St Pius X Catholic Primary School

Our KS2 Christmas Carol Concert was a wonderful celebration to mark the festive season. P upils from Year 3 to Year 6 performed beautifully, singing a completed Christmas song and sharing the Christmas story through confident and expressive readings. The concert was filled with traditional carols, including “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which truly captured the spirit of Christmas and were enjoyed by everyone who attended. A huge thank you to Mrs Wallace for coordinating the concert and supporting the children to put on such a memorable performance. We would like to wish all our families and friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 🎄✨

 This week in P.E , Reception class were finding out different ways of stretching their bodies to make different shapes, which also linked to our maths learning this week. During maths we have been learning about triangles and circles. The children had to make sure they had enough sides to make their shapes and what they could do if there was too many of them.  "There's four of us so we can be a square"- Grace  "Our legs make the points like a triangle"- Quinn "We need to have straight arms"- Immanuel 

To celebrate the end of term and the approaching Christmas festivities, Year 2 have had a lovely day full of Christmas games, crafts and maths! We have written Christmassy acrostic poems, made Christmas-themed tangrams in maths, decorated Christmas cards and decorations, played bingo and played games together. It has been wonderful to see the children sharing, collaborating, taking turns and celebrating together. We wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Christmas has arrived early at St Pius X, and there’s been lots of excitement around school! Thanks to the generous support of our PTA and the fantastic fundraising efforts of our whole school community, we have been able to purchase new 8 LEGO sets and a range of new toys for the Year 1 chill-out area for use during lunchtime. The impact of these resources is already being seen across the school. Today, our Year 6 pupils made brilliant use of the new LEGO sets by recreating Camp Green Lake , inspired by their class novel Holes . The children showed wonderful creativity, teamwork and attention to detail as they brought the setting from the book to life. A huge thank you to everyone who helped make this possible – your support is helping to enrich learning and play for all our pupils.

  Today, during our whole school liturgy, we lit the third candle on our Advent wreath. Last week, we reflected on how Advent is a time of journeying — preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ at Christmas, and also preparing ourselves for when Jesus comes again. The third candle represents joy . This candle is traditionally lit on Gaudete Sunday , the Third Sunday of Advent. Gaudete means “rejoice” or “praise”, reminding us that even as we prepare, we do so with hope and gladness. This candle is sometimes known as the Shepherds’ Candle , because when the shepherds heard the good news that Jesus had been born, they were filled with great joy. During our liturgy, we heard the Gospel reading that speaks of John’s joy when he hears about Jesus — the man who performed miracles and whom John recognises as the Son of God. It was a powerful reminder of how joy comes from knowing and recognising Christ in our lives. As we prepare to finish for Christmas, the children have been re...

 This week Year 5 will be delving into the world of coding using micro:bits.  This tiny, codeable computer is a fantastic tool, and for our first project, we followed the classic Micro:bit lesson to turn it into a scrolling name badge.  Before we even touched the code, we learned a few key things: Algorithms: We discussed that computers are only as smart as the instructions they're given. These sets of instructions are called algorithms. Coding Language: We used Microsoft MakeCode, a block-based programming environment that lets us drag and drop code blocks—a great way to see how the logic of a program works! 'I have learned how to code and create an algorithm.' - Elodie  'I really enjoyed it, it was a fun lesson.' - Dominic  'At the start it was hard but once we had learned how to code it wa fun.' Bleu The children enjoyed exploring the coding options using the programming software and we look forward to the rest of our project this week!  Well done Year 5...

 This week, continuing on with our IPC topic we were comparing the two settlements of Skara Brea and Ur. We set up two 'archeological digs' in the hall, one for each city and laid out different evidence and artefacts. We became amateur archeoligst by commparing the two cities and thought about what the different artefacts could mean. We thought that Ur migth have city walls because they had enemies they might need to protect themselves from and that the people of Skara Brea may have used bone for their jewellery because they didn't have any other resources.  After, we wrote up all the thngs we had discovered in our IPC books. 

 The children and staff had a lovely time at our Christmas Bonanza this week. All children took part in a range of activities planned by staff.   

This week, Reception took a trip to the Post Office to post our letters to Santa. The children were able to see in a post office at where the letters go. We also had some time to explore what else is sold in a post office and the children discussed how long they thought it would take for the letters to get to Santa.  "It'll be 6 minutes"- Ethan  "2 months"- Quinn  We would also like to add a big thank you to our adult supporters who attended with us. I'm sure you could see this would not have been possible without additional adult support. 

This week in maths, our class traded in their pencils for multilink cubes to dive into the fascinating world of square numbers and cube numbers.  A square number is the result of multiplying a whole number by itself. For example, 3 x 3 = 9.  We call them "square" numbers because when you build them with multilink cubes, they form a perfect, flat square! A cube number is the result of multiplying a whole number by itself three times. For example, 2 x 2 x 2 = 8  'It was interesting that we build the numbers with the cubes. It helped me to understand.' - Isabella  Using the multilink cubes turns a tricky mathematical concept into a physical experience. The children are constructing knowledge. They can see, count, and feel the difference between a square number (a flat, 2D area) and a cube number (a solid, 3D volume). It’s been a fun and insightful lesson — our class is officially mastering the 'building blocks' of maths!

  🎄 Year 1’s Jolly Christmas Postman Winter Adventure Board Game🎄 This week, Year 1 have been busy combining imagination, teamwork, and festive fun to create their very own Jolly Christmas Postman board games ! Inspired by our class story, the children became designers, storytellers, and artists all at once. ✨ Designing the Game Each group worked together to plan out their board game journey. They thought carefully about the Postman’s adventure, deciding which characters he might visit along the way. The children then created colourful paths, twists, and turns to bring their games to life. 📝 Creating Question Cards To make the games interactive, the children wrote their own question cards. These included challenges such as “Which character did the Postman visit first?” and “What was inside his bag?” . Writing these cards gave them a chance to practise comprehension skills while making sure their games were fun to play. 🎨 Decorating in Style Finally, the children decor...

🎄🎅 BONANZA 🎄🎅  EYFS and KS1 were treated to a fun-filled bonanza this afternoon! The hall was filled with activities for the children to enjoy, including: making Christmas cards Christmas themed play-doh biscuit decorating making paper chains making Christmas snowflakes colouring Santa splat lego marble-run magnetic tiles We hope the children got into the festive spirit and enjoyed the free-flow set-up so that they could enjoy the afternoon alongisde their friends.

  We have been learning about the properties of 2d and 3d shapes. Today we worked collaboratively to sort our 2d shapes into 2 groups. We had to carefully consider how to sort them using mathematical vocabulary eg: curved or straight sides, triangles, squares, less than 3 sides. This involved some trial and improvement to ensure all the shapes fit into the criteria we had chosen! Arsha - 'We need to change our group because it says squares but there are also rectangles! We could change it to shapes with 4 sides instead.' Cairo - 'There are only triangles and circles in this group.' Eva - 'We have put all the shapes with 4 or more sides in one group. There are hexagons, rectangles and pentagons.'

 Year 4 have been getting ready for Christmas. The class has made our own personalised advent calendar. Each window has a part of the nativity story made by a different student. We're starting off each day opening a window and then adding characters to our crib. The three wise men have also been travelling around the classroom as they make their way to baby Jesus. In RE, we learned about Jesse trees and how the readings during Advent help Catholics welcome Jesus into their hearts. Each student took a day and created little baubles to put on our tree. One the back, we wrote the readings and on the front we put the traditional symbols linked to the readings. Our Christmas activities have even spilled into Maths. This week we started our area unit and created shapes with certain areas. We then created lots of rectangles and created paper chains for our class. We thought about which area and shapes worked best and found that if the width was too long in comparison to the length, it mad...