contribute to finding out the effects of climate change. Well done Year 5!

Some of Year 5 also took part in a bulb cast video, explaining what we’ve done during the project and in return we were awarded our own clapperboard! 🎬

Our Golden Ticket winners…📚

During this half term, children in each year group have been awarded a golden ticket for each three times they have read. Today, each class drew a golden ticket winner in assembly and our Golden Ticket winner for reading this half term was Stephen and he, along with the other winners, have won a prize which has kindly been donated by the PTFA. Well done Stephen! 📚🏆⭐️👏🏻😊 

Remember, next half term we will continue to give golden tickets for every three times you read and we’ll have another golden ticket draw at the end of next term! Good luck!

Our Reading Champions…📚

Well done to our reading champions this half term who all completed bookmarks for reading regularly at home. 📚👏🏻 I hope to see more of you next half term!

Extreme Reading Challenge

Continuing with our focus on reading across school, we have a challenge for the children! Reading is one of the most valuable skills we teach children, and it can be a magical adventure when we bring creativity and fun into the mix. One exciting way to encourage pupils to read is through extreme reading challenges – taking books to unusual places or reading in imaginative ways. Where is the most interesting place you have ever read a book? Whether it is up a tree or on top of a mountain, we want your photos! Your challenge is to take a photo of yourself reading somewhere extreme (but safe!) and send it in to school. Please send your photos to admin@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk so we can display these in school and on our website. We can't wait to see your pictures! Thank you for your support!

Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 Competition

Well done to Aibhin, who took part in The Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 competition at Montgomery Academy on Tuesday. She lit up the stage with her lovely singing and great energy. A big well done to Ava in Year 4 too! Mrs Ormerod and I were so proud of both of them, they performed beautifully! 👏🏻🎤🎶 

Our award winners:  

Golden Award  - Willow  This week she leaves us to go to pastures new. We are really sad to see her go, but we wish her well in her new school and hope she’ll keep in touch. We’ll miss you Willow! 😢

Writing Award - Conleth

Maths Award - Florence

Our learning this week…

In English this week, the focus has been on writing expanded noun phrases, similes and metaphors to describe King Kong.

The focus of our maths this week has been decimals and finding equivalent fractions.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Aibhin, Beaux and Conleth. The theme of their liturgy was Pilgrims Who Pray. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus gives His ‘new’ commandment - to love others as He has loved us. Jesus loved us as much as it’s possible to love someone - He gave His very life out of love for each of us. These prayers help us to recognise the power and responsibility of intercessory prayer: one of the most loving and powerful things we can do for others is pray for them.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 

John 13: 34-35

In geography, the children continued to research the River Nile.

In computing the children have begun to make a Space themed music soundtrack using the coding program Scratch.

In DT, we made Truss bridges from spaghetti and have begun to test them.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the end of today.

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1402 points (school average score).

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Matilda       Year 4 21900

2nd Priya     Year 4 21614

3rd Annie Year 4 14074

4th Ava                Year 4 9656

5th Finlay Year 4   8417

Congratulations to Matilda who is Our Lady’s TTTRS champion once again! Well done to all those from Year 4 on our leaderboard too! 👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Violent Content Online This free guide explores the troubling rise in children’s exposure to violent online content, unpacking the emotional, behavioural and social risks – and how trusted adults can help.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Thursday 12th June Puberty talk with the School nurse

Friday 13th June Year 5 St Mary’s Taster day.  The coach will leave school at 8.45am, so the children need to be in school by 8.30am. We will be there until 2.00pm when we will return to school. The children will need to wear their full school uniform and will need to bring a packed lunch for the day and their water bottle (usual school packed lunch rules apply).

Till June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Wednesday 2nd July Year 5 St Bede’s Taster day. More details to follow.

Monday 7th July Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre for end of Tales Retold project - more details as they become available.

Tuesday 8th July (9.15am start) KS2 Sports Day - provisional subject to weather🤞🏻. (Please note KS1’s will be the day before.)

Thursday 10th July (9.15am start) Alternative KS2 Sports Day if it doesn’t go ahead on the 8th July. (KS1’s alternative date Wednesday 9th.)

Friday 11th July Year 6 Leavers mass whole school and families in church.

Friday 11th July 2.30pm – Year 5/6 Drumming Showcase (2 guests per child only)

Thursday 17th July Our Lady’s Got Talent Contest.

Friday 18th July Close for Summer 3.15pm

Well done for all your hard work Year 5! We hope you all have a lovely half term holiday and we’ll see you all back on the Monday 9th June for your last half term in Year 5.

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

“ My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27

Pig-Heart Boy

Yesterday, we all had a great time at Blackpool Grand Theatre watching the performance of Pig-Heart Boy. It was definitely worth watching and it was interesting to see how they adapted it for the stage. The children thoroughly enjoyed watching it and we look forward to next half term’s Tales Retold workshops where we will be preparing something, based on this story, to take to the Grand Theatre stage. We’re excited!

Extreme Reading Challenge

Continuing with our focus on reading across school, we have a challenge for the children! Reading is one of the most valuable skills we teach children, and it can be a magical adventure when we bring creativity and fun into the mix. One exciting way to encourage pupils to read is through extreme reading challenges – taking books to unusual places or reading in imaginative ways. Where is the most interesting place you have ever read a book? Whether it is up a tree or on top of a mountain, we want your photos! Your challenge is to take a photo of yourself reading somewhere extreme (but safe!) and send it in to school. Please send your photos to admin@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk so we can display these in school and on our website. We can't wait to see your pictures! Thank you for your support!

Golden tickets for reading!

A reminder that next week is the last chance to earn golden tickets for reading this half term as part of our reading challenge. Children will receive a golden ticket each time they read and get their reading diary signed three times. Next Friday, during our celebration assembly, we will draw a golden ticket from each class’s box, and one winner from each class will receive a reward. Please encourage your child to read regularly and bring in their signed reading diary so they can collect their golden tickets. Thank you for your support.

Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 Competition

The Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 competition will be held on the evening of Tuesday 20th May at Montgomery Academy in Bispham. If you’d like to show your support, please come and cheer on Aibhin and Ava (Year 4), who will be representing  our school! 👏🏻🎤🎶  Good luck!

Our award winners:  

Golden Award (CARE)  - Ellenie

Writing Award - Jacob

Maths Award - Gabriel

Our learning this week…

In English this week, we have begun to look at our new text, King Kong, which will be the focus of our writing unit. Before the text was revealed, the children predicted the story from picture clues from the given text. They’ve also had a go at inferring character based on clues from the text.

The focus of our maths this week has been multiplying mixed numbers by integers and finding fractions of a number.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the story of the Prodigal son.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Jacob, Matilda and Stephen. The theme of their liturgy was Hear His Voice….Prayer is a two-way communication between us and God that involves speaking and listening. Jesus invites us to listen to His voice and this is a skill that can be developed. When we listen to Jesus, He leads us to the Father through the Holy Spirit.

“ My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27-30

In geography, the children have begun to research the River Nile.

In computing the children have begun to learn and tinker with a coding program called Scratch to create music.

In DT, we have continued to make Truss bridges from spaghetti.

The new BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition started this week and runs till the 23rd May. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1300 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Priya       Year 4 20656

2nd Matilda     Year 4 20343

3rd Annie Year 4 13838

4th Ava                Year 4 9606

5th Elsie Year 4   5837

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Minecraft This free guide explores Minecraft – a gaming favourite for children and adults alike. It highlights the potential risks, including online strangers, in-game bullying and unintended spending.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Thursday 12th June Puberty talk with the School nurse

Till June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Free family workshop at Blackpool Grand Theatre

On Saturday 14th June, John Hegley is running a free children and family workshop at Blackpool Grand Theatre. If you’re interested, please click on the link for further details and the booking contact.

Free workshop link

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Even in the darkest times, hope remains.

We are published poets!

Well done Year 5 for becoming published poets! The books arrived today and the children were so pleased to see their efforts in print alongside other youg talented poets across the country.

VE Day Celebrations

Yesterday we celebrated the 80th anniversary of VE Day in school. Everyone looked great dressed in red, white and blue and our school was decked out with flags. We enjoyed an extended play all together on the KS2 playground and listened to music from that time. To help the children understand the significance of VE Day, in class we listened to the radio broadcast from Winston Churchill and watched videos and found out about the wonderful celebrations that followed. 

Exciting News from the Vatican!

We are pleased to share that a new Pope, Pope Leo XIV, has been chosen to lead the Catholic Church. This is a very special moment for Catholics around the world. The new Pope will continue the important work of spreading messages of love, kindness, and peace.

Let’s keep him in our thoughts and prayers as he begins his new journey.

Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 Competition

Well done to everyone who took part in our auditions, it was a really difficult decision! Congratulations to Aibhin and to Ava in Year 4, who will be representing our school! 👏🏻🎤🎶 Good luck!

The Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 competition will be held on the evening of Tuesday 20th May at Montgomery Academy in Bispham. If you’d like to show your support, please come and cheer them on!

Golden tickets for reading!

A reminder that during the Summer term, the whole school will be taking part in a reading challenge. Children will receive a golden ticket each time they read and get their reading diary signed three times. At the end of each half term, during our celebration assembly, we will draw a golden ticket from each class’s box, and one winner from each class will receive a reward. Please encourage your child to read regularly and bring in their signed reading diary so they can start collecting their golden tickets. Thank you for your support.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (RESPECT)  - Olivia

Writing Award - Leo

Maths Award - Stephen

Our learning this week… 

In English this week, we have looked at the relationships between Prospero and Ariel and Prospero and Caliban and have debated this. The children have written a diary entry and a letter in role to share their viewpoints.

The focus of our maths this week has been solving problems involving adding and subtracting fractions.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the Parable of the Lost Son. As this is the month of Mary, the children also made their own finger rosary during this lesson. 

In geography the children have learnt about the pollution of rivers and their effect on the environment.

In DT, we have explored how triangles can be used to reinforce bridges and the children had fun making a Truss bridge from spaghetti.

The new BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition started this week and runs till the 23rd May. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1156 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Matilda Year 4 19793

2nd Priya Year 4 18574

3rd Annie Year 4 13408

4th Ava                Year 4 9269

5th Elsie Year 4   4291

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Making Friends Online This free guide looks at the challenges of children forming friendships online, highlighting key risks such as grooming, privacy concerns and inappropriate content — and offers tips for staying safe.

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about ZEPETO This free guide explores ZEPETO, a fast-growing virtual world app. It highlights the associated risks for younger users, such as chatting with strangers, exposure to inappropriate content, and spending real money.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Thank you to everyone who has paid. Please visit Parent pay if you still need to pay for this trip. Thank you for your support.

Thursday 12th June Puberty talk with the School nurse

Till June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Inclusive Rugby League Training Sessions

Blackpool Scorpions Rugby who are launching Inclusive Rugby League training sessions for free. Please see the flyers for more details. Link to download the flyers

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

St. Joseph was a just man, a tireless worker, the upright guardian of those entrusted to his care. May he always guard, protect and enlighten families. Pope John Paul II

First Encounters of Shakespeare’s The Tempest

On Monday we had a great afternoon at the Grand Theatre watching The Tempest. The children really enjoyed the performance and represented our school and class beautifully.

Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker

Yesterday, the whole school went to church for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker. This celebration of St. Joseph the Worker was a response from the Church, instituted by Pope Pius XII exactly seventy years ago in the Year of Our Lord 1955, to mark the occasion of May Day, also known as Labour Day. Saint Joseph the Worker is revered for his dedication to labor and his humble example of providing for his family. Some key quotes about him emphasize his role as a model worker, protector, and intercessor. These quotes highlight his virtues, such as righteousness, obedience, and the value of work, and encourage others to follow his example. Year 5 accompanied their buddies to church and as usual behaved well and were great role models.

VE Day Celebrations - 8th May 2025

On Thursday 8th May Our Lady’s will join the rest of the nation in remembering the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. It is fundamental that our children understand what this day means and understand the sacrifices of those that have gone before them.

To mark this day we are asking all of our children to come to school dressed in red, white and blue - please do not feel you have to buy anything special - most of our uniform consists of these colours - we just want to mark the day out as something special and wearing different colours will help the children to understand that.

We will have different activities going on throughout the day in each of the classes to help the children understand the significance of VE Day and your support with this would be much appreciated.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (LEARN)  - Florence

Writing Award - Zachary

Maths Award - Aibhin

Our learning this week… 

In English this week, we have discussed Miranda’s response to the backstory and have written a diary and a message in a bottle.

The focus of our maths this week has been solving problems involving adding and subtracting fractions.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people.

In geography the children have learnt about the importance of rivers and their uses.

In computing, we have been looking at online reputation and learning that online information about someone is often not always factually true.

In DT, we have explored how to reinforce a beam bridge to improve its strength.

The new BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition started this week and runs till the 23rd May. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 2nd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1002 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Priya Year 4 16036

2nd Matilda Year 4 13687

3rd Annie Year 4 11178

4th Ava         Year 4 9034

5th Elsie Year 4   3308

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻🏆

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Making Friends Online This free guide looks at the challenges of children forming friendships online, highlighting key risks such as grooming, privacy concerns and inappropriate content — and offers tips for staying safe.

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about ZEPETO This free guide explores ZEPETO, a fast-growing virtual world app. It highlights the associated risks for younger users, such as chatting with strangers, exposure to inappropriate content, and spending real money.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Tuesday 6th May Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 auditions. You will need a backing track.

Thursday 8th May VE Day remembering the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day - wear red, white and blue.

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. 

Thursday 12th June Puberty talk with the School nurse

Till June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” Dr Seuss

A reminder that during the Summer term, the whole school will be taking part in a reading challenge. Children will receive a golden ticket each time they read and get their reading diary signed three times. At the end of each half term, during our celebration assembly, we will draw a golden ticket from each class’s box, and one winner from each class will receive a reward. Please encourage your child to read regularly and bring in their signed reading diary so they can start collecting their golden tickets. Thank you for your support.

Today the school celebrated reaching our total running distance from our school to The Vatican in Rome, which is a distance of 2180km. We now wish Miss Heim Sarac, who is running for CAFOD,  well for Sunday at the London Marathon Event. 

We would ask parents to send in their final sponsorship by paying the total amount through your child’s parentpay account - ‘Run to Rome for CAFOD’ - in order for proceeds to be sent directly to CAFOD as we are now a cashless school. Thank you for your support. Good luck Miss Heim Sarac!

Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 Competition

KS2 have been invited to audition to be part of this competition, which has been organised by the Blackpool Music Service. In school, we are going to be holding auditions at lunch time on Tuesday the 6th of May. If your child would like to enter the competition, they will need to choose an age appropriate pop song (songs from Musicals will not be accepted), which they can sing from memory and will need a backing track (no vocals) of the pop song. Good luck everyone! 🎶🎤

If successful, the Blackpool Sings Pop 2025 competition will be held on the evening of Tuesday 20th May at Montgomery Academy in Bispham.

Our award winners:

Golden Award (CARE)  - Callum

Writing Award - Ellenie

Maths Award - Emily

Our learning this week… 

In English this week, we have written a description of the storm which takes place at the beginning of  Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. We’ve read and worked to understand Prospero’s speech at the beginning of Act 1 scene 2 where he tells his daughter, Miranda, their backstory of how they came to the island.

The focus of our maths this week has been subtracting fractions.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people.

In geography we have continued to learn about the journey of a river.

In computing, we have been looking at online reputation and learning that online information about someone is often not always factually true.

In Spanish, we’ve continued to look at number and have practised phrases on the topic of family.

The new BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition started this week and runs till the 23rd May. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 1st place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 897 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Ava Year 4 8114

2nd Priya Year 4 7537

3rd Matilda Year 4 7493

4th Annie Year 4 3993

5th Finlay Year 4   1100

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻🏆

Spider plant update

Thanks to Hallie-Jayne, who updated us with a photo of her spider plant. Great to see it doing so well. Hope all of yours are doing well too! 

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Making Friends Online This free guide looks at the challenges of children forming friendships online, highlighting key risks such as grooming, privacy concerns and inappropriate content — and offers tips for staying safe.

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about ZEPETO This free guide explores ZEPETO, a fast-growing virtual world app. It highlights the associated risks for younger users, such as chatting with strangers, exposure to inappropriate content, and spending real money.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Monday 28th April Year 5 & Year 6 trip to  the Grand Theatre to watch the RSC First Encounters of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. We will leave school after lunch at 12.45pm and we expect to arrive just after the end of the school day - dependent on traffic. Payment of £3 for the trip can be made on Parent Pay. Thank you to those who have already paid.

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. 

Till June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Happy Easter! 🐣

Here we are at the end of another term!  Take a look below at what the children have been up to this week and their achievements. I hope that over the Easter holiday you are all able to enjoy some down time and have a wonderful, happy and Holy Easter with your families. 🐣

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

Book Lent challenge complete!📚

I am so delighted with all of Year 5 this week for completing their Lent challenge book. It’s been wonderful to see how enthused they’ve been and I’m impressed with how many children have read more than one of our challenge books. Yesterday afternoon, each group sat together to celebrate and talk about the book we had read over a sweet treat. It was really lovely to chat about the book and share our thoughts and opinions. Well done Year 5, I’m so proud of you all!

During this half term, the children have been awarded a golden ticket for each three times they have read and for each Lent book they completed. Yesterday, we drew our golden ticket winner,            , and also rewarded  our super reading champion, Aibhin, who completed all our challenge books and has read an incredible amount by regularly reading for over an hour each day. Well done both of you! 📚🏆⭐️👏🏻😊

As a school, we are always looking for ways to improve children’s engagement with reading and this last half term, more children in Year 5 have been reading regularly as part of our Lent challenge, so during the Summer term, the whole school will be taking part in a reading challenge. Children will receive a golden ticket each time they read and get their reading diary signed three times. At the end of each half term, during our celebration assembly, we will draw a golden ticket from each class’s box, and one winner from each class will receive a reward. Please encourage your child to read regularly and bring in their signed reading diary so they can start collecting their golden tickets. Thank you for your support.

Our Reading Champions…📚

Well done to our reading champions this half term who all completed bookmarks for reading regularly at home. 📚👏🏻 I hope to see more of you next half term!

Our Good Friday liturgy

Yesterday, Year 5 led the whole school in a liturgy about Good Friday, the crucifixion of Jesus, through the Stations of the cross. This part of the Easter story is a difficult one to tell, as it is the saddest part of the Easter story, but Year 5 were able to reflect on the events so beautifully and showed great reverence - we were so proud of them!

We completed our Run to Rome Sponsored Event for CAFOD

As you know, as a school we are running the distance from our school to The Vatican in Rome, which is a distance of 2180km. Year 5 and Year 6 were a given a target of 30 laps each to run and last week, they completed all their laps, running together to complete an amazing 1729 laps!  🏃🏻🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏼‍♂️👏🏻🥳

On Friday 25th April the school will celebrate reaching our total and will be sending Miss Heim Sarac, who is running for CAFOD ,  off on her London Marathon Event. 

We would ask parents to collect sponsorship from friends and family and then pay the total amount through your child’s parentpay account. This event will be added to parentpay account ‘Run to Rome for CAFOD’ in order for proceeds to be sent directly to CAFOD as we are now a cashless school. Please can all sponsorship forms be returned by Tuesday 22nd April 2025. Thank you for your support.

CAFOD came into class on Monday to share more about the Jubilee Year, the work that CAFOD do and how the money the children raise will go to support projects overseas.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the end of today. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 2,574 points (school average score) so far.

Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st     Matilda     Year 4 32,659. 🏆 WINNER! 🏆

2nd             Elsie                    Year 4      20,733

3rd     Annie    Year4 19,453

4th      Sienna               Year 4     18,559

5th    Priya                Year 4      17,672

Congratulations to Matilda who is Our Lady’s TTTRS champion and well done to all those from Year 4 on our leaderboard! 👏🏻
Our award winners:

Golden Award (RESPECT)  - Jacob

Writing Award - Callum

Maths Award - Natalia

Easter egg and Easter bonnets

Well done all those who took part in the egg and bonnet competitions this week, they all looked amazing! Well done to Emily, who won the egg competition with her Friends themed eggs and to Beaux and Jackson for their winning Easter bonnets!

Our learning this week…

In English this week, we have begun our new work, which will be based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest in preparation for our visit to the theatre towards the end of this half term.

If your child took part in Shakepeare club, photos from their performance have now been added to the Parent page of the website under the curriculum button and then click on the Shakespeare button.

We also welcomed Sarah and Lawrence back this week to have our Tales Retold workshop, where we worked on use of voice playing lots of fun drama games

The focus of our maths this week has been adding fractions less than 1 and greater than 1.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people and have focused on how Josephine Bakhita lived out the Beatitudes.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Alexander and William. The theme of their liturgy was You Will Never Stop Loving Me….Their prayers this week take inspiration from this week’s Gospel, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, enabling us to deepen our understanding and experience of God’s unconditional love for them.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Luke 15:20

In Spanish we’ve continued to look at number and have practised phrases on the topic of family.

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Educators Need to Know about Search Engines  This free guide highlights the risks search engines pose to children – such as exposure to inappropriate content, misinformation, and scams – and provides practical tips to help keep them safe online.We hope you find this guide informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Yesterday we went over to church for Reconciliation. Father Frank came into school the day before and asked the children to talk about a missed opportunity - a time when we should have done something, but we didn’t. It was a lovely opportunity to be able to go over to church and have some quiet time for prayer and reflection during this period of Lent. Father Frank congratulated the children at the end for being so respectful. Well done Year 5.

Our Lenten Reading challenge…

Next week, we will have our book club celebration and I’m pleased to see that so many have read their original Lent book and many have gone on to read others. Keep up the great reading, Year 5, and if you’ve yet to finish your original book, then please do so by the beginning of next week.📚

We completed our Run to Rome Sponsored Event for CAFOD

As you know, as a school we are running the distance from our school to The Vatican in Rome, which is a distance of 2180km. Year 5 were a given a target of 30 laps each to run and on Wednesday and Thursday, Year 5 completed all their laps, running alongside Year 6. 🏃🏻🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏼‍♂️👏🏻🥳

On Friday 25th April the school will celebrate reaching our total and will be sending Miss Heim Sarac, who is running for CAFOD , off on her London Marathon Event.

We would ask parents to collect sponsorship from friends and family and then pay the total amount through your child’s parentpay account. This event will be added to parentpay account ‘Run to Rome for CAFOD’ in order for proceeds to be sent directly to CAFOD as we are now a cashless school. Please can all sponsorship forms be returned by Tuesday 22nd April 2025. Thank you for your support.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (LEARN)  - Elsie

Writing Award - Matilda

Maths Award - Martha

Our learning this week…

In English this week, we have written our letters about a significant event in our model text.

The focus of our maths this week has been comparing and ordering fractions less than 1 and greater than 1.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people and have focused on how Josephine Bakhita lived out the Beatitudes.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Emily and Matilda. The theme of their liturgy was Reasons to Praise….They used last Sunday’s Psalm to inspire prayer of praise for God’s limitless love and mercy and they asked the class to write their own prayers.

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11: 25-26

In Computing the children used the Stop Motion studio app to make animations.

In Spanish we’ve continued to look at number and have practised phrases on the topic of family.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 11th April. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 2,365 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st     Matilda     Year 4 30,952

2nd             Elsie                    Year 4      19,317

3rd     Sienna    Year4 17,827

4th     Annie            Year 4 17,592

5th    Alexander                    Year 5      14,835

Well done to those on our leaderboard! 👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about Instagram. This free guide breaks down the latest risks on Instagram, including AI chatbots, scheduled messaging, and Threads. It offers practical tips for helping children stay safe on the app.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

7th April - Easter Egg Competition Deadline – all children can enter

11th April - Easter Bonnet parade in school.

11th April - Close for Easter

22nd April - School reopens

Monday 28th April Year 5 & Year 6 trip to the Grand Theatre to watch the RSC First Encounters of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Payment of £3 for the trip can be made on Parent Pay. Thank you to those who have already paid.

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Goodbye to our ducklings...

We said goodbye to our ducklings😢

Sadly, the ducklings have now gone to their new home on a farm where they will be able to wander freely with other ducklings. We’ve really enjoyed watching them grow and getting to know them and we’re really going to miss them as they all have such loveable characters. The children particularly enjoyed watching the ducklings take a paddle in their own mini paddling pool. Yesterday, they paired up with their Reception buddies to share in the joy!

Our Lenten Reading challenge…

I’m delighted with how well Year 5 have taken on this challenge. It’s been great to see so many of them reading so many books and taking their quizzes. We’ve even got some children who have almost gone through all the books in our collection - over 10 books! Please continue to encourage your child to read as much as they can and read as many of the Lenten books as they can. For each book read, they will receive a golden ticket and will also receive a golden ticket for each time they read 3 times at home. At the end of this challenge we will have our book club celebration and a golden ticket winner will be drawn and they will win a special prize. Keep up the great reading, Year 5! 📚

Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School Run to Rome Sponsored Event for CAFOD

As a school we are together going to run the distance from our school to The Vatican in Rome. We will be doing this by running laps around our field. Together we will run a distance of 2180km.

Our running club have launched the event by running 122 laps and they have pledged to run 1000 more laps.

Each class has been given a target number of laps to run - Year 5 will be running 30 each - before Friday 25th April when we will celebrate reaching our total and will be sending Miss Heim Sarac off on her London Marathon Event on. Miss Heim- Sarac is running for CAFOD  Please support us by sponsoring the run.

We would ask parents to collect sponsorship from friends and family and then pay the total amount through your child’s parentpay account. This event will be added to parentpay account ‘Run to Rome for Cafod’ in order for proceeds to be sent directly to CAFOD as we are now a cashless school. Please can all sponsorship forms be returned by Tuesday 22nd April 2025. Thank you for your support.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (CARE)  - Conleth

Writing Award - Laura

Maths Award - Eleena

Our learning this week…

In English this week, we have identified and used relative clauses and we’ve also been looking at the features the writer has used in our model text.

The focus of our maths this week has been changing improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa. We’ve also been comparing fractions less than 1 and more than 1.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people and have focused on the Beatitudes.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Luna and Jacob. The theme of their liturgy was Reasons to Praise….They used last Sunday’s Psalm to inspire prayer of praise for God’s limitless love and mercy and they asked the class to write their own prayers.

“Praise the Lord, my soul” Psalm 103:1

In Science this week we have continued to learn more about our ducklings.

In Computing the children used the Stop Motion studio app to make animations on a whiteboard.

In Spanish we’ve continued to look at number and have practised phrases on the topic of family.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 11th April. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 2112 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st     Matilda     Year 4 27543

2nd             Elsie                    Year 4      18801

3rd     Alexander    Year 5 14101

4th     Annie            Year 4 13094

5th     Frazer                    Year 4      12955

Well done to those on our leaderboard! 👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about Bluesky Social App. This free guide discusses the growing popularity of Bluesky, a public-first microblogging social media platform, and explores what parents and educators can do to ensure children's safety when using the app.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

7th April - Easter Egg Competition Deadline – all children can enter – details to follow

11th April - Easter Bonnet parade in school – details to follow

11th April - Close for Easter

22nd April - School reopens

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Meet our ducklings...

Our ducklings …

On Tuesday morning our 5 duckling eggs arrived in school and we were all very excited. Our first three ducklings hatched early Wednesday morning, then one at 10.45am during our reading time and we still wait to see if the final egg will hatch. We will enjoy looking after the ducklings till next week when they go to their new home. Over the course of the week, we will observe them as part of our Science work. Meet Ariel, Miranda, Calaban and Prospero (the names are characters from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, which we will study next month)…

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (RESPECT)  - Hallie-Jayne

Writing Award - Aibhin

Maths Award - Olivia

Our learning this week…

In English this week, we have looked at the structure and features of the model letter. We’ve also been identifying modal verbs and and their importance in establishing certainty or possibility.

The focus of our maths this week has been finding equivalent fractions of unit and non-unit fractions.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people and have focused on the work of Saint Damien.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Elsie and Oscar. The theme of their liturgy was The Transfiguration.... In the Gospel of the Transfiguration, Jesus showed His divine nature to Peter, James and John. He appeared to them physically in a way that they had never seen before and they were astonished. Elsie and Oscar challenged the children to think about how they will shine their lights like Jesus this week.

“This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” Luke 9:35

In Science this week we have looked at the life cycles of birds and reptiles. However, we have looked in more detail at the life cycle of ducks and have looked closely at the parts of an unfertilised egg and what each part is for when the egg is fertlised.

In Computing we began to tinker with the Stop Motion studio app to learn about making animations using the onion skin technique. We used playdough to have a go at making small changes to create a simple animation - it’s not as easy as it looks!

In Spanish we’ve continued to look at number and have practised phrases on the topic of family.

In art the children have completed their beautiful Sacred art on the theme of Hope for this Jubilee year.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 11th April. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1756 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st     Matilda     Year 4 25167

2nd             Elsie                    Year 4   17089

3rd     Alexander    Year 5 11154

4th     Ava             Year 4 9871

5th     Annie                     Year 4      9269

Well done to those on our leaderboard! 👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about Streamers. This free guide highlights the potential dangers children face when watching and engaging with streamers and the importance of staying informed so you can help mitigate the risks.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

21st March - be bright and fun for CAFOD – own clothes day voluntary donation

26th March Key Stage 2 Blackpool Cross County competitive team event

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

7th April - Easter Egg Competition Deadline – all children can enter – details to follow

11th April - Easter Bonnet parade in school – details to follow

11th April - Close for Easter

22nd April - School reopens

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Science week

What a fantastic week we have had! This week has been Science week and each day the children have been treated to some wonderful experiences. On Monday, we had a visit from Falconry UK and we got to meet some wonderful birds. On Tuesday, we got to see Year 6’s fashion show. Some children from Year 6 were tasked with designing outfits using recycled materials. Their outfits were truly amazing and everyone in school got to vote for the best two designs and they will go to compete with children from other schools - good luck Alexander and Harriet from Year 6! On Wednesday, the children had a talk on reptiles and got to meet some…

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (LEARN)  - Zachary

Writing Award - Brooklyn

Maths Award - Gabriel

Our learning this week…

Our Tales Retold workshop with Sarah and Lawrence was fun this week. Due to Science week, we were in the church hall. They continued to play games that developed the children’s movement and voices and they worked together to create freeze frames of different scenarios.

In our other English work this week, we have used the new vocabulary from last week along with conjunctions to create complex sentences. We have also explored the emotions and physical reactions of the characters at different points in the text.

In maths this week we’ve begun working on equivalent fractions.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people. 

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Hallie and Gabriel. The theme of their liturgy was God always.... Their liturgy encouraged us to think about lots of different ways that we can trust God because His love is always constant! When we spend time with God, it helps us in our journey to become closer to Him, and so builds our trust in God too.

‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ Luke 4:12

In Science we explored adaptation and the children had to match up different animals and their adaptations. We finished off our Science week by designing a dog for an island with a particular environment - Survival pup game. The children were given choices of features, for example, short tail or long tail, pointy ears or floppy ears, and they had to choose wisely based on the given environment. Points were awarded for each chosen feature and the dog with the best adaptations for the environment, won. Well done to William, who created the ultimate island dog 🐶🐕👏🏻🏆.

In art the children have continued to work on their Sacred art inspired by the Jubilee Year of Hope.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 11th April. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 733 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st     Matilda     Year 4 17633

2nd             Elsie                    Year 4  13574

3rd     Ava       Year 4 8219

4th     Annie             Year 4 7154

5th     Frazer                     Year 4      6351

Well done to those on our leaderboard! 👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about Roblox. This free guide highlights the potential risks of Roblox, including online encounters, inappropriate content, scams, and in-game purchases, and offers expert advice on how to mitigate these risks.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

17th March 1pm to 5.30pm parent information afternoon in school hall – booking link to follow soon

18th March - Shakespeare Club performance at Grand Theatre. Good luck everyone! 🎭

21st March - be bright and fun for CAFOD – own clothes day voluntary donation

26th March Key Stage 2 Blackpool Cross County competitive team event

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

7th April - Easter Egg Competition Deadline – all children can enter – details to follow

11th April - Easter Bonnet parade in school – details to follow

11th April - Close for Easter

22nd April - School reopens

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Beginning our Lenten journey

Lent

On Ash Wednesday we marked the start of Lent by receiving the ashes in church. Lent is a season of reflection and preparation before the celebrations of Easter. By observing the 40 days of Lent, or 46 if we count Sundays, we replicate Jesus Christ's sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for 40 days. It is a time to refocus on Jesus as we look ahead to his death on the Cross at Easter and rejoice over his miraculous return. It is a time for reflecting on what we could do differently or maybe what we could do more of or less of during this time. 

In class, the children have made their Lenten promises, linked to one of the Beatitudes, which are eight blessings recounted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Please ask your child to share with you what their Lenten promise (linked to the Beatitude "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth" ) is and encourage them to keep this promise over Lent.

Lent Reading Challenge

For Lent, I have also asked the children to take on a class reading challenge. By the end of term, we - Year 5, Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew - will read one of three books (chosen by the children). In the last week before we break up, we will celebrate our reading achievement by sharing our thoughts on the book with a book club party. Please encourage your child to read their chosen book to enable them to enjoy our book club at the end of term. You never know, some children might even go the extra mile and end up reading all three (Now there’s a challenge!). I have to add that I’m absolutely delighted…we started the challenge on Wednesday and already a number of children have finished their first book and have moved onto the next one! 📚🥳👏🏻📚

Jubilee Year of Hope

We’ve also been talking about this special Jubilee year. Pope Francis wrote a special letter to tell everyone about the Jubilee, and he gave his letter a name, “Hope Does Not Disappoint”. He wants the Jubilee of 2025 to be a special year that reminds us that hope is very important, because when we have hope we know we can always trust God to take care of us. 

When things are hard, we don’t have to be afraid because nothing can take us away from God’s love. Jesus showed us this when He died and came back to life. This gives us hope, which is like a light inside us that keeps shining, even on bad days.

The Diocese of Lancaster is inviting all schools to take part in an exciting art competition to celebrate the Jubilee of Hope. This week, Year 5 have started their piece of Sacred art, showing  one of the big Jubilee ideas, like forgiving others, being kind and fair and trusting Jesus.

World Book Day

Yesterday we celebrated World Book Day. Thanks for supporting us with this event - the children all looked amazing dressed up in the costume of their favourite book characters. We had a great day!

We started our day in Reception. It was so heartwarming watching Year 5 reading and talking to their buddies, they were all so good and Reception enjoyed listening to the stories. We also tuned into a legendary poet, author and Children’s Bookshow patron, Michael Rosen, who treated us to an inspiring online show of live poetry. The children were also given the opportunity to share their book by writing a book review to place in our book corner. 📚

Poetry success!

We heard back from our poetry competition that we entered and we’re delighted to know that most of our poems have been chosen to be published. Your child will have come home with a letter from the organisation requesting your permission and other details. The children all received certificates and are so excited at the prospect of being published poets. Well done Year 5, I’m delighted for you all! 👏🏻🥳

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (CARE)  - Year 5 (for the kindness and friendship that they have all shown their buddies this week - supporting them in mass on Wednesday and on World Book Day.)

Writing Award - Jackson

Maths Award - Beaux

Our learning this week…

In English we had our first Tales Retold workshop with Sarah and Lawrence. Year 5 had a great time playing games to encourage use of voice and movement. We then finished the session with the children working in small groups to make one word stories which will be developed next week.

In our other work the children have written have explored new language within our modelled text.

In maths this week we’ve been working on our formal methods of division.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Martha and Callum. The theme of their liturgy was The Jesus Way. Their liturgy reflected on how to be like Jesus by following His example of humility and persistence in prayer. When we get to know Him personally, we can have confidence in His love and do whatever He asks of us.

'For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.’ (Luke 6:43-44)

In Science the children took part in a live lesson to celebrate the start of Science Week. Our lesson focused on the change and adaptations of reptiles, featuring  wildlife expert, Mike Linley. 

In computing the children were introduced to animation and had a go at creatng their own 19th Century animation toys: zoetropes and flip books.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Luke from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 11th April. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 733 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st     Matilda     Year 4 14280

2nd             Elsie                    Year 4  10585

3rd   Ava     Year 4 6714

4th     Annie             Year 4 5944

5th     Frazer                     Year 4      5703

Well done to those on our leaderboard! 👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about WhatsApp. This guide details the risks associated with popular messaging app WhatsApp, and lets you know how to safeguard younger users.

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about Marvel Rivals. This free guide breaks down the risks associated with the popular multiplayer title Marvel Rivals and lets you know how best to safeguard children and young people playing the game.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

10th - 14th March Science Week in school

11th March Blackpool Catholic Schools Shared Lenten Liturgy St Kentigen’s School 6pm

17th March 1pm to 5.30pm parent information afternoon in school hall – booking link to follow soon

18th March - Shakespeare Club performance at Grand Theatre.

21st March - be bright and fun for CAFOD – own clothes day voluntary donation

26th March Key Stage 2 Blackpool Cross County competitive team event

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

7th April - Easter Egg Competition Deadline – all children can enter – details to follow

11th April - Easter Bonnet parade in school – details to follow

11th April - Close for Easter

22nd April - School reopens

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

Great work this week Year 5, well done! Have a lovely weekend! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

I say this to you who are listening. (Luke 6:27)

We’ve had a good start to this half term, well done Year 5! Thank you to all of you who took home your Edina Trust pots to look after over half term. We did have one of our mystery bulbs, which we now know is an Iris, and one crocus which bloomed over half term (and more or now beginning to) so this half term the children will continue to collect weather data and also be recording the dates that their flowers bloom and recording their height. This is all important data which will contribute to the Edina Trusts findings.

Please make sure you look at the dates for your diary at the bottom of this blog, there’s lots of things happening over this half term and in to the next one. World Book day is on next Thursday so please look at the blog below to find out how the children need to prepare.

The start of Lent is also next week and we’ll be making our Lenten promises. I’ll also be setting a Lenten book challenge for all the children to take part in this half term too. Please encourage your child to actively take part in this by reading as much as possible. Thanks.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (RESPECT)  - Luna

Writing Award - William

Maths Award - Florence

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun our new writing unit to write a letter about a significant event in the story using our text FArTHER by Grahame Baker-Smith.

In maths this week we’ve been working on our formal methods of multiplication.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people. This week they were introduced to the idea of being Mini Vinnies and have applied to take on that role. Please ask your child about them.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Florence and Olivia. The theme of their liturgy was Listen. The Gospel tells us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us. Before teaching this, Jesus says, “I say this to you who are listening.” (Luke 6:27) If we have the courage to listen seriously to Jesus’ words, we will find that they are very challenging! The girls liturgy invited the children to listen to what God is asking of us through Scripture and apply it to each moment of your day.

In Science the children have  compared the life cycles of insects and amphibians.

In computing the children have begun to decode a scoreboard program on the Micro-bit.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Luke from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games.

Our resilient move challenges for are:

• Be brave (Belonging potion)

• Make friends and mix with other people (Coping potion)

Build your resilience

How many resilient moves can you make this week? 

Use the resilient framework to identify the ones you and your family make. Resilience Framework

Thank you to Emily who has shared her resilient moves this week…

If you would like to share a photo of your child making a resilient move, then send them to our email year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will post them here each week. For example, a photo of a bike ride - the resilient move would be fresh air and exercise which comes from the basic potion on the framework. Please note: if the photo has other children on it, please ensure you have consent to share it with me. 

World Book Day Challenge!

Next week (Thursday 6th March), we will celebrate World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite book characters and bringing in our favourite books to share with each other. In addition to this, I’d like Year 5 to choose a favourite picture book they used to enjoy when they were 5 (this should be a different book to the other favourite one) and prepare a reading  to read to their Reception buddy  on the day. Year 5 should be able to share the book with confidence, enthusiasm and expression. 

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 11th April. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 733 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Matilda     Year 4 5397

2nd     Ava  Year 4  3053

3rd Matilda     Year 3 2806

4th Elsie Year 4 2599

5th Leo.           Year 5      2425

Well done to those on our leaderboard! 👏🏻

Our Lady’s have taken part in the Young Seasiders Blackpool Art Competition. Each teacher was asked to put forward two pieces of art work from their class into the exhibition, which will take place at Blackpool and the Fylde College from 4-28th March. Out of all the pieces of work, one KS1 and one KS2 winner has been chosen. The Year 5 artists’ work chosen: Olivia and Aibhin 👏🏻👏🏻. Please support them by going to see the exhibition - see flyer on the link below for details.

Young Seasiders Exhibition Letter

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about WhatsApp. This guide details the risks associated with popular messaging app WhatsApp, and lets you know how to safeguard younger users.

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about Marvel Rivals. This free guide breaks down the risks associated with the popular multiplayer title Marvel Rivals and lets you know how best to safeguard children and young people playing the game.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

28th February after school PTFA Spring Bingo event for families

5th March Whole School Mass for Ash Wednesday in church at 9.30am – families welcome to join us.

6th March World Book Day – dress up day and bring your favourite book to school. Year 5 will also need to bring a favourite story book to share with your buddy (see note about World Book day above).

10th - 14th March Science Week in school

11th March Blackpool Catholic Schools Shared Lenten Liturgy St Kentigen’s School 6pm

17th March 1pm to 5.30pm parent information afternoon in school hall – booking link to follow soon

18th March - Shakespeare Club performance at Grand Theatre.

21st March - be bright and fun for CAFOD – own clothes day voluntary donation

26th March Key Stage 2 Blackpool Cross County competitive team event

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

7th April - Easter Egg Competition Deadline – all children can enter – details to follow

11th April - Easter Bonnet parade in school – details to follow

11th April - Close for Easter

22nd April - School reopens

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

Great work this week Year 5, well done! Have a great weekend! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Safer Internet Day and a visit from the Royal Shakespeare Company!

What will I be when I grow up?

Great ambition from Year 5 today… It was so lovely to see a great variety of jobs that they want to do - doctor, vet, policeman, lawyer, singers, dancers, archaeologist, golfer, teacher, streamer, show person, gamer, footballers, fashion designers, rapper, dance teacher, cake baker, actor and engineer. You all looked great!

Safer Internet Day

On Tuesday, it was Safer Internet Day and in school we did some learning around the theme ‘Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online‘. 

We’ve looked at what the word Scam means and then did an activity which helped them to understand what a scam is, by looking at several examples, and the possible signs that something might be a scam. We’ve also looked at what ‘phishing’ is and how to spot it online.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online. Below are some links and safety guides which you may find useful:

UK Safer Internet Centre 

Tips for Parents and Carers: Keeping you and your loved ones safe online https://saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/safer-internet-day-2025/tips-for-parents-and-carers 

PARENTAL CONTROLS: Protecting young people from inappropriate online content. https://saferinternet.org.uk/online-issue/parental-controls

Internet matters.org  

See recommended online safety guides for parents:

https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/online-safety-guide-0-5-year-olds/ With so many websites and apps targeting pre-schoolers, find out the simple steps you can take to protect your young children.

https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/online-safety-guide-6-10-year-olds/ As internet use grows, learn about the steps you can make to establish positive behaviour and how you can teach your child to stay safe.

https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/online-safety-guide-11-13-year-olds/ As your child makes the important transition from primary to secondary school make sure your knowledge increases with theirs.

Activate parental controls with how-to guides https://www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls/ Parental controls can be used to manage screen time, block inappropriate content, prevent accidental spending, and keep strangers away. 

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. 

Thank you for your support.

Royal Shakespeare Company visit

Today, we were delighted to have the Royal Shakespeare company working with us this morning. Year 5 were treated to a morning of active approaches …

The children had an amazing time working with the three practitioners - a director, an actor and a representative from the RSC - sharing Shakespearian compliments, writing Odes to Blackpool and then building pictures of Blackpool using elements of Shakespeare’s play. The children were so engaged and showed just how creative, imaginative and expressive they all are - a proud two hours! Well done Year 5!

Edina plant project

Thank you for looking after your bulbs over the holidays! We are part of a science investigation led by the Edina project. Your child’s pot contains a daffodil bulb on one side (indicated by the letter d) and a crocus bulb (indicated by the letter c). Alongside temperature and rainfall that we have been measuring each day, when one of the bulbs flowers, we need to record the date it flowered and the height from the soil. The pot needs to be placed outside in the garden and checked on each day to see if it has flowered. Please do not water it.

If your flowers bloom, please record it and bring the information back to school when you return so we can upload it to the national database.

Daffodil       Date flowered ___________________ Height (mm) ________

Crocus        Date flowered ___________________ Height (mm) ________

Please bring your pot back after half term as the investigation will carry on for a few months.

If you weren’t able to take your pot over the holidays, please don’t worry - I will take all remaining pots home with me.

Thank you for your support in this.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (LEARN) - Leo

Writing Award - Jacob

Maths Award - Hallie-Jayne

Our Reading champions

Well done to our reading champions this half term, who all completed bookmarks for reading regularly at home. Let’s see if next half term we can see more reading champions. Don’t forget to keep up with your reading regularly and get your diaries signed.

Our learning this week…

In English the children planned and finished their first person narrative writing inspired by images from FArTHER by Grahame Baker-Smith.

In maths this week we’ve continued to calculate the area of shapes and comparing and estimating area.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Conleth and Eleena. The theme of their liturgy was Trust in the Lord The Gospel tells us that Simon Peter took a leap of faith when following Jesus’ instructions. Through personal prayer, the children had the opportunity to reflect on Simon Peter’s trust in Jesus.

Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” (Luke 5:10)

In Science the children have looked at the life cycles of mammals - placental, monotremes and marsupials - and have looked at their similarities and differences.

In computing the children have used the code from last week’s lesson to write their own code to turn their Microbit in to a pedometer..

In art the children have continued to work on their Alberto Giacometti inspired sculptures using modrock.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Luke from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games.

World Book Day Challenge!

On the 6th March, we will celebrate World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite book characters and bringing in our favourite books to share with each other. In addition to this, I’d like Year 5 to choose a favourite picture book they used to enjoy when they were 5 (this should be a different book to the other favourite one) and prepare a reading to read to their Reception buddy on the day. Year 5 should be able to share the book with confidence, enthusiasm and expression.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 14th February. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 2056 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Matilda Year 4 40527⭐️🏆 Champion 🏆⭐️

2nd Ava Year 4 34928

3rd Leo Year 5 13309

4th Harriet Year 6 13096

5th Matilda Year 3  13006

Well done to Matilda in Year 4, who is our Times Table Rock Star Champion this half term. 👏🏻🏆 A big well done to those on our leaderboard too! 👏🏻

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

25th February School reopens

27th February Blackpool Symphony Orchestra musician workshop (invite only)

28th February after school PTFA Spring Bingo event for families

5th March Whole School Mass for Ash Wednesday in church – families welcome to join us.

6th March World Book Day – dress up day and bring your favourite book to school. Year 5 will also need to bring a favourite story book to share with your buddy (see note about World Book day above).

10th - 14th March Science Week in school

11th March Blackpool Catholic Schools Shared Lenten Liturgy St Kentigen’s School 6pm

17th March 1pm to 5.30pm parent information afternoon in school hall – booking link to follow soon

26th March Key Stage 2 Blackpool Cross County competitive team event

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

Another great half term Year 5, well done! Hope you all have a wonderful half term break. See you all on the 25th February!

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Oracy Symposium

Oracy Symposium

On Monday, Year 5 took part in the Blackpool Grand Theatre’s first ever Oracy Symposium with other schools across Blackpool and Fylde. There were Professors from Durham University and members of DebateMate who worked with the children in workshops to develop their oracy skills. They had a workshop on accent and dialect, one on debating skills and one on youth voice outside the classroom. The children worked really hard and I was really proud of how they all engaged in the activities with great enthusiasm and respect. Well done Year 5!

Dance club at Schools Alive

Well done to our Dance club who performed at the Winter Gardens last night. Mrs Ormerod was so proud of the amazing work you all did and you all looked fabulous! 👏🏻⭐️😊

Please see the link for photos from last night…https://animoto.com/play/XYKcNhVwejWqx5cJb1F8TA

Our award winners: 

Golden Award - Laura

Writing Award - Willow

Maths Award - William

Our learning this week…

In English they’ve continued to develop their use of figurative language and they’ve also been writing sentences using parenthesis indicated by commas and dashes. Lastly, they have begun to plan their big write for next wek.

In maths this week we’ve been finding the perimeter of different shapes and have begun to calculate the area of rectangles.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Aibhin and Leo. The theme of their liturgy was Listen. This week’s Gospel tells us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us. Before teaching this, Jesus says, “I say this to you who are listening.” If we have the courage to listen seriously to Jesus’ words, we will find that they are very challenging! This prayer invites us to listen to what God is asking of us through Scripture and Aibhin and Leo challenged the Year 5 to apply it to each moment of their day..

“For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations” (Luke 2:22-40)

In Science the children have thought about the process of asexual reproduction in plants. The children have investigated bulbs, runners, tubers and cuttings. We also planted a spider plant each, which had been growing off runners in our classroom and from one that I had at home. To do our bit for the planet, we have reused the milk cartons to grow our plant in.

In computing the children have used the Microbit to create a poll program.

In art the children have continued to work on their Alberto Giacometti inspired sculptures using modrock.

In Spanish the children can say how many siblings they have and say what they are called.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Luke from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games.

World Book Day Challenge!

On the 6th March, we will celebrate World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite book characters and bringing in our favourite books to share with each other. In addition to this, I’d like Year 5 to choose a favourite picture book they used to enjoy when they were 5 (this should be a different book to the other favourite one) and prepare a reading to read to their Reception buddy on the day. Year 5 should be able to share the book with confidence, enthusiasm and expression.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 14th February. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 4th place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1841 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Matilda Year 4 32723

2nd Ava Year 4 32622

3rd Harriet Year 6 13096

4th Matilda Year 3 12811

5th Leo Year 5  10444

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

Please encourage your child to practise their times tables by using TTRS so that they also contribute points to our competition. Unfortunately, only a small number of our class are actually using TTRS as part of their homework. Come on Year 5, you can do your bit!

Well done to Leo who is in our top five on the leaderboard!👏🏻

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

12th February Safer Internet Day ‘Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online‘

13th February Year 5 RSC workshop .Although the children will be dressed in their dream job outfits, please ensure approriate footwear is worn for drama based activities. Please look out for an email regarding photo permissions.

13th February Dress up day - What will I be when I grow up? School Council have organised the day. Come dressed in your dream job £1 donation to launch ourCafod fund via parentpay

13th February School closes for half term 3.15pm

25th February School reopens

27th February Blackpool Symphony Orchestra musician workshop (invite only)

28th February after school PTFA Spring Bingo event for families

5th March Whole School Mass for Ash Wednesday in church – families welcome to join us.

6th March World Book Day – dress up day and bring your favourite book to school. Year 5 will also need to bring a favourite story book to share with your buddy (see note about World Book day above).

10th - 14th March Science Week in school

11th March Blackpool Catholic Schools Shared Lenten Liturgy St Kentigen’s School 6pm

17th March 1pm to 5.30pm parent information afternoon in school hall – booking link to follow soon

26th March Key Stage 2 Blackpool Cross County competitive team event

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

Great work this week Year 5, well done! Have a great weekend! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (RESPECT) - Gabriel

Writing Award - Stephen 

Maths Award - Emily

Our learning this week…

In English the children have worked on their poetry and have selected their favourite poem that they are most proud of to enter the poetry competition. The children really enjoyed selecting their poem and have neatly written it up ready for them to be sent off this week. They’re really excited! Good luck Year 5!

We’ve also been working on creating similes and metaphors.

In maths this week we’ve finished off our unit on multiplication and division and have begun our new unit on perimeter and area.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Zachary and Jackson. The theme of their liturgy was A Year of the Lord’s Favour. Inspired by Sunday’s Gospel, which introduces themes of the Jubilee Year, the boys’ prayers this week invited the children to intercede for the needs of the world and they wrote their own prayers asking God to help those who need it.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.” (Luke 4:18-19)

In science we dissected and labelled the male and female parts of the flower.

In computing we have designed animation and programmed the Micro:bit to execute it.

In art the children have continued to work on their Alberto Giacometti inspired cultures.

In Spanish we have continued to learn to ask and answer questions about our families.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Luke from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games.

The focus of our Bounce Forward (PSHE) session has been exploring their own feelings.

Build your resilience

How many resilient moves can you make this week? 

Use the resilient framework to identify the ones you and your family make. Resilience Framework

This week’s resilient move challenges are:

• Get some fresh air and exercise (Basics potion)

• Focus on the good things in life. Put your positivity glasses on. (Coping potion)

If you would like to share a photo of your child making a resilient move, then send them to our email year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will post them here each week. For example, a photo of a bike ride - the resilient move would be fresh air and exercise, which comes from the basic potion on the framework. Please note: if the photo has other children on it, please ensure you have consent to share it with me. 

World Book Day Challenge!

On the 6th March, we will celebrate World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite book characters and bringing in our favourite books to share with each other. In addition to this, I’d like Year 5 to choose a favourite picture book they used to enjoy when they were 5 (this should be a different book to the other favourite one) and prepare a reading to read to their Reception buddy on the day. Year 5 should be able to share the book with confidence, enthusiasm and expression.

Which book will you choose, Year 5?

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League competition runs till the 14th February. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1122 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Matilda Year 4 30540

2nd Ava Year 4 30235

3rd Harriet Year 6 13096

4th Matilda Year 3 12665

5th Leo Year 5  9584

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

Please encourage your child to practise their times tables by using TTRS so that they also contribute points to our competition. Unfortunately, only a small number of our class are actually using TTRS as part of their homework. Come on Year 5, you can do your bit!

Well done to Leo who is in our top five on the leaderboard!👏🏻

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

3rd February Year 5 visit to Blackpool Grand Theatre’s Oracy Symposium. We will leave just after the start of the school day and return before the end of the school day. Please wear full PE kit and bring a packed lunch and your water bottle.

6th February Dance Club Schools Alive rehearsals and evening. Good luck to our dancers!

performance

13th February Dress up day - What will I be when I grow up? School Council have organised the day. Come dressed in your dream job £1 donation to launch ourCafod fund via parentpay

13th February School closes for half term 3.15pm

25th February School reopens

27th February Blackpool Symphony Orchestra musician workshop (invite only)

28th February after school PTFA Spring Bingo event for families

5th March Whole School Mass for Ash Wednesday in church – families welcome to join us.

6th March World Book Day – dress up day and bring your favourite book to school. Year 5 will also need to bring a favourite story book to share with your buddy (see note about World Book day above).

10th - 14th March Science Week in school

11th March Blackpool Catholic Schools Shared Lenten Liturgy St Kentigen’s School 6pm

17th March 1pm to 5.30pm parent information afternoon in school hall – booking link to follow soon

26th March Key Stage 2 Blackpool Cross County competitive team event

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

A good week, Year 5, well done! Have a great weekend! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Be an inspiration

Introduction to Tales Retold

Year 5 had a great time at the Grand Theatre on Monday for our introduction to our Tales Retold project. Whilst there, the children took part in two workshops, voice and dance/movement workshops, led by practitioners who will come into school to deliver further sessions from March. The children worked hard and during the workshops and then confidently performed what they had learnt at the end of our session. Great work Year 5, I look forward to what you are all going to achieve by the end of this project in July. 😊

Our class mass

Year 5 attended mass on Thursday. During mass, Father talked to the children about being inspirational (our RE topic this half term) and challenged them to be an inspiration for their buddies this week. Well done Year 5, you all listened well throughout mass and behaved with reverence and our readers read beautifully.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (LEARN) - Aibhin

Writing Award - Olivia 

Maths Award - Jacob

Our learning this week…

In English the children have explored new vocabulary and phrases from our model text and the children have used these in their own writing. The children have also used the figurative language technique of personification to write their own personification poem.

Our focus in maths has been using the inverse and multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix on the theme of Inspirational people.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Laura and Beaux. The theme of their liturgy was What is it You Want Me to Do? The Gospel this week (John 2:1-11) shows Jesus working a miracle at a wedding in Cana. It is also about the servants who listened to Jesus and followed His instructions. The focus of the girls’ liturgy allowed the children space to listen to Jesus and to ask ‘what is it you want me to do?’

“What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” (John 2:11)

In computing we have continued to explore what a Micro:bit is and how it can be used.

In art the children have continued to look at the 3D work of Alberto Giacometti. The children have finalised their designs and have begun to make their sculpture.

In Spanish we have continued to learn to ask and answer questions about our families.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Luke from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games.

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League has a new competition, which started on Monday and runs till the 20th December. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1122 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Ava Year 4 25841

2nd Matilda Year 4 24737

3rd Harriet Year 6 13014

4th Matilda Year 3 11347

5th Leo Year 5  7804

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about TikTok. This free guide explores the potential online safety risks of TikTok, letting you know how to safeguard children and young people who use the platform.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

3rd February Year 5 visit to Blackpool Grand Theatre’s Oracy Symposium

13th February Dress up day - What will I be when I grow up?

13th February School closes for half term 3.15pm

25th February School reopens

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy. Payment for the trip can be made on Parent Pay (this can be done in instalments if you wish). Thank you to those who have already paid in full.

A good week, Year 5, well done! Have a great weekend! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”. (Luke 3:22)

In class we have been talking about the importance of reading and I’m really pleased that so many children are reading daily. As Doctor Seuss says, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Please can I ask that parents continue to encourage your child to read at home and sign their reading diary. More recently, we have noticed that some children are already not reading as regularly as they should and some children are not bringing their reading diaries to school everyday. This is such a shame and it really is having an impact on their quiz scores in school and the progress they are making. The children should be reading for at least 20 minutes a day at home. 📚 Thanks for your support in this.

Our award winners: 

Golden Award (CARE) - Matilda

Writing Award -  Martha

Maths Award - Laura

Our learning this week…

In English we have had a go at writing alliteration, describing things in a chosen illustration from the text and then the children have used this to create their own alliteration poems.

Our focus in maths has been square and cube numbers.

In RE the children have been working with Mrs Mannix

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Natalie, Willow and Stephen. The theme of their liturgy was The Beloved Son. Their prayers were from the key verse in Sunday’s Gospel “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”. These prayers helped us to reflect on what it means that Jesus is the Beloved Son of God the Father, and invites us into a deeper relationship with God. The children had written a beautiful reflection and asked the children to undertake silent prayer and think about how they will become closer to God.

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”. (Luke 3:22)

In computing we have begun to explore what a Micro:bit is and how it can be used.

In art the children have continued to look at the 3D work of Alberto Giacometti.

In Spanish we have begun to ask and answer questions about our families.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Luke from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games.

In our Bounce Forward session, we discussed feelings and emotions. We talked about the things that cause different emotions and feelings and reinforced that it’s okay to feel.... It’s how we cope with the emotion/feeling that matters.

Build your resilience

How many resilient moves can you make this week? 

Use the resilient framework to identify the ones you and your family make. Resilience Framework

This week’s resilient move challenges are:

• Get enough sleep (Basics potion)

• Be brave (Coping potion)

If you would like to share a photo of your child making a resilient move, then send them to our email year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will post them here each week. For example, a photo of a bike ride - the resilient move would be fresh air and exercise, which comes from the basic potion on the framework. Please note: if the photo has other children on it, please ensure you have consent to share it with me. 

The BEBCMAT Rock Stars Super League has a new competition, which started on Monday and runs till the 20th December. Good luck everyone!

Our school is currently in 3rd place out of 12 schools in the trust and we have scored 1122 points (school average score) so far.

This week’s Our Lady’s Top of the Rock’s Leaderboard:

1st Ava Year 4 15053

2nd Matilda Year 4 14534

3rd Harriet Year 6 12106

4th Matilda Year 3 7260

5th Leo Year 5   7139

Well done to everyone on our leaderboard this week!👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents & Educators Need to Know about TikTok. This free guide explores the potential online safety risks of TikTok, letting you know how to safeguard children and young people who use the platform.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all. Thank you.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

20th January Introduction to Tales Retold at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool. We will leave school at 12.15pm and leave the Theatre at 3.10pm so we will not be back at school until after the end of the school day. (I expect by 3.30pm.)

21st January Water Safety at swimming. The children will need to bring their swim kit and pyjamas they brought last week to finish off their water safety lesson..

3rd February Year 5 visit to Blackpool Grand Theatre’s Oracy Symposium

March – June 2025 Year 5’s in school workshops with experienced drama/dance practitioners as part of the Tales Retold project

Thursday 15th May Year 5 trip to Grand Theatre to watch Pig-Heart Boy Thursday 15th May

(Information about the above dates were sent by email last week.)

A good week, Year 5, well done! Have a great weekend! 

Mrs McVey, Mrs Hodgkiss and Miss Andrew

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.