St Pius X Catholic Primary School

This morning, Year 5 endured the heat, to travel to St John Payne for the Jewish Living Experience. This linked perfectly to our learning around how Judaism and Catholocism are connected. The children got to handle and explore a range of artefacts on a range of themes at the workshop. They explored themes such as celebrations, foods, scriptures and traditional dress.  The children all learned a great deal and were incredibly engaged throughout the session. They were helped along the way by some Year 10 RE students from St John Payne who were able to share all their knowledge of their year's learning.   'It was very enjoyable because we got to experience other objects from Judaism. I learned that they place a cloth over the Shabbat bread to keep it clean.' - Harry  'The Jewish scripture is called the Torah - it is written from right to left.' - Vinnie  'My favourite part was playing the new year horn called the Shofar. Jews play this at Rosh Hashanah to signify ...

 Today Year 2 prepared for a special visitor - Rabbi Irit. They have started to learn more about the Jewish faith, its similarities and differences with Catholicism and how they celebrate Shabbat. Questions included: What’s on the scroll on the mezuzah? Are synagogues different to churches? What do Jews do in the synagogue? Have you written using the Hebrew alphabet? What God do you believe in? What is a Torah? Rabbi Irit gave us an insight into the role of a Rabbi and even showed us how to write 'Shabbat' in Hebrew - they write from right to left and their alphabet doesn't include any vowels! She showed us her mezuzah with a tiny, handwritten scroll inside. She also showed us her Torah and explained about the 3 main sections - laws, prophets and stories/psalms. We finished by singing along to 'Shabbat, Shalom!' The children enjoyed learning about a different religion and were respectful and engaged.

  🌞 Year 1 Trip to Maldon Promenade  🌞  Tuesday was one of those magical school days the children will remember for a long time. Year 1 set off bright and early on the coach, full of excitement and chatter as we made our way to Maldon Promenade for our summer learning adventure. 🏖️ Sand, Smiles and Super Teamwork As soon as we arrived, the children headed straight for the sand pit , where they spent a happy morning digging, shaping and building sandcastles with friends. It was wonderful to see so much teamwork — children sharing buckets, helping each other build walls and proudly showing off their creations. 🚤 Sketching the Boats on the Estuary Next, the children settled along the promenade to draw the boats travelling up the estuary . They looked carefully at the shapes, colours and sails, producing some beautifully detailed pictures. Their focus and observational skills were fantastic. 👀 Eye Spy Around the Promenade We then played a lively game of Eye Spy , spot...

💻 With the recent news about the social media ban for under 16s, Year 2 were keen to discuss this and share their opinions! Our PSHE lesson was focused on how and why we use the internet so this real-life news linked perfectly! We watched BBC Newsround video listening to older children discussing their thoughts on the ban. Then we talked to our partners about what 'rules' we had at home when using devices. These included: time limits - must turn off devices at 6pm time limits - can only play online games at the weekend limited contacts - can only message family members educational - can play educational games We also talked about age limits as some children said they were allowed to use certain apps such as Facebook and Snapchat. The social-media ban is aimed at keeping children safe. This was a really important conversation to have - parents and carers please speak to your children about keeping safe online, monitoring their internet use and being available if they see someth...

 On Tuesday, Reception Class took their first school trip to Maldon, where they could link this to their learning of the seaside. The children had to build their own sandcastles and then complete observational drawings of the boats in the water. They all loved playing in the sand and worked hard to complete their drawings, really focusing on the details they could see on the boats.  We also got to see people working on their boats and watched a sail boat travel across the water. The children spotted speed boats and sail boats.  We got to eat our lunch in the park and play on the all the play equipment, which was so much fun that even the adults had to take a turn! The children all behaved incredibly throughout the day and loved being on the coach, even if it did send a few of them to sleep.  A massive thank you to all the parents who were able to support on the trip, it really does make a big difference!   

🔥Year 2 are now experts when it comes to The Great Fire of London! To consolidate their understanding, they worked in groups to create questions for Samuel Pepys! They were encouraged to create 'open' questions to elicit as much information from the interviewee before getting into character. This was a great opportunity for children to use their spoken language skills - collaborating with peers, taking turns, sympathising with the characters and drawing upon prior learning about the topic. Q: How did you feel when you saw the fire?  A: I felt worried because I could see the houses falling down and people were screaming! Q: Why did you go to the king? A: The mayor wouldn't let us use the fire-hooks. The king said we could use them to stop the fire spreading.

Our current focus is using language of direction and position. The children were tasked with a 'Build it' challenge - using a set of coloured cubes they had to follow the instructions to build a shape or tower that matched the clues. This meant using language of position (for example: next to, above, below, in between) as well as checking against all the clues! Some were quite tricky but they persevered!

🌍 In geography we have started to learn about the United Kingdom! We had interesting discussions about if the UK is a country; it is 4 countries 'united.'  Then we thought about the capital cities and their location in each country before exploring the atlases. This was a lot of fun - working together to identify the 4 countries and capital cities and then annotating them on our own maps. Year 2's understanding of the locations relative to each other has improved, and some even started to look at the seas and oceans surrounding us!  🌍

To help our Year 6s prepare for the exciting move to secondary school, we recently hosted a fantastic transition workshop run by the brilliant team at N.O.W.S. Through a mix of fun activities and mindfulness techniques, the pupils focused on boosting their confidence, celebrating their unique core skills, and building the resilience needed for their next big adventure. It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to reflect on their strengths as they get ready to take this giant leap forward. A major focus of the session was emotional well-being, reminding our Year 6s that it is completely okay to feel a mix of nerves and excitement, and that talking about our feelings is a superpower. The N.O.W.S team also taught the pupils practical calming and mindfulness techniques that they can easily use at their new desks whenever they feel overwhelmed. Well done Year 6

This week in Year 5, our RE lesson took us back thousands of years to explore the roots of two major world religions: Judaism and Catholicism . We discovered how one man, Abraham, stands at the very beginning of both faith stories as their spiritual father. To kick things off and understand what Abraham might have felt, we turned the classroom into a trust zone. We paired up for a special guiding game: one partner closed their eyes tightly, while the other had to lead them safely around the room using nothing but clear, spoken instructions. There were plenty of giggles, but it taught us a massive lesson about trust. It helped us mimic the famous story of Lech Lecha (which means "Go forth" or "Leave your land"). In the Bible and the Tanakh, God tells Abraham to leave everything he knows—his home, his family, and his country—and travel to a mysterious new land. Abraham had total, unwavering trust in God's guidance, just like our blindfolded partners trusted thei...

 This week in maths, the children have been learning how to add and subtract 1 digit numbers. We read a story, which introduced the concept of more and less, which the children followed along well with. We followed the maths in the story by using our fingers to count on or take away.  Then throughout the week, the children were introduced to first, then, now boards and used cubes to follow along the story. Finally, we learnt when the addition and subtraction signs looked like and how to write a number sentence. The children worked very hard with their maths this week and enjoyed challenging themselves to form the numbers correctly. 

  🔢 Year 1 Compare Numbers with the Same Number of Tens This week, our Year 1 mathematicians have been building on their understanding of place value to compare numbers within 100. They’ve been exploring how the tens and ones digits work together to make a number — and how we can use this knowledge to decide which numbers are greater , less , or equal . 🧮 Building on Previous Learning Earlier in the year, the children learned to use the words greater than , less than , and equal to , along with the symbols > , < , and = . This week, they’ve taken that learning further by comparing numbers that have the same number of tens but different numbers of ones . For example: 42 and 47 both have 4 tens, but 47 is greater because it has more ones. 35 and 33 both have 3 tens, but 33 is fewer because it has fewer ones. 🗣️ Using Mathematical Language We’ve been practising using the words fewer and less accurately: Fewer is used when talking about objects (e.g., “There are fewer c...