St Pius X Catholic Primary School

Our classroom was transformed into a stage this week as the children took a deep dive into the powerful world of war poetry. Tied closely to our current reading of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse , this unit has allowed the children to explore how poets use rhythm, imagery, and structure to capture complex history and deep emotions. After choosing a poignant stanza or an entire poem, they took on the challenge of learning it completely off by heart. To bring these verses to life, we recapped our core public speaking skills. The children didn't just read the words; they performed them. We focused heavily on three key elements of powerful delivery: The Power of Voice: Modulating tone, pace, and volume to mirror the changing mood of the poems. Purposeful Gesture: Using hand and body movements to emphasize key imagery without distracting the audience. Commanding the Speaking Space: Learning how to move confidently within a physical space to mark transitions or shift the emotional focus...

 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 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!

 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. 

As part of our PSHE curriculum, we have been thinking about the qualities of a good friend , and when certain actions are appropriate or inappropriate. This includes what we say, how we say it, and how we behave. Year 2 had some great ideas, some of which linked to our learning powers of showing RESPECT and RESILIENCE as well as considering strategies we can use to help us make good decisions.  Matthew 7v 12 reminds us to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. This is Jesus's Golden Rule! To conclude and celebrate, we made 'friendship jars,' adding ingredients that would make a good friend, before singing along to our friendship songs - Count on Me and You've Got a Friend in Me (which we have been learning to play on the glockenspiels too!)

 On Friday 22nd May 2026, we The Mini Vinnies celebrated World Cultural Diversity Day.  We asked children and parents if they would like to present some interesting facts about their culture and share any traditions,  photos, powerpoints and cultural clothes at our assembly that we held.  We had a lovely time, because everyone got the chance to learn more about so many different cultures.  We could not have done this without the help of some our parents who so kindly gave up their time to come and share their culture with the school in the assembly, Mrs Kenning - Spain, Mrs Prasanna - India, Mrs Stepegeu - Romania and Mrs Tumber who went over and above by arranging for these fabulous parents to come to the school and they put together a powerpoint to present.  Mrs Tumber also brought in clothes for the younger children to try on and musical instruments to play.  We all learnt so much about different cultures, traditions, food and dancing. This was such...

As a culmination of our English work last term, we recently teamed up in groups to create an epic ‘Explorer Exhibition’ . The goal was to take everything we’ve learned from our class book and bring it to life in a creative, interactive way. The Explorer Exhibition wasn't just about recapping the plot; it was about digging deeper. Each group was tasked with diving into three main areas: The Main Themes: We explored the big ideas hidden within the pages—things like survival, friendship, resilience, and the beauty of discovery. Character Evolution: Characters don’t stay the same, and we tracked how our favorites changed from the very first chapter to the final page. It was fascinating to map out their growth, their struggles, and how the journey transformed them. Key Learning Points: We also looked at the bigger picture, connecting the book to the wider lessons we’ve tackled across the term. To make sure everything ran smoothly, every single member of each group had a specific role...

 On Friday, the Year 4s had a fantastic day in London. We caught from the train from Chelmsford to Liverpool street and then went to Tower Bridge via the Tower of London. The Children were amazed to see both these sites and really enjoyed crossing the bridge and getting to look over the edge. We stopped next to the bridge for a snack and a break.  We then walked past some of London's famous sites to the Globe theatre. When we got there, we had a fantastic tour from our guide. She took us through the theatre and explain the history of the place and how played worked. We even got to see some of the actors warming up for their afternoon performance.  We then went across the street to their practice studios to do an acting workshop based on the characters of Macbeth. We went through different moments and poses for the different character. Our guide then took us through some games to build up to acting out the confrontation between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth.  After sitting...

 Miss Lowry along with the Mini Vinnies organised an amazing cultural day for the school. We learnt about the different traditions, clothes, food and dance of countries all around the world. We were very lucky to be able to hear from parents in our class about their home countries and traditions.  The children then learnt different dances from each country and got to practise around the hall, having so much fun!  Finally, the children were invited to explore different clothes and musical instruments from the countries. They loved dressing up and getting the opportunity to explore the different cultures.  Thank you to Miss Lowry, Mini Vinnies and the parents involved who made the workshop a great success. 

 This week in RE, we have continued learning the story of Pentecost. The children worked together to act out the story starting from when Jesus died on Good Friday.  We waved our arms above our heads to represent the wind, twinkly fingers to represent the fire and then practiced speaking in different languages.  The children then went around to each other to share the news of Jesus and his miracles.  'This is the Holy Spirit'- Nina  'It's a miracle'- Ethan  'Jesus is the God of life'- Valentina 'It was a miracle, he resurrected and then ascended'- Elijah 

Year 2 have been enjoying reading all about Babe's adventures in our new class book - The Sheep Pig by Dick King-Smith.  They have completed lots of amazing, descriptive writing whilst trying to include specific punctuation (apostrophes for contractions and possession, commas in lists) and exciting vocabulary. After discussing how different characters felt in the book ‘The Sheep-Pig,’ they chose a character (Babe, Fly or Mrs Hoggett)  and gave Farmer Hogget advice about his dilemma… Should Farmer Hoggett let Babe copy Fly and be a sheep-pig? We role-played giving Farmer Hoggett advice so that he could  make a decision as he walked through the ‘conscience alley.’ This was a great opportunity for the children to proudly articulate their ideas as well as listen to their peers. By getting into role, children also had a chance to step into that character and consider what they might think and why! It meant they really had to think about the story and what we ...

 It's been so much fun exploring the forest school area as part of our learning!  The children are loving all of the activities provided by our forest school leaders: Karen and Caroline.  There has been lots of bug hunting, mud kitchen cooking and tree climbing. The children love being outdoors and the lovely weather we've been having has helped massively.  ‘My favourite part was everything!’ Clare ‘ I liked playing with my friends and climbing trees with Archie and Jeevan’ Da’Jean ‘I liked looking for bugs’ Jesse-Joy 'I've been cooking dinner for all my friends'- Kiana 

 This week, we have been learning all about different types of boats as part of our transport topic. This meant we spent lots of time outside playing in the water trays experimenting with different size boats.  The children became very interested in how the boats could float, especially cruise ships and ferries when they are carrying lots of people and cars.  We decided to carry out our own investigations to discover which objects would float and sink.  The children used the new vocabulary to guess if various items would float or sink. They learnt that 'sinked' isn't a word and we have to change it to 'sunk' but 'floated' is. How confusing we thought!  ‘Sink means it goes down low’ Macie ‘Float means when it stays on the top’ Amelia ‘I think the cube will sink because it doesn’t have water on it’ Archie We tested a plastic bear in the water too. ‘ I think it will sink because it has a small hole in it’ Jesse Joy A wooden duck was tested next. Most of the cla...

 To conclude our recent topic 'Buildings,' Year 2 have been extremely busy preparing for their class art gallery! They recently finished their Van Gogh inspired paintings and have been learning new skills in order to create a wooden frame for their artwork! The children were shown a demonstration of how to use the hack saw safely to cut their wood. They measured their pieces of wood so they would fit around their painting, decorated them and then used the saw to cut them to size! The children then had a chance to walk around the class gallery to see what everyone had created! Gershlene said ' we might be inspired by someone in our class!' Finally, they gave positive feedback to a classmate, commenting on their artwork, frame or overall finished piece! This reciprocity was lovely to see - well done!!

This half term, we are learning all about transport and vehicles and this week, we started by learning about cars and the road. We had a visitor join us from Safer Essex to deliver a road safety talk and interactive session to the children and parents.  The interactive session allowed children to identify different vehicles we might see on the road and taught them the Green Cross Code.  We learnt an accompanying song to help us remember the rules to 'Stop, Look, Listen and Think'.  During the session, children and grown ups were given the chance to practice crossing a pretend road using the Green Cross Code.  'We must look before we cross the road or we might die'- Lydia  'Look both ways'- Brian  'Some cars can even reverse and might not see us'- Ethan  Then throughout the week, we made our own road safety posters explaining the rules of crossing the road and sang the song lots of times! 

 This week, all of Year 3 and 4's hard work has paid off for the Easter production: Easter Praise. Both classes did an amazing job and are very proud of themselves. Year 3 sang beautifully while the Year 4s dazzled us with some brilliant acting. Harley took the lead as Jesus, while Olive (Judas) and Florence (Peter) delighted the audience with a solo each. The play drew to a close with a duet from Tolu and Michelle (the Marys). All of their hard work came together in the highly enjoyable play.  On Monday, they performed in front of the school for their dress rehearsal.  Guests for our local community. For the first time, on Wednesday, we opened the performance to the local community. We were joined by Mr Coen (the Head Teacher of Saint John Payne), Some representatives of the Knight of Saint Columba, the SVP, the Wisdom Club and others in the local churches. It was very nerve-racking to perform in front of strangers, but they did a super job and our guests thoroughly enjo...