Catholic Life, Collective Worship & Religious Education

The Nursery children have been continuing to sing and use the happy, Easter word ‘Alleluia’. They decorated their own alleluia signs to take home and share with their family.

Reception have been continuing their work around Easter. They went to church to look at the beautiful artefacts and symbols and focused their work on the Paschal Candle and Together we discussed the special symbols on the candle and their meaning. The children looked carefully at the candle and created beautiful observational drawings.

Year 1 children have listened to the Bible story ‘Peter in Prison’. The children began by re-telling the story by putting images in the correct order. They then learnt about the meaning of ‘faith’ and why it is important to have faith just like the people of God did when they were praying for Peter to be set free from prison in the story. We thought about how we all believe in God, follow and love Him; yet we have never physically seen Him. However, having strong faith allows us to believe that He is with us all always and we will be re-united one day.

For the unit of Easter Year 2 listened to the story of ‘Doubting Thomas.’ They explored the meaning of doubt and looked at scenarios where they had to say whether they believed something or not to have an insight into how Thomas felt. The children role played the story and were exceptional in their delivery. They learned an important lesson from scripture that nothing is impossible with God’s help.

During Prayer and Liturgy, Year 3 gathered in the Prayer Garden to say our morning offering. In the beautiful sunshine, we reflected on the week we have had and even sung one of our First Holy Communion hymns together. A wonderful way to start the day together.

Year 4 concluded their Easter unit by answering our big Catholic Social Teaching question ‘Christians believe that Jesus continues to remain here with us on Earth. What do you see or hear around you that demonstrates that?’ which links to the catholic social principle of Stewardship of God’s Creation. We had some wonderful responses showing how the year 4 children’s faith continues to grow. Their responses were personal to their own relationship with Jesus. The children recognised and understood that Jesus’ presence is around us always and we can see this through our values and virtues, catholic social teaching, prayer and Gospel readings. The children at St. Anne’s show how they can live this out through learning from Jesus’ example every day.

Year 5 children have been learning about the Ascension of Jesus. We thought about how the disciples would have felt when they saw Jesus ascend to Heaven, and what questions we might ask them if we had the chance. The children came up with some wonderful, spiritual questions that they might ask. We also looked at a beautiful painting of Jesus’ Ascension to Heaven.

Year 6 children had the opportunity to discuss the following statements linked to resurrection of Christ. Their responses were thought provoking and spiritual.

The Nursery children have been learning about the Easter story and they know that the Easter word ‘Alleluia’ is used to show great joy and happiness because Jesus is alive. They sang an Alleluia song and talked about the things that make them feel joy and happiness. Brady- “I feel happy when I go on holiday.” Harper- “I feel happy when Daddy gives me a pick up.”

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Reception have been thinking about Easter and celebrating that Jesus rose on Easter Sunday. We recalled the events of Holy Week and spoke about how the disciples felt when they realised that Jesus was alive. The children were wonderful at retelling the story.

During the season of Lent, Year 1 buried the Alleluia inside a sealed box on our classroom’s focal point. This reminded us that during the season of Lent, we were invited to reflect and practice repentance. As we returned to school this half term, we unburied our Alleluia’s and celebrated joyfully reminding us that Jesus lives! We sang ‘Praise Ye the Lord Alleluia’ and stuck the word Alleluia all around the classroom as a wonderful way of recognising this.

Year 2 have ‘unburied’ the Alleluia as we are celebrating that Jesus is risen in this season of Easter. The children listened to the story of the resurrection as well as looking at different images. They then reflected and thought of questions they wondered about the resurrection.

To end our unit of learning about Holy Week, we responded to our Big Catholic Social Teaching Question. In our responses we discussed how Jesus decided to see the good in everybody even though He knew that one of the Disciples would betray Him – thinks links to the principle of Dignity for the Human Person!

This week Zuriel, Freddie, Leah, Lenny, Adaeze and Isobella planned a beautiful prayer and liturgy. They gathered together with the hymn here I am to worship and introduced the Wednesday word of ‘Believe.’ The children then chose a unique idea which explored a different type of prayer; prayer of the hand.  As the children hold each finger they have a different focus. Thumb; Pray for those closest to you, Pointing Finger; pray for those who point to God – parents, teachers, priests, Biggest finger; Pray for those in authority, Weakest finger; pray for people who are suffering, Little finger; pray for yourself. The children really enjoyed and valued this reflection time. As their Go Forth they decided to get Year 4 to think about what the word believe means to them and to think of one way that how believing in Jesus improves our lives.

Year 6 children have been learning about the Easter Vigil in our Easter Unit. The children learned about the importance of the Paschal Candle and what it represents. We talked about the first and last letter from the Greek alphabet representing the never-ending life of Jesus, and the cross representing the cross that Jesus died on. The children had some wonderful responses to our discussion and really thought about the true meaning of Easter and the symbols we think of when we think about Easter.

In Prayer and Liturgy the children have been using the Ten, Ten resource ‘I Can Pray!, I Remember’. We have been remembering all we have learnt about the special way we can spend time with God through prayer.

In RE we continue learning about Lent, we created a mind map showing all of the different things we do to prepare for Easter. The children added some super drawings to our map. 

We concluded our Lent unit by answering our big Catholic Social Teaching question ‘Is it easy to follow Jesus all of the time?’ linked to rights and responsibilities. We had some wonderful responses showing that the year 1 children are really able to reflect on their own faith and how they put their faith into action each and every day. Here are some of the children’s responses:

Yes, because we learn our virtues and values in school that help me to be a follower of Jesus.
Yes, because Jesus’ parables teach me how to follow in His footsteps.
Yes, because I want to make God proud and I know I must follow Jesus to do this.

As we approach the end of our Lent unit in RE, we have been reflecting on our big Catholic Social Teaching question. Our question is ‘Why do you think that it is important to put those who are in need first?’ which links to the CST principle of Option for the Poor and Vulnerable.

We have been continuing to live out our Catholic Social Teachings in many ways this week. In particular, the children have been considering in Geography why migration provides an option for the poor and vulnerable. In our phase assembly this week many children were celebrating for showcasing the catholic social teaching principles.

Kyla and Lydia were awarded the CST certificate for Stewardship of God’s creation as they both considered how they can implement nature into the school grounds and look after the earth during National Science Week.

The children have been learning about the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the different stages. We learned about how important it can be to ask God for forgiveness if we make a wrong choice, and how that can nourish our relationship with both God and ourselves. The children had some wonderful responses about forgiveness and its importance in our lives.

In RE the children have been thinking about times that they may have made a wrong choice. They learnt to say their own sorry prayer. We finished our prayers by saying “We are sorry Lord- yes we are.”  To celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday the Nursery children invited their mums into class to watch them perform a special song called ‘It’s Mother’s Day Today’. The children presented their mothers with a special card, a flower and a hug. During prayer and Liturgy they thought about the different ways they can show love to their mums.

Reception have been discussing how during Lent we try out best to make good choices. We know good choices bring us closer to Jesus.  We wrote our choices on a petal to create a class choices flower. We will keep referring to these throughout our Lenten journey. 

Year 1 have been continuing to live out our Catholic Social Teachings in many ways this week. Teddy was awarded the CST certificate Family and Community because he is always such a role model to his class family. In 1I the CST certificate for Family and Community was awarded to Michaela Kielty for always showing kindness to her class family. We are so proud of these two children and the rest of the year group for always putting their faith into action!

On Monday Deacon Stuart visited year 2 to teach the children more about Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness as we are in the Season of Lent. He told us the story of The Prodigal Son and answered the following questions-

During Lent, Year 3 have been reflecting on the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fast and almsgiving. We discussed why it is important to give back to the world and think about others during Lent. We wrote our own Psalm for Change, asking God to shine his light on all who are less fortunate than us and bring them comfort during times of need. It is through this act of solidarity that we can bring change to the world! Psalm 16:8 I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.

In R.E. the children are continuing to enjoy their Lenten Unit. The children developed an understanding of what it means to be a humble person. They then related this to the Bible story of the Pharisee and the Publican. They discussed what they thought God would think about both men. The children decided that the Publican/ Tax Collector would return home justified before God; ‘For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted’ Luke 18:9-14.

Year 4 also looked at parables about God’s Kingdom and how we can embrace His Kingdom today.

In Religious Education this week, the children have been looking at Lent. On Tuesday, we looked at some of the teachings of the Apostles from the New Testament and their letters about becoming more like Christ. Looking at the letters from St Paul, we picked out this quote in particular taken from

1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

In Year 5, we talked about what this quote means to us and how we can live out this teaching.

During their RE Lessons this week, the year 6 children focussed upon the Beatitudes. They discussed what each Beatitude meant and thought carefully about the type of people that Jesus blessed and the rewards that these people received. They then wrote their own modern day version of the beatitudes.

Good Shepherd Assembly

A visitor was welcomed into school to launch and talk about the ‘Good Shepherd Appeal.’ They told the children about the work of Fr Hudson’s and where the money raised by the Good Shepherd Appeal will be going. This is an excellent way of showing children how their Lenten Sacrifice can help make a real difference to people’s lives. We are putting our faith into action to serve the most vulnerable in our community fulfilling the Catholic social teaching principle ‘the option for the poor and vulnerable’. We Remember, our actions, both big and small, contribute to building a world of peace, love, and justice.

Religious Education

The Nursery children can make the Sign of the Cross and they know that when we pray we are talking to God the Father and to His son Jesus. During Prayer and Liturgy the children have been learning about worshipping God.

Emmie- “God is wonderful.”

Oliver- “God is amazing.”

Isabella- “God is good.”

Harper- “God is great.”

In RE we created a Lenten pathway to show the different things that we can do as we journey through Lent to grow closer to Jesus. We spoke about Lent being a time of thinking carefully about our actions and choices and saying sorry to God. We thought of our own Sorry Prayers.

In RE this week we have been thinking about some of the important sayings of Jesus and what they mean to us as Catholics. In John’s Gospel (chapter 8 verse 12) Jesus said ‘I am the Light of the World’. We learnt that before Jesus came into our world, the world was not a nice place to live in with many people being unkind to each other and it felt like people were living under a cloud of darkness. We believe that because of this Jesus was our salvation and he was like a light coming into our world to teach us how to treat one another. We have created our own pieces of art work showing that Jesus is the light of our world. 

On Tuesday Year 2 attended Parish Mass. The teachers were so proud of their reverent behaviour and listening during the mass. As each class has buried the alleluia the children noticed how before the gospel reading the alleluia was definitely missing. Well done Year 2!

Following from our inspirational assembly with Margot from Father Hudson’s Care, Year 3 read the beautiful story called ‘The Rainbow Fish’. We identified that this links to our Catholic Social Teaching for the half-term: Option for the Poor and Vulnerable! We considered the important messages that both Jesus and this books teaches us and reflected on the important messages from our assembly. We decided as a class that it is very important to think about those less fortunate than us because everyone has the right to feel safe and loved. It is our responsibility to care for those in need.

The children led a beautiful child-led Prayer and Liturgy based on the Wednesday Word this week with a focus on enthusiasm. The children opened with their chosen hymn of ‘My Lighthouse’ for their gather as they enjoy the notion that when we sing we are praying twice. Their Go Forth message was to spread enthusiasm throughout their learning and in everything that they do.

On Wednesday, the children had a visit from Father Hudson’s Good Shepherd appeal. During the assembly, the children found out where the money that they raise during Lent can go to support those who are in need of extra support. In class, Year 5 had an important conversation about the importance of almsgiving during Lent and how money that can be raised will help others.

Year 6 have been busy selling chocolate bars this morning to raise money for our Lenten charities. This is a wonderful example of the children at Anne’s living out our Catholic social teaching principle of helping the poor and vulnerable, as all of the money raised from this sale will go to charity.

Lent 

Nursery children have been learning about Lent. They know that it is the beginning of Lent and that the colour purple is used at this time.

Reception started their Lenton journey and have been thinking carefully about the things they are going to give up and the promises they are going to make during this special time. They displayed their Lenten promises on a special tree placed at our focal point.

Year 4 have been thinking and reflecting on the liturgical season of Lent. They have created Lenten promises including the three main pillars in Lent; Pray, Fast and Almsgiving. They have linked this to the Catholic Social Teaching principle and our focus for this half term; Option for the Poor and Vulnerable. They have thought about how they can help those less fortunate than themselves.

Year 6 have been writing their Lenten Commitments. They promised they would be more like Jesus through their actions and their spirituality. We discussed the importance of almsgiving as well as the things we should change/give up during Lent and what importance this has on our faith. 

To mark the beginning of Lent, Year 1 decorated the word Alleluia with colours before burying it inside a sealed box on our classroom’s focal point. This is going to remind them that during the season of Lent, we are invited to reflect, acknowledge their sins and practice repentance. Once the Lent season has passed and Easter is here, the Alleluia will return and we will open the box and display our colourful creations.

This week as year 2 begin their Lenten Journey the children learned that the Alleluia is not said or sang. They thought about how during this season they prepare for Easter and the celebration of Jesus rising and how they need to prepare by reflecting and making their hearts ready for this wonderful event in their lives. The ‘Alleluias’ have been coloured and buried in a box and will be revealed again when Easter arrives.

Year 1 decorated the word Alleluia with colours before burying it inside a sealed box on our classroom’s focal point. This is going to remind them that during the season of Lent, we are invited to reflect, acknowledge their sins and practice repentance. Once the Lent season has passed and Easter is here, the Alleluia will return and we will open the box and display our colourful creations.

Year 2 begin their Lenten Journey the children learned that the Alleluia is not said or sang. They thought about how during this season they prepare for Easter and the celebration of Jesus rising and how they need to prepare by reflecting and making their hearts ready for this wonderful event in their lives. The ‘Alleluias’ have been coloured and buried in a box and will be revealed again when Easter arrives.

Year 3 had a wonderful visit from Deacon Stuart on Wednesday. We had a very spiritual conversation about Lent and shared some important information about the season we are in. We were very curious to ask Deacon Stuart our Big Catholic Social Teaching question for Lent which is: Why do you think that it’s important to put those who are in need first? It was lovely to reflect on Deacon Stuart’s expertise on how it is our responsibility to put people in most need first, linking to the principle of Option for the Poor and Vulnerable.

Religious Education

In Prayer and Liturgy the Nursery children have been using the Ten, Ten resource ‘I Am Welcome’. They have learnt about feeling welcome, and how to make others feel welcome too. We have learnt about inviting God to be welcome in our lives. The children sang an echo song called ‘All Are Welcome’.

All are welcome (all are welcome)

You and me (you and me)

Everyone is in God’s (everyone is in God’s)

Family (family)

Reception have listened to the story “The calling of the disciples”, and have learnt all about Jesus’ 12 special friends. The class discussed how they can be a good follower of Jesus. We know that Jesus has called us all too and that we must try our best to follow in his footsteps and be a good disciple.

Year 1 have been preparing to write a prayer of sorrow and love to God. We listened to the parable ‘The Prodigal Son’ and thought about how the son showed sorrow for the wrong choices that he made but the father showed love by forgiving him! We thought about things that we might be sorry for like making wrong choices, being unkind to our siblings and not protecting God’s world. We understand that God will forgive us is we are truly sorry.

For the Unit of work ‘Sharing in the Life of Jesus’ the children of Year 2 have interviewed their teachers for the job of a disciple. They then had to answer questions about themselves. The children came up with some convincing ideas for why they in today’s world were suitable candidates as followers of Jesus.

Year 3 – Religious Education - Our Sacramental Journey: The Sacrament of Reconciliation

In the last two weeks, Year 3 attended Parish mass before taking the next big step in their spiritual journey, making the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Each child was so reverent and respectful during this time. The Year 3 team are so proud of each and every one of you!

 Year 4 children and their families were welcomed to take part in their R.E. inspire workshop all about the ‘I Am’ Sayings of Jesus. There were some beautiful creations to definitely be proud of. I am sure we could all agree it was a beautiful atmosphere! Well done Year 4!

Year 5 children have been looking at a painting of Jesus. It is called ‘Light of The World’ by William Holman Hunt. The children reflected on the image and what it might represent, and also how we might answer Jesus if he knocked on the door of our home and asked to speak with us. The children spent some time in silent reflection, about their own thoughts and feelings towards this image and their relationship with Jesus, but also shared these emotions with the class in a wonderful discussion.

In their RE lessons, Year 6 children have been thinking about the qualities needed to be a disciple. They then had the oppurtunity to create a persuasive paragraph explaining why they believed that they would be a great Disicple. We think our children in year 6, as the leaders of the school, show great discipleship each and every day. We are all called to be disciples of Jesus through our thoughts, words and actions.

The Feast of Saint John Bosco

On the 31st of January, Year 6 celebrated the Feast Day of Saint John Bosco, our class saint. During prayer and liturgy, we discussed his life and we reflected on some of his quotes which inspired us to be a follower of Christ.

We were particularly inspired by

how he followed our Catholic Social Teaching: option for the poor and vulnerable.

Religious Education

In Prayer and Liturgy, Nursery have been using the Ten, Ten resource ‘I Can Pray!’ (The Sign of the Cross). They learnt an echo song called ‘I Can Pray’ (To the tune of ‘I Hear Thunder’).

I can pray (I can pray)

Anywhere (anywhere)

Put your hands together (put your hands together)

Time for prayer (time for prayer)

Reception have been continuing with their unit “People who help us”. They are reflecting on their visit to church and have discussed the different artefacts and objects they saw there. They have been speaking about Father Christopher and his important work in the community, showing super retrieval skills and wonderful knowledge linked to our church.

This week’s catholic social teaching certificates have been awarded to two absolute superstars! A very big well done to Amelia in 1I who received the Stewardship of God’s Creation certificate for sharing a wealth of knowledge of animals and how they are a special part of God’s creation. Then to Alexander in 1O’C who received the Dignity of Work certificate for putting his absolute everything into his work, helping him to grow and become who God is calling him to be!

For the Unit of work ‘Sharing in the Life of Jesus’ Year 2 children have learned how to pray with rosary beads. The luminous mystery ‘Wedding at Cana’ was a focus where the children prayed and thought about Mary and Jesus at this important event. The children have also been making their own choices to reflect on something meaningful to them while they prayed the rosary. They thought of family members, the poor, the sick and refugees to name a few.

Year 4 children have been understanding the ‘I Am’ sayings of Jesus and understanding the importance of the Eucharist. After going through the order of Mass retrieving knowledge from Year 3, the children were tasked with a challenge! Their job was to prove to Miss Evans that they can share with the Twitter and Catholic community why the Eucharist is important. The children had to answer key questions within their tweets including what is the Eucharist? And what does transubstantiation mean to Catholics? Year 4 definitely succeeded with their challenge!

The children have celebrating their R.E. Inspire workshop with their families this week, all about the ‘I Am’ sayings of Jesus.

Deacon Stuart came to visit Year 5 to talk to us about our unit ‘Parables and Sayings of Jesus’. He helped us to answer our Big CST question, and spoke to us about loving our neighbours, and spreading peace and love all around the world. We are so grateful that Deacon Stuart took the time to come and speak to us, the children loved hearing his views and insightful words!

The Year 6 children have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to Deacon Stewart help them answer their BIG CST question: “And the light shineth in the darkness. and the darkness did not comprehend it!” How can we be a light in the darkness? Deacon Stuart supported the children to answer this question, drawing upon familiar Bible stories to help the children understand. We have been focusing particularly on the inspiration of St Francis of Assisi, who certainly was a light in the darkness, carrying out the work of God and his creation

As we have come to the end of our Christmas unit in RE, it was time for the children to answer our big Catholic Social Teaching question. The children discussed how Mary and Joseph became refugees when they were forced to flee to Egypt due to King Herod. We spoke about how we can relate the Holy Family’s stories to the stories of refugees today, and how we, as Catholics, can support them. The children’s responses were beautiful and they really thought about how we can embody the Catholic Social Teaching values to support and show love to others.

We have now started our new unit in RE which is ‘We Listen to God’s Word at Mass’. We started by sharing some of our prior knowledge from Year 2, thinking about the signs, symbols and actions associated with Mass. Then we explored how to listen to God’s Word through the Bible. We were even set a Bible reading challenge where we locate different animals and Biblical figures using Bible References.

The children have been learning about the final event ‘The Flight to Egypt.’ They acted out the story where Mary and Joseph, along with the baby Jesus, fled to Bethlehem- as his life was in danger after an angel warned Joseph in a dream. The children thought about how the Holy Family were refugees and they then discussed how important it is to treat refugees today the way they would have hoped Mary and Joseph were treated. They were in need and vulnerable just as refugees are today and deserve kindness, compassion and our prayers.

We have started our new unit ‘Sharing in Jesus’ Life’. In this unit we are listening to the Bible story of how Jesus called His disciples to be His followers and then played a game of ‘disciples snap’ to help us remember the disciples’ names. After this we took part in a true or false quiz to see what we could remember from the story of the ‘Call of the Disciples’.

Visiting the Church

As part of our unit “People who help us” we enjoy visiting church. We were excited to look at the special artefacts and statues in church. We discussed the special role of Father Christopher and the important work he does in our community.

Catholic Life and Social Teaching

Year 4 children have been answering their Catholic Social Teaching Question for their Christmas Unit. The children have used all of their knowledge from the unit and their growing faith to provide beautiful answers. Our focus for this unit has been ‘Solidarity and the Common Good.’ The children answered the following question: “The angels were God’s messengers. What message would you spread to the world to show solidarity?”

To mark the start of the New Year, Year 3 have been celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany. They have been reflecting on Matthew’s Gospel and considered how this story highlights the guidance God has given us through the birth of Jesus. We developed our understanding that not only does God guide us but the Church exists to help us and provides us even more support from the Bible. What an important manual we have for our lives! We sung the wonderful hymn “We Three Kings” to celebrate this special event.

The story of Annunciation

After learning all about the season of Advent leading up to Christmas, we now reflect upon the events that took place before and after the birth of Jesus. We were told the story of the Annunciation and reflected on how we would feel if we were Mary and had been visited by Angel Gabriel. To show our understanding of the story, we retold it in our own words.

Year 2 have been working on their further understanding of the story of the Annunciation and considered why this event was so important. They really enjoyed acting out the story in pairs using a script of the conversation between Mary and Angel Gabriel.

Religious Education

In Nursery’s RE unit ‘Christmas-Mary the Mother of Jesus’ the children know that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday and that Mary is Jesus’ mother. They think about the different ways that their Mums show love and care to them just like Mary did for Jesus.

Tierney- “My Mum gives me kisses all the time.”

Tierney- “My Mum makes me laugh.”

Oliver- “My Mum makes me dinner and we sit down at the table.”

Ava- “My Mum plays with me.”

Robyn- “My Mum takes me out for dinner.”

Reception have worked hard to order and sequence the story of Christmas.They learnt all about the feast of the “Epiphany” and had a special visit from three wise men. They brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The Epithany 

In Year 2, the children have learned more about ‘The Epiphany’ where the three kings visited baby Jesus and offered him gifts. They thought about what gifts they would bring to offer baby Jesus- not material gifts but actions and behaviours. The children thought of some wonderful ideas- friendship, love, care and peace- to name a few.

Religious Education

In R.E. the children are coming to the end of their Christmas Unit. They have looked at Messengers of God and the signs and symbols of Christmas. Year 4 have worked really hard to grow their faith by learning more about the meaning and symbolism of Christmas.

We have also looked at Christmas Traditions in Spain!

In Year 5, the children have been using the Bible to work through different activities. By finding the book, chapter, and verse, the children have worked together to find the different Bible references. Year 5 are brilliant at using our precious bibles and really enjoy working together on this task! It is a lovely opportunity to use the Bible and understand and navigate the different books which complete the Bible too. Well done, Year 5!

The Christmas Story

Reception have continued their work around the Christmas Story and the children were able to recall the story in lots of detail. We played a game where we “hot seated” the different characters and thought about their feelings during different parts of the story. The children used super vocabularly such as “amazed”, “astonished”, “shocked” and “surprised”.

Year 1 reflected on our knowledge of the Christmas Story. We thought about the important decision that Mary had to make when Angel Gabriel came to visit her and how our lives would be different if Mary had not said yes. Then we re-told the important events that happened in the Christmas story and how grateful we are that Jesus our Saviour was born.

Year Three have been focusing on the Christmas story and the important role that was played by the Shepherds. They explored some of the titles given to Jesus by the Angels when delivering the Good News to the Shepherds. They also explored how Saint Francis shared his faith with others and cared for God’s creatures, just as the Shepherds did too!

Christingles

During their PSHE lesson year 6 had the opportunity to make a Christingle. The Christingle means ‘Christ’s Light’. and are used by Christians to celebrate Jesus as the Light of the World. They also remind us that Jesus brings hope, comfort and joy to those who feel sad, lost or lonely

Children have thought about the coming of the Jesus. Year 5 made booklets for Key Stage 1, telling them about how they can prepare for Advent and all of the different ways they might do this. The children worked so hard on their booklets and loved being able to write something that is aimed at younger children to teach them all that they have learned and know about preparing for the coming of Jesus.

Religious Education

As we draw nearer to the Birth of Christ, Year 3 have been learning about the tradition of the Jesse Tree! We learned about how Jesus’ ancestors prepared for the Messiah just as we are preparing too during the Season of Advent!

Year 2 Catholic Life- The Nativity Performance

What a fantastic way to finish Year 2’s final week before the rest of Christmas festivities begin. All the children sang their hearts out, danced with delight and chorally spoke clearly and with gusto!!!

Every child was a shining star and made their teachers extremely proud. A wonderful way to share the Christmas story with all the children in school as well as families too.

Bambinelli Sunday

Bambinelli Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday) when all the children bring their figure of baby Jesus from their nativity scenes to St. Peter’s Square to be blessed by the Pope. Our Reception children have made their own beautiful Bambinellis and were delighted when Deacon Stuart came to school to bless them. The children have taken their Bambinellis home, meaning that Jesus will be present in their home during the Christmas season.  

Prayer and Liturgy

The children have been continuing with their Advent Spiritual Journey. They have said the Walk with me prayer, lit the second Advent candle for Peace and sang our favourite Advent song ‘Light The Advent Candle.’ Follow the link if you would like to use this song at home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkTWjhjKHjs

RE

In RE this week, the children have looked at St. John the Baptist and his message. From our previous unit of Baptism, we learnt about his importance as being the person to baptise Jesus. However, during Advent, we are learning about the message of St. John the Baptist. We especially loved this quote: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” This encapsulates our Catholic Social Teaching principle of Dignity of the Human Person and Option for the Poor and Vulnerable.

Religious Education Advent-Getting Ready

Nursery children have been learning about the start of ‘Advent’. They noticed that the focal point material had changed to purple and that it is now purple time. They thought about times that they have needed to get themselves ready. They opened day one of the Advent calendar and they were introduced to the Advent wreath.

In RE this week we explored Jesus’ life as a boy. We listened to the story “The Finding in the Temple” and discussed how Jesus visited the temple to listen to the teachers . We explored the different feelings of the Holy family in this story.

We were excited to begin our Advent unit of work and loved learning the song “Awake, Awake” in preparation for the birthday of Jesus. We looked at the first candle on the Advent wreath and talked about all of the things that we were hopeful for.

Year 2 took part in a Cafod Assembly this week in preparation for the Season of Advent. The children reflected on the message that they can bring HOPE, share PEACE and spread JOY with others. They also reflected about people all over the world who are suffering from hunger and the effects of war. A prayer was said for these people. Year 2 are looking forward to Advent and preparing for the best gift of all to arrive at Christmas- ‘Jesus’.

Children finished their unit focusing on Jesus: The Light of the World. Throughout this unit, the children have learnt about some key events in Jesus’ life such as His Baptism, The Transfiguration and the Presentation of Jesus. The children were given the task of choosing one of these events and creating an image to represent it. It was wonderful to see the children share their talents and create unique and beautiful pieces of artwork!

Year 6 Confirmation

Congratulations to the children in Year 6 who were confirmed this week with Bishop David Evans. The children impressed Bishop Evans with their extensive knowledge during a meeting on Monday afternoon; talking eloquently and confidently about the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. The Bishop complimented the children and staff on the level of preparation and commitment to the Confirmation programme. This shone through beautifully in the celebration Mass in the reading, singing and participation throughout. Well done children, we are really proud of you all. 

Climate Justice

Thank you to all the children who submitted work for the Climate Justice Campaign, there were some fabulous entries from all the children and it is clear we are all passionate about creating an awareness around Climate Justice.

We have some exciting news…                      

CAFOD will be exhibiting Jake Dyson’s (Year 4) artwork entry at the Houses of Parliament during COP28 on 6^th December.

Jake has put Catholic Social Teaching into action by thinking about our Global Neighbours and the world he wants to see.

Well done Jake!

Our Earthly Saints in Year 3 have been deepening their understanding of their Reconciliation unit by exploring how this links to our Catholic Social Teaching principles. We discussed how being forgiving and merciful contributes to building the Kingdom of God. This linked beautifully to the launch of our Catholic Social Teaching certificates in phase assembly. Well done to Shawn and Nellie whose efforts of displaying our CST principles were recognised, along with Mia and James from Year 4!

Bishop David Evans visits St Anne's 

On Monday, we were joined by Bishop David Evans ahead of the Confirmation Masses. It was an opportunity to meet with the

Confirmands to talk about the importance of this special sacrament and how they are committing themselves to be full members of the Catholic Church. 

Other Faith Week

This week we have been learning all about another faith - Hinduism.  We explored Rangoli patterns which bring good luck to Hindus and looked at all the different symbols that Hinduism has such as the Lotus flower. We even spotted a similarity between our faith as both Catholics and Hindus join their hands together.  We learnt all about where Hindus pray in the Mandir and how they use a puja tray to help.  We performed some drama all about Rama and Sita! It has been such a fun week learning about another faith!

Deacon Stuart

This week, Year 5 had a visit from Deacon Stuart.  Deacon Stuart gave the children lots of information about the Seven Sacraments, which is what they are currently learning about.  The visit was extremely interesting and helpful for the children in Year 5 and we are very grateful that Deacon Stuart was able to come and answer the children’s questions.

RE – Prayer

This week in our RE lessons we have continued to think about the importance of prayer.  We thought about what prayerful items we can use to help us whilst we are spending time talking to God.  Thinking about when we take the prayer bag home, we discussed the items that are provided in the bag and how they can deepen our time spent in prayer such as:

Holy water - being blessed by this can help us to feel connected with God.
Prayer booklets - these help us to remember prayers whilst we are still learning them.
Rosary beads - these help us to count our prayers when praying the rosary.
Holding prayer crosses - these remind us that God is always with us whilst praying.
Candles - these can help us to stay focused during prayer and also remind us that Jesus is the light of the words.

Year 6 were visited by Deacon Stuart on Monday.  He spoke to the children in detail about all aspects of Confirmation, including the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.

A big thank you to all the families who donated a tin/food items today – we received over 1000 items!  Some of our liturgical leaders helped load the items in to the van sent by Helping Hands; they will distribute the donations to those in need. 

Today’s efforts links in with our half term value which is ‘Grateful and Generous’ and has shown how one small donation can make a big impact. This will help so many local people. Thank you once again.’

Saint Anne

This week our Reception children have been learning all about our class saint ‘Saint Anne.’  We spoke about how our school is named after this special Saint and how we have a special statue on our focal point to always remember her in our thoughts and prayers each day.  We had a wonderful prayerful moment where every child lit a candle and said the special words ‘Saint Anne prayer for us.’  The children contributed some beautiful ways that they would like Saint Anne to help and guide them on their journey through school.

Other Faith Week - Judaism

This week was Other Faith week for Year 4. We have been studying Judaism and have been enjoying learning all about a different faith. The children have been learning all about worship, festivals and important artefacts. On Tuesday, Ruth, a Jewish lady came in to show the children some artefacts from her religion and answer their questions. Year 4 have thoroughly enjoyed this week and have been demonstrating their British values beautifully!

This week Mr Linehan, Miss Evans and 7 children from St. Anne’s celebrated a special Anniversary Mass at Olton Friary as a family of Catholic schools in our Multi-Academy Company (OLAAS).  They were joined by pupils from every other school in our MAC.  It was a lovely occasion and such a special opportunity to come together and pray for each other and the pupils across each school.  We took our special St. Anne’s banner, which represented the whole school and our mission for the year ahead.

This week in school we have celebrated ‘Little Way Week.’ Saint Therese of Lisieux, was an inspiring saint. In class, we thought about how she would show God’s love to others through small acts. We have learnt that she called this her ‘little way.’ Little acts can make a big difference! We have linked this in with our virtue for the half term, to be ‘Grateful and Generous’ and how we can show gratitude to ourselves, others and the environment. Each class created a ‘gratitude journal’ to celebrate everything they were grateful for, including pictures, symbols and personal prayers.  We thought about small acts we could do each day to be more like St Thérèse.

CAFOD Harvest fast Day in on Friday 6^th October and we will be taking donations on this day which we will pass on. 

If you are able to donate anything, please do so on this day – please hand donations into your child’s class teacher.

Suggested items to donate are as follows:  Cereal, soup, pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, pasta sauce, lentils, beans and pulses, canned meat, canned vegetables, tea/coffee, tinned fruit, biscuits, UHT milk, fruit juice. 

Thank you in advance for your support for this very worthwhile cause.

Religious Education

Children in Year 2 have been thinking about all the wonderful Blessings God has given to us. They used the quotation from scripture ‘Blessed are you Lord God of all creation’ to choose some of the favourite things that they are grateful to God for and drew some beautiful images. The children were also reminded of our Catholic Social teaching theme for this half term- ‘Stewardship of Creation’ and thought about how important it is to look after and care for all of God’s creations. 

Qualities of God

In our Creation unit in R.E, Year 4 have been exploring how we have all been made in the image and likeness of God. The children have been considering the qualities of God and how our class saint, St. Catherine of Siena displayed these throughout her life.  The children identified how St. Catherine demonstrated elements of the Our Lady and All Saints Children’s Charter too. It was a lovely opportunity to reflect on how we can aim to show these in our daily lives.

The children in Year 6 participated in a wonderful Leaders Mass this week.  Afterwards they received their Leaders Badge and made their Leaders Promise.  We are confident that they will lead the school through their hard work and saintly actions.  We are very proud of you and may God shine on their lives this year.

What a wonderful celebration we had this week in Key Stage One.  The children behaved reverently and sang beautifully.  We learned to sing The Hail Mary with sign language too - the roof of the hall practically lifted with the heartfelt singing!  All four classes then processed prayerfully around the playground before saying prayers, laying flowers and finally crowning the statue of Mary.  All the teachers were so very proud of the children.  What a wonderful occasion and memory for children and teachers.

SPRING 2023

Today we bid a fond farewell to Lena who is retiring as a cleaner at St. Anne’s after a wonderful 48 years of service!  We wish Lena a long happy and healthy retirement.

The children joined in a special Holy Week Mass on Tuesday where we prayed and reflected upon the events leading up to Good Friday.  We thanked God for his sacrifice and thought about how we can bring ourselves closer to God during this season.

The Liturgical Leaders delivered hand-made Easter cards to the residents at the local day care centre.  We wished everyone a very happy Easter.  They were delighted to receive a card on behalf of all the children at St. Anne’s.

This week class 4R had the privilege of being visited by Deacon Stuart.  The children had the opportunity to ask him questions about the key themes in our Religious Education unit, Lent, for example: making the right choices, temptation, the kingdom of heaven and the time that Jesus spent in the desert.

Due to the success of the money raised last year linked to the Good Shepherd appeal and the fantastic response from parents and children, we are again asking for your support as part of our Lenten fund-raising to collect for this very worthy charity.  On Wednesday, we were visited by Margot from Father Hudson’s Care who led a special assembly highlighting the importance of supporting the most vulnerable in our community.  Margot shared the story of her Ukrainian colleague Liudmyla, and the devastating effects the war in Ukraine has had on her family.  Supporting refugees and asylum seekers is just one of the ways Father Hudson’s Care transform the lives of people in our local community.  Please encourage your child to put a small amount of money in their box each day and return the box with its contents during the week before we break for Easter (w/c 27^th March).  We will send a reminder out near the time. On behalf of St. Anne’s and Father Hudson’s Care, many thanks in advance for your support of this very worthy appeal.

‘How marvellous it would be if, at the end of the day, each of us could say: today I have performed an act of charity towards others!’ - Pope Francis

Year 3 have been strengthening their faith as they prepare for their upcoming Sacrament of Reconciliation next week.  To enrich our sacramental journey, we all celebrated in a special Parish Commitment Mass and joined together in prayer with our prayer friends, our families and members from our Parish community.  We received a certificate at the end of Mass to commemorate this very important day, recognising our journey in deepening our faith.  Year 3 were so reverent and thoughtful throughout this moment and we cannot wait to expand our faith in the upcoming weeks. Well done Year 3 – we are all extremely proud of you!

Year 3 visited our Parish Church this week as we have finished our RE unit of learning, ‘We listen to God’s word at Mass’.  We used our learning from our RE lessons to act out the Proclamation of the Gospel.  As we start to prepare for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we also took this opportunity to we practice what we will say to the priest and had a look around the confessional.

On Thursday morning, we were delighted to invite our families to join us for our RE Inspire Workshop.  As part of our Sacramental preparations, we created celebration banners linked to our upcoming topic the Eucharist.  We loved having the opportunity to care, share and learn together.

A huge congratulations to the children in year 6 who were confirmed this week with Bishop David Evans. The children impressed Bishop Evans with their extensive knowledge during a meeting on Monday afternoon; talking eloquently and confidently about the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.  The Bishop complimented the children and staff on the level of preparation and commitment to the Confirmation programme.  This shone through beautifully in the celebration in the reading, singing and participation throughout.  Well done children, we are really proud of you all.

The staff at St. Anne's have collected hats, scarves and gloves over the last few weeks and donated them to a worthy cause.  James Trewby, who works with the Columbans, will take the donations to Calais to support the hundreds of refugees who desperately need the support.  We continue to show care for the most poor and vulnerable.  Please keep in your prayers our global brothers and sisters. 

This week, the children had the wonderful opportunity to reconcile with God by going to Confession with Father Christi. The children reflected upon what they could do to better their relationship with Christ in readiness for the Sacrament of Confirmation on Monday 6^th with Bishop David Evans.

Please continue to pray for the Confirmands as they continue on their journey of faith.

Year 6 celebrated their class saint, St. John Bosco, this week both in church and in class.  They began the morning by celebrating at Mass, where Father talked about the inspirational life that John Bosco led.  We then reflected upon his life in class, and how we can be guided by him in our daily actions.  Each day we ask St. John Bosco to pray for us and watch over us as the leaders of St. Anne's.  The children then had a small celebration in the afternoon with a chocolate biscuit and congratulated the wonderful life this saint led. 

Did you know: Don Bosco is renowned for his work in educating and rehabilitating poor and disadvantaged youth.

The children signed an enrolment certificate to promise that through the Sacrament of Confirmation, they wish to affirm their belief in Jesus Christ and His Church.  The children have promised to do their best, with the help of school and parents, and to take a full part in the Sacramental programme.

Please pray for the Confirmands at this time, that they open their mind and heart to the workings of the gifts of the Holy Spirit now and moving forward into their lives as full members of the church.

Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany.  Epiphany comes 12 days after Christmas Day, when the three Wise Men (the Magi) visited the baby Jesus.  This visit was seen as a message to all that Christ was for all nations.  Christ was revealed as the Son of God to all of humanity. 

AUTUMN 2022

We would like to express our deepest sympathies and send our condolences to the families, friends and wider community involved in the tragic Babb’s Mills incident this week.  We keep them all in our prayers.

Thank you St. Anne’s

In times of despair the family community of St. Anne’s always reaches out to support others. This week there is so much darkness. We continue to pray. Thank you for your incredible generosity to support our local Catholic school St. Anthony’s.

We have raised £1550.   Please continue to keep the community of St. Anthony’s in your prayers.

MESSAGE FROM ARCHBISHOP BERNARD LONGLEY:

“My heart goes out to all those affected by this tragedy and on behalf of the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham I offer my deepest condolences to those who have lost loved ones.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Kingshurst community at this deeply distressing time.  What has happened is truly devastating and hard to comprehend.  The Catholic community is here to support and comfort all those affected.  Prayers are being said at all our churches.” 

The St. Anne’s children went to Mass on Thursday to celebrate this special Holy Day of Obligation.  The children thought about the following during and after the celebration of Mass:

Just like the baby Jesus was sent to Mary

God sent a baby to St. Anne.

God made her to be very precious, and without any sin.

St. Anne then had this precious baby and named her Mary

She was a special gift from God to St. Anne and St. Joachim.

God always had an important plan for Mary (just like He has a plan for all of us)

Because of this plan, Mary spent her life in a perfect relationship with God.

God always had the plan that Mary would be the mother of Jesus.

The Holy Family

On Wednesday, Year 5 were discussing this image with the words “We too were asylum seekers”. Considering our Catholic Social Teaching, The Holy Family, the children thought about the difficult journey Mary and Joseph had to make and the danger they potentially faced.  We then thought about how this related to our world today and discussed world issues too.  We pray for all on a difficult journey during this time.

Bambinelli Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday) when all the children bring their figure of baby Jesus from their nativity scenes to St. Peter’s Square to be blessed by the Pope.  Our Reception children have made their own beautiful Bambinellis and were delighted when Deacon Stuart came to school to bless them.  The children have taken their Bambinellis home, meaning that Jesus will be present in their home during the Christmas season.  

The Columbans in Britain are trying something different this Saturday - at 10am (UK time) we're inviting Columban supporters and their families to join an interactive online advent prayer service.

https://columbans.co.uk/pray/11494/family-advent-prayer-service/

This week, the children watched the CAFOD livestream assembly, which linked beautifully with our Catholic Social Teaching Focus of Family and Community for this half term.  We thought about how we can share joy and peace this Advent and how we can come together as God’s community to make a difference.  We linked our prayers particularly to the war that is still ongoing in Ukraine, and other vulnerable people in the community who needs our prayers this Advent.  We then reflected upon the journey that we are all on this Advent together, growing in our relationship with Christ, who shines in our hearts.

On Friday, the children joined with Dan and Emily, to think particularly about the significance of Advent and how we, as children of St. Anne’s, can prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ in our hearts, minds and our daily actions.  We sang together and prayed - bringing hope, sharing joy and spreading peace throughout the school!

Please follow the link to find the December edition of the TenTen Parent Newsletter, where you will find information about what the children will be learning about over the course of Advent during prayer and liturgy.  www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/parent-newsletter/

November - Children Who Suffer: We pray for children who are suffering, especially those who are homeless, orphans, and victims of war; may they be guaranteed access to education and the opportunity to experience family affection. The Pope’s video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MafPVv25rBs   

December - Volunteer Not-for-Profit Organizations: We pray that volunteer non-profit organizations committed to human development find people dedicated to the common good and ceaselessly seek out new paths to international cooperation.

Responding to the Call of Creation, as a school, we are joining the campaign to reduce schools’ environmental impact this Christmas by taking a Christmas Card pledge.  The pledge will stand from this year onwards that we encourage a more sustainable, alternative policy for Christmas card giving.  This supports our livesimply award and what it stands for.

Of course, card giving is a fun part of Christmas so we have some alternative suggestions to keep things joyful. Please see the poster for alternative ideas, which we would love for you all to consider.

KS1 held a beautiful phase assembly in the hall this week linked to Remembrance. The children thought about how we, as pupils of St. Anne’s, can think about and remember those that have departed before us: in our families, community and those who have fought in wars. 

We have now entered the month of November.  A time where we reflect upon and pray for the deceased members of our families, friends, school and parish community.  During this important time, we will keep in our prayers in particular the special intentions from families at home.  If you would like to share a prayer intention, please send this in with your child at school and this will be placed in our special remembrance box.

Our site manager, Mr Slattery, has also kindly place a beautiful soldier silhouette in our prayer garden so that children can visit during class time, and break times, to pay their respects to the fallen soldiers.

Please take a look in the prayer garden when you collect your child – the upturned rifle is a sign of respect for those lost in war.  Each day, the children will remember those who have died by praying the Eternal Rest prayer.

On Tuesday this week, the children celebrated the Feast of All Saints, which is a Holy Day of Obligation, to honour all the saints in the Catholic Church who are now in heaven.  It was a beautiful Mass for the children.  The children then reflected upon some of the inspiring saints of the church during a reflection at the end of the day.

On Monday, St. Anne’s joined the Livestream for Schools organised by the Birmingham Archdiocese in the presence of the relics of St. Bernadette.  Archbishop Bernard led us all in praying The Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary.

In support of CAFOD Family Fast Day, St. Anne's would like to thank all staff and families for their very generous donations, which has today been taken to Lilly's Tea Parlour and has been gratefully received.  We will continue with our support to local food banks and outreaches. 

St. Francis Collective Worship

This week Year 1 came together with their Year 6 buddies to celebrate the life of their class saint St. Francis of Assisi in prayer.  They listened to the story of Creation linking in with their RE unit and then linked this with how St. Francis cared for God’s creation.  Together they sang a beautiful hymn together called ‘I Give Thanks’ - which they learnt during the ‘One Life’ autumn stream last week.
All of the children were wonderfully prayerful and reflective throughout.

This week the children in year 2 led a Collective Worship. They used the Wednesday Word as a focus.  The children read beautifully, prayed reverently and also showed how they can work together as Spiritual Leaders.

Year 4 have been praying in colour this week, we have been reflecting on the people who are special to us and have been sending our prayers to God.

During Collective Worship, year 6 showed their devotion to Our Lady by singing and signing the Hail Mary. A beautiful, prayerful way of showing our love to the Saint Mary, the mother of Jesus.

This week Year 2 joined St. Anne’s Parish Mass.  The children were so reverent and joined in with many responses and prayers.  They listened to Father Christie and behaved beautifully.  The year 2 teachers were extremely proud of them all.

Representatives from Year 6 celebrated Mass this week with the 12 other primary and secondary schools that make up Our Lady and All Saints MAC.  This was a wonderful opportunity for the children to come together to signify officially our launch through the celebration of Mass.  The children participated through reading and leading on the offertory.

At St. Anne’s, we are following the journey of the year of the pilgrimage.  This is a series of assemblies which will take our children on an exciting virtual pilgrimage journey.  One Collective Worship assembly per month will be a Ten Ten Year of Pilgrimage assembly, with ‘stopping place’ destinations across the year such as the cross, Santiago de Compostela, Rome, a local pilgrimage site of schools’ own choosing, Walsingham, Lourdes and lastly the manger in December 2022.  Here you can see the Pilgrimage map to see the destinations we will focus on.

Most excitingly, the children of St Anne’s are leading on the Year of the Pilgrimage! Hundreds of schools across England, Wales and Scotland will join our pupils lead on this very special time to learn about places of pilgrimage in the Catholic faith. The children were absolutely incredible leaders, showing amazing qualities of speaking and listening to deliver really important messages. We are so proud of them!

Please see link below for the monthly Ten Ten R.E Newsletter (September addition).  The information shared on this newsletter links to the children’s Collective Worship in class.

www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/parent-newsletter/

The children in Year 6 participated in a wonderful Leaders Mass this week.  Afterwards they received their Leaders Badge and made their Leaders Promise.  We are confident that they will lead the school through their hard work and saintly actions.  We are very proud of you and may God shine on their lives this year.

As we remember Queen Elizabeth II, following her sad passing yesterday, we thought it would be fitting to share this special photograph of a St. Anne's pupil greeting the Queen upon the official opening of Chelmsley Wood shopping centre in 1971.

We remember fondly too the fun-filled days we shared last term in school, celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.

Please treasure the special 'Queen Elizabeth II' book that your child received last term, so this remarkable queen will live on in their memories as we begin a new era with a king as monarch.

Eternal rest grant unto her,

O Lord,

and let perpetual light shine

upon her.

May she rest in peace.  Amen

We pray for the repose of the soul of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.  We give thanks for her life of faith and service to God and to the people of this country, the Realms and the Commonwealth.

Lord in your mercy

R: Hear our prayer.

We pray for His Majesty the King Charles III.  We ask that God blesses him and gives him the strength as he begins his reign.

Lord hear us

R: Hear our prayer.

SUMMER 2022

This week (20^th – 26^th June) it is the World Meeting of Families.  The World Meeting of Families is a 4-day international conference generally held every three years, in different places around the world, and often in conjunction with a papal visit or appearance.  This has drawn around 2,000 Catholic families to the Italian capital to meet Pope Francis and hear talks on marriage and the faith. 

The World Meeting of Families is a gathering of the Roman Catholic Church that has occurred every three years since 1994 and is organized by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, which ‘promotes the pastoral care of families, protects their rights and dignity in the Church and in civil society’.

In school we have been thinking about the importance of family, in every context.  Through our school family, our class family, our families at home, our MAC family linked to Our Lady and All Saints and the family of God.

Here is a link to a beautiful prayer resources that you and your family can use at home to encourage a special prayer time together. This resource was specifically created for the World Meeting of Families.

https://www.celebratetrust.org/celebratehome-prayer-stations

This week, year 3 went to St. Anne’s church to join in Parish Mass.  It is wonderful to share in Mass each week with the local community and parishioners.  The children were reverent, and prayerful throughout and represented school beautifully.

It was very special that the Year 3 children were able to celebrate the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist.  Father explained to the children that the church recognises 3 birthdays - Jesus,  Mary  and St. John the Baptist.  Well done year 3.

This week, Mrs Neild led a beautiful collective worship with years 4,5 and 6 on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

We thought about the love that Jesus has for us and how we can thank and praise Him.  We learned about Saint John Eudes who devoted his life to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  We also thought about the visions that Saint Margaret Mary had and those visions have had a lasting impact in church today.  We learnt a new hymn called ‘Jesus is the Rock’ and raised the roof with our singing! 

This week at St. Anne’s, we have recognised the importance of the National celebration, Refugee Week. The theme for Refugee Week is ‘healing’ and hopes to imagine a world where healing replaces harm and care becomes the worlds shared currency.  The children, staff and community of St. Anne’s have a shared understanding that we have a duty as Christian Citizens to support those in need, to be compassionate and show love to our global brothers and sisters in crisis.

In school, we have focused on the book ‘On the Move - Poems About Migration’, which is a book written by the famous author Michael Morporgo. We have thought about how we can relate to the refugees and considerations from alternative viewpoints.  There is also a link below to a beautiful, short story: ‘My name is not refugee’:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9n1plse2K4

We are proud to announce the launch of our ‘We Are All Saints…Children's Charter’ to mark the one-year celebration of the formation of Our Lady and All Saints Catholic Multi Academy Company.  The charter outlines the offer of all schools within the MAC and sits at the heart of our mission to provide high quality Catholic education for all our pupils.  

In the most basic sense, a saint is a ‘holy one’, someone who is set apart for God’s special purposes.  As a result, every follower of Jesus Christ can be a saint.  By following the examples of the saints, we will guide, lead and teach our children to emulate their virtuous behaviours and to follow in their footsteps. 

Our charter is arranged into the following principles:  

•    All Saints have a love for others, 

•    All Saints use their gifts wisely, 

•    All Saints are servants of Christ, 

•    All Saints are risk takers, 

•    All Saints have a love for the world around them. 

The five sections set out a blueprint for the overall offer of experiences that our children and young people can expect to receive as they undertake their journey through each stage of both their primary and secondary school lives, within Our Lady and All Saints Catholic MAC.  It seeks to equip them to become active Christian citizens in their communities and across the world. We want every child and young person, following the example of Christ in his likeness and in his Gospel teachings, to leave school fully confident that, not only are they academically fulfilled but they have also experienced a wide range of activities enriching their hearts, minds and souls. 

The principles of our charter will be explored and unpicked at focus points throughout the liturgical year but we’ll also be looking for and celebrating examples of saintly behaviours each and every day. 

All parents/carers have been emailed the 'We Are All Saints…' Children's Charter today and it can also be located on our website here: Our Faith: We are all Saints…Children’s Charter

We look forward to embedding the Children’s Charter offer for all of our pupils at St Anne’s Catholic Primary School. 

“The saints were not superheroes, nor were they perfect.  When they recognised God’s love, they followed it and served others."  Pope Francis 

Our first group of children will be making their First Holy Communion this weekend.   We continue to keep in our prayers all of the children who are due to receive theirs over the coming weeks.

SPRING 2022

 To celebrate the season of Easter, the children and staff have created beautiful, meaningful prayer areas to be displayed beautifully at

the front of the class. 

SPRING 2022

This week the children across school have been thinking about the families that are currently being affected in Ukraine.  We have spent some time creating meaningful prayer cards.  A dove, representing peace, as we pray for peace.  The coloured strips are representing the blue and yellow on the Ukrainian flag.  Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with them all. 

Within Our Lady and All Saints Multi Academy Company, all schools have adopted the ethos and vision that ‘We Are All Saints…Children’s Charter.’

This sets out our approach and aspiration to delivering a truly Catholic educational experience for all the children across the 13 MAC schools.

A saint is a “holy one,” someone who is set apart for God’s special purposes.  As a result, every follower of Jesus Christ can be a saint.  By following the examples of the saints, we will guide, lead and teach our children to match their virtuous behaviours and to follow in their footsteps.

The charter is arranged into the following principles:

• All Saints have a love for others,

• All Saints use their gifts wisely,

• All Saints are servants of Christ,

• All Saints are risk takers,

• All Saints have a love for the world around them.

The five principles set out aims and guidelines to strive for.  It seeks to equip them to become active Christian citizens within their communities and within the world.  The aim within the MAC is that we want every child, following the example of Christ in his likeness and in his Gospel teachings, to leave school fully confident that, not only are they academically fulfilled but they have also experienced a wide range of activities enriching them.

Children will potentially face a world where there may be indifference to the needs of the poor, gross inequality, injustice and climate change challenges which threaten God’s creation.  Our charter and overall curriculum offer aim to mould active citizens who, through social action, will have the capability and the will to created lasting change.

Moving forward, St Annes will link the children’s charter with texts home to St. Annes families to recognise individual children each week who are demonstrating an aspect of the children’s charter.

Lenten Promises

To mark the start of our Lenten journey, Year 5 have made some beautiful promises. The children considered the three pillars of lent; praying, fasting and almsgiving and thought about how they could demonstrate these. There were many wonderful promises made, highlighting the children’s devotion to their faith.

It was wonderful to welcome Margot back to St. Anne’s this week after more than two years apart.  Margot is a representative from Father Hudson’s Care and has spoken to the children about how we can support the charity during Lent.  After half term, each child will receive a Good Shepherd Appeal Box to fill with coins and raise money for this charity; this money will go towards helping those in need for example, help to support and tackle homelessness and those who are vulnerable in our local community. 

We are taking every effort to promote our Catholic Social Teaching for this half term, which is to support the poor and vulnerable. It is important that we recognise these sisters and brothers must be treated with extra respect and extra care and have access to what they need.

If you would like to find out more about this worthy charity, please go to the following website.

https://www.fatherhudsons.org.uk/getinvolved/good-shepherd-appeal/856.htm

Children across the school have been creating a piece of artwork incorporating their 'vision for the future' and how they might like to see the world.  The children focused on all the benefits of Fairtrade and how essential it is for the sustainability of our planet.  We were so impressed by their enthusiasm and their engagement for this extremely important global issue. 

The children in year 6 have created this piece of art work ahead of Fairtrade Fortnight.  The theme for this year is ‘Choose the World You Want’.  The children looked through the most recent newspapers and were amazed to find out there is so much happening towards combating Climate Change.  We all recognised the importance that children’s voices must be heard, and we must all stand together to make a difference.  We linked to our art work to the ‘Livesimply’ award where we can choose to make changes in our lives to make a huge impact on safeguarding our future world.

Give thanks to the world that God has bestowed upon us.  Go for a walk at the weekend with your family and look at God’s beautiful creation.  What are you thankful for? The trees, nature, family, fresh air, open space.  Have a grateful heart.

This week the children learned all about Tom, a trainee priest and his vocation and calling to God.  They learned all about how he is using his special talents in the church.  The children have been exploring vocations in RE this half term and have also spoken to Deacon Stuart and his role in the church too. 

For our learning about Jesus’ life we have found out more about how important Mary is to him and to us in our daily lives.  We prayed to Mary in Collective Worship and also started to learn how to pray the Rosary using Rosary beads.  We thought about and prayed for our families, the poor and the sick. 

On Monday and Tuesday afternoon, Year 5 took part in a COP26 workshop led by Columban Missionaries UK.  Juliette led a wonderful workshop for Year 5 sharing her experiences of being at COP26 in Glasgow. We reflected on all of the wonderful things the children have done since the Care for Creation project and asked Juliette questions about her own experiences at COP26.  It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to share their passion, enthusiasm and determination towards the fight against climate change.

Eden had also created a beautiful prayer to share with year 3.

Lets put our hands on our heart. Father God fill us with your love.

Help us to love You & everything that you have created.

Lets point to our eyes. Lord Jesus help us to see you and see others the way you see them.
Lets point to our ears. Holy Spirit help us to hear you and give us courage to do as you say.
Amen

 Beautiful examples of our earthly saints using the prayer bag at home with their families and pets!

‘Live Simply’ Tip of the Week

Can you take some time this weekend or during next week to have a walk with your family?  Is there an opportunity to walk to school

rather than drive?  Wrap up warm and take some time to appreciate the world we live in.

AUTUMN 2021

 It was wonderful that Year 5 and 6 and Year 3 and 4 were able to join St. Anne’s parishioners for Advent Mass.  A fantastic way to prepare for the coming of Jesus.

Well done to all the children in Year 3 who received the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We are so proud of the children involved, showing great reverence and respect throughout the process.  This special sacrament has brought the children closer to God as they prepare for their upcoming First Holy Communion.   We look forward to them continuing their journey of faith as they prepare for the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the summer term.

Year 6 Buddies

 The children across year 6 LOVED receiving a Christmas Card from their Our Lady and All Saints MAC buddy school, Our Lady of the Wayside.  Inside is a beautiful Bible reference linked to Christmas.  The children will treasure the cards and hopefully meet their buddies next year 
 

This week in Nursery the children continue to learn about ‘Advent’.  They looked at the Advent wreath and could talk about what they could see.  They have been learning about babies and what babies need.  They made their own Bambinellis, baby Jesus’ to keep in a special place at home.  This is another way of helping us prepare for Jesus’ birthday. Deacon Stuart came into school to bless them.  Today the children were very excited to wear their Christmas jumpers

The children in Reception have enjoyed learning more about Advent. This week we looked at the Advent wreath and created our own observational drawings.  Look at our fantastic work!

 Bambinelli Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday) when all the children bring their figure of baby Jesus from their nativity scenes to St. Peter’s Square to be blessed by the Pope.  Our Reception children have made their own beautiful Bambinellis and were delighted when Deacon Stuart came to school to bless them.  The children have taken their Bambinellis home, meaning that Jesus will be present in their home during the Christmas season.

A Christmas Carol!

This morning, Year 5 had the wonderful opportunity to sing some Christmas songs for their families outside. It was lovely to share our talents once again and put a smile on everyone’s faces – the Christmas jumpers looked great too!

The children in Reception have had a wonderful week learning about Advent. We looked at the Advent wreath and talked about the special candles and the symbols. We created our own Advent wreaths and made our special Advent commitments. We also enjoyed decorating our Christmas trees  and starting our work around “The very First Christmas”.

Year 3 took part in the CAFOD Advent Livestream this week. We discussed the importance of Advent and then wrote our own Advent commitment prayers in RE. We are looking forward to our Advent assembly!

Year 5 have begun their Advent by writing some beautiful commitments this week, their thoughts and words were incredibly reflective and beautiful.  Please take a look at some of the wonderful work produced.

Today we celebrated the retirement of Mrs Conway, our very special lollipop lady. Mrs Conway has served our community for 50 years.  She began her work as a lollipop lady in 1971.  In 2009 she was awarded an MBE at Buckingham Palace from Prince Charles.  Mrs Conway knows so many families and has looked after thousands and thousands of children.  She always has the most beautiful smile which she shares every day, despite unpredictable weather including hail and snow!  She is the most caring and thoughtful lady and she always has a kind word to say to everyone she encounters.

At school today we gave our thanks to Mrs Conway by surprising her with a morning of celebrations including song, poetry and a special guard of honour as well as lots of treats.  

On behalf of St. Anne’s, we would like to say a million thankyous for everything she has done and we wish her the most wonderful retirement!  An incredible achievement retiring at the age of 82!

This week in Nursery the children have been learning all about the ‘Creation Story’.  They have used a variety of arts and crafts, role play, small world and water play to explore all of the wonderful things that God made. They really enjoyed ‘Yoga Time’ moving like different animals.  The children were able to say their own beautiful thank you prayers.

This week our focus for Catholic Social Teaching is Family and Community.  We talked about The Holy Family (Mary, Joseph and Jesus) and their relevance to our own wonderful families. This fitted well with our Religious Education lesson about the Sacrament of Marriage as we talked about the love and care Mary and Joseph had shown each other. The children wrote some beautiful prayers of intention where they thanked God for The Holy Family and also asked for God's blessing for all married couples.  Year 2 Superstars!

This week was Other Faith week for Year 4.  We have been studying Judaism and we had two visitors come in.  On Monday, a speaker from CAFOD spoke to the children about Catholic Social Teaching.  On Thursday, Ruth, a Jewish lady came in to show the children some artefacts from her religion and answer their questions. 

The children have made a beautiful stained glass window Christmas card with the North Star presented inside, for their MAC buddies at Our Lady of the Wayside this week.  It is lovely to make close links with another school.

At St. Anne’s, we are thinking about Catholic Social Teaching and how we can live out the teachings at school.  They are a set of seven principles, rooted in Scripture, to provide us with guidance on how to live out our faith in our school, community and the world, particularly thinking about social justice.  Our faith calls us to love God and to love our neighbours, brothers and sisters in every situation, following in the footsteps of Christ.  

At the very core, Catholic Social Teaching is for the common good of all people.

       The seven statements are:

• The Dignity of the Human Person
• Family and Community
• Solidarity & The Common Good
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
• Stewardship of God’s Creation
• The Dignity of Work and the rights of Workers
   
  This half term, our focus is on Family and Community.
  ‘Jesus understood that people need each other.  We all need our families, friends and neighbours.  He tells us that these important people can help us.  Jesus says that we must help them too.  Doing this, we create a loving community where everyone can live life to the full.’

Reception Baptism

Children in Reception have continued their work on Baptism this week and the children loved Baptising the baby in class.  The children were fantastic at remembering all of the special symbols of Baptism and welcoming Baby Anne into the family of God.

CAFOD

Year 2 thoroughly enjoyed their visit from CAFOD today to talk about Catholic Social Teaching.  They came up with some wonderful suggestions as to how they can implement the teachings into their everyday life.

Our Year 3 children took part in a workshop led by Chris from CAFOD.  We were delighted to also have Deacon Stuart, Sue and Tom join us for our workshop too!  We had a brilliant time learning about how we can follow the Catholic Social Teaching Principles.

Children from John Henry Newman visited St. Anne’s on Wednesday for a child-led liturgy with Mr Morgan. The theme was to be kind, with Anti Bullying Week in mind.  Year 5 and 6 enjoyed singing, reflection and a prayerful time together.  It embedded the idea that being kind, in all situations, is so important.

This week, the final two groups from year 6 completed their Sacrament of Confirmation.  The children were a real credit to themselves and demonstrated the virtues and values which they live out every day in their lives.  

They now continue their journey of faith, filled with the Holy Spirit to guide them.

Thank you to all the families and friends of the children for helping to celebrate with them.

November is the month of Remembrance.  It was wonderful for the children to share in Holy Mass on Tuesday with

@SoulsSchool for All Souls Day, to remember the faithful departed.

Year 6 Confirmation

Congratulations to 6EN who have received the sacrament of Confirmation this week.  The service was both reverent and special.  We are so proud of you.  Thank you to all our families for all their support.  We look forward to 6C receiving the sacrament next week. 

Our learning in Religious Education is about The Old testament stories.  So far we have learned about Noah’s Ark, Abraham and Isaac and Jonah and the Whale.  The oldest Bible was written in Hebrew and we tried to write in Hebrew ourselves - we did a great job!  We talked to our partners about other stories we knew from the bible and the messages from God within them.

Home Focal Points

Wonderful examples of the children in Year 3 using the prayer bag at home.  Eden set up her focal point along with her own religious statues, bible and rosary and shared prayers with her family, thanking God for his love, guided and offerings.  

It was also wonderful to see Nikola set up her focal point at home, along with her cousin in 5T and her cousin in 6C and they prayed as a family.

The Month of the Rosary

This week, Year 5 spent some time praying to The Rosary, in order to build our own faith and grow closer to Our Lady. We then reflected on our own private intentions and prayers and asked Mary for her love and guidance always. The children were extremely reverent and prayerful as always and it was a beautiful opportunity for them.  

Paddy, Sophia and Maya represented school on Monday as part of our Care for Creation project.  They joined other schools in the MAC and celebrated Mass at St. Chad’s cathedral.  Following Mass, they walked to the town hall to meet the Lord Mayor.  They presented some letters to be shared with MPs about the climate.  As we know our children are passionate about climate change and we hope he MPs will listen to the requests put forward by the children.

Year 1 Class Saint - St. Francis of Assisi

On Monday, children in Year 1 celebrated their class saint ‘St. Francis of Assisi’.  St. Francis lived a life of poverty after deciding to dedicate his life to looking after nature and God’s creatures.  We wanted to celebrate this in class by thinking about how we can we can live our lives like him.  We reflected on what things they love in the world that cannot be bought.

Our first group of children made their First Holy Communion last weekend.   We continue to keep in our prayers all of the children who are due to receive theirs over the coming weeks.

We were delighted to welcome Saqib Bhatti to St. Anne’s last week.  It was the first time we had received a visit from a Member of Parliament.  The children in Year 6 sent him a letter to invite him into school to discuss climate change linked to our topic “Care for Creation”.  This is what he tweeted following his visit:

Saqib Bhatti MP, @bhatti_saqib

‘I was delighted to visit St. Anne’s Primary in Chelmsley Wood last week to speak about the importance of climate change and my work as an MP.  I was certainly put through my paces with this crowd!  They did a good job of holding me to account and I look forward to visiting again.’

We want change!  We want change!  The children at St. Anne's have taken part in lots of activities linked to our topic 'Care of Creation'.

Children have had a brilliant week learning all about how to look after our world throughout 'Care for Creation' week.  The children have produced fantastic work this week while discovering different ways to help tackle climate change. We have been so inspired by how thoughtful and compassionate the children have been when discussing such important topics! The children had lots of fun making placards to raise awareness of protecting our planet for future generations. Hope comes from action! 

This week, the children have celebrated the official launch week for the Our Lady and all Saints MAC.  The children have had a fantastic week celebrating schools joining together.  The week began with a video of photos and videos from each of the 13 schools, where the children could see and meet children from each school.  We then joined together in prayer, thinking about our journey is similar to the parable of the mustard seed.  Our faith, friendship and support for each other as a MAC family will grow over time to become a huge success, just as the mustard seed grows into a huge tree.  Later in the week the children had some fun with a Saints Trail around the school grounds, finding out fascinating facts about each of the school saints.  The week ended with praying our school MAC prayer, which the children across school created last academic year.  We look forward to growing our connections with each school and continuing on this exciting journey.

Pope Francis has named this time from September to the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, ‘The Season of Creation.’

During the Season of Creation next week, we will be starting two weeks of learning and action all about caring for the environment; for God’s beautiful creation.  We have teamed up with the family of schools that creates Our Lady and All Saints Catholic Multi Academy Company (MAC) and Columban Missionaries Britain, because together we are stronger, ‘Stronger in Faith’.

Beginning on Monday 20th September and concluding on the feast of St Francis of Assisi, Monday 4th October, this MAC-wide project is a special time to pray and act for the earth, our common home.  Together we are stronger; together we will listen to the cry of the earth, together we will pray and reflect; together we will take action, making a positive change for better.  Find out more as it happens by following us and our MAC Family of schools on Twitter: @OurLadyandAllS1 @GrdangelsCP @StAnnesCP @StAnthonysSch @stwilfridrc @OurLadysCP @SJBsolihull @StEdRCPrimary @ourladycompass @OLWayside @StAugsCPS @StPetersSch @stgandtschool @s82twitter

On Wednesday, children watched the CAFOD ‘Go Green’ assembly.  They are learning all about how we can help the Amazon Rainforest.  Did you know, the Amazon rain Forest is like a giant air conditioning unit for the world?  It is so important for our climate.

We must take more care of our world.  The Amazon is important for the whole world. God has given us the Earth as our common home, we share it together with our family of God.  We must work together to look after it. https://cafod.org.uk/News/Events/National-assemblies 

            https://cafod.org.uk/Education/Primary-teaching-resources/Laudato-Si-for-children

SUMMER 2021

Year 6 thought about what the word faith means to us as a class during our RSE lesson. We completed a ‘faith’ task, where the children followed instructions, having complete faith in the person who was leading on the instructions.  Using our ears to listen, without needing evidence or being able to see, just like we should be ready to open our heart and listen to God

This week the children have thoroughly enjoyed taking part and learning all about the Islamic faith.  They have discovered the wonders of the Five Pillars of Islam, as well as the Pilgrimage that Muslims take to Mecca – Hajj.  Finally, they children got the opportunity to recreate some Islamic artwork.  Well done children – you continue to impress us every day! 

 This week in Collective Worship Year 2 have been reflecting and learning about vocations.  To help us and guide us we have said the St. John Vianney prayer for vocations.  We have spent time thinking about the courage we need in our life to follow God's plan for all of us.  Some of us would like to be nurses and doctors in the future and show the same amazing courage and care our NHS workers have shown recently.  Most of all we thought about how important it is to show care and love to everyone in our world.

 Religious Education in Year 1

This week, year 1 went over to church to view the Saint Anne's Paschal candle as part of our RE lesson.

We discussed the symbols that can be found on the candle and their meaning and talked about when it is first lit and why. Miss Wicketts and Mrs Bathurst were amazed by the children's answers and how reverently and respectfully they behaved whilst in God's house.

The children in Reception have been continuing their work on the story “The Little Red Hen”.  We have loved listening to the story, joining in with the actions and completing lots of work linked to the story. We have also had a great time thinking about our “Vocation”.  We thought about the special talents God gave us and how we can use these talents as we grow up.  We spoke about what job we would like to have when we are older. We created some super work!

This week at St Anne’s, we have been celebrating the launch of the Our Lady and All Saints Multi Academy Company.  We started the week with a launch assembly, introducing the 12 other schools that are joining together.  It was wonderful to discuss the connections the children of St. Anne’s already have with so many of the schools.  

We thought about how we, as a school community, can be ‘strong in faith’ as the strapline of the Our Lady and All Saint logo states.

Throughout the school, we then used the parable of the mustard seed to represent the journey that we are now on together during a Collective Worship.  Starting as a small mustard seed, our faith as a community of leaders, staff, children and parents will grow to create new connections and a stronger faith, together.  We thought about our new family that we are welcoming.  We have our own families and carers at home; our school family; the family of God and now, we welcome Our Lady and All Saints family too.

In our R.E lessons, we explored each of the 13 Mission Statements from each school, and the important messages that we can take from each of them.  We then created a class ‘Our Lady and All Saints prayer’, using the special words from each of the Mission Statements to help us.  The prayers were then offered to God, and all the boys and girls at St. Anne’s said a special prayer thinking about the 4500 children and more than 700 staff who are joining together.

It has been a delight to see the wonderful art work that has been created to represent Our Lady and All Saints. From the canvas paintings, the posters, the framed art work and the wooden mobiles.  I know that Peter Davies, the Catholic Senior Executive Leader will be overwhelmed with the creativity at St. Anne’s.

It has been a truly fabulous launch week, with lots to celebrate and look forward to. We look forward to the future where can grow new friends and new connections with the other schools.

Miss Evans visited both of the year 6 classes on Monday, to launch the Our Lady and All Saints MAC to the children.  

We thought about what this meant to us as a school, and how we can be strong in faith.

It was amazing to think that all 13 schools were sharing the same launch assembly this week.  We said a prayer for all the members of the new, Our Lady and All Saints family. 

Tree Planting in recognition of the launch of our lady and all saints multi academy company

Niamh, Finlay and Ruby helped Mr Slattery plant a Dog Rose saplin as part of our launch.  All schools were kindly given this saplin as a symbol of new beginnings and growing in faith.  We will watch our saplin grow and blossom over time.

In collective worship, Year 2 listened to the parable of the mustard seed. We compared how the mustard seed grows into a tree with our school growing as an academy.

Fantastic creativity linked to our new and exciting journey from Harrison in year 2. Harrison is proud to share this fantastic piece of work done at home with our new family of schools.

As part of our MAC soft launch, the children in year 3 created some beautiful prayers in class.  The children thought it was important to recognise in our prayer that we are joining together as a new ‘family’. 

Year 3 are looking forward to their new journey within Our Lady and All Saints.

In collective worship this week in year 1 we have been learning about something very exciting.  We learnt that our school is growing into a bigger family!  We are joining together with 12 other schools to become a MAC, called ‘Our Lady and All Saints’.  This week we have been spending time asking God to help us as we grow and we have been having faith that he will do this.  Each class planted a seed and we will nurture it over the next few weeks and encourage it to grow just like us joining the Academy, where we will become even bigger, better, stronger school, just like our sunflower plant. 

​

Year 5 have had a fantastic first week back!  All the children have been working extremely hard and we are very proud of all their efforts.  Throughout this week the children have been celebrating joining Our Lady and All Saints MAC.  They have all written their own beautiful prayer as well as contributing to producing a shared class prayer.  Well done Year 5 for being so spiritual and thoughtful.

Fantastic artwork created by Finley for Our Lady and All Saints.

‘This picture reminds me of all the schools coming together to become one, with Christ at the centre of our lives.’  Finley made this beautiful work with beads, thousands of them!

                                                                                   REMOTE LEARNING COVID 19

Spring 2020

Week Commencing 2nd March 2020

During Lent, our Liturgical Leaders will be sharing special prayers with you and our St. Anne’s community.  This week our Leaders have chosen the following prayers:

 “Lord, there are so many reasons to smile and be cheerful, so many God-given moments that are messengers of hope each day.  Help me, during this Lent, to seize the day and to make the most of every opportunity.”

“Lord, Many communities and countries are living in poverty and daily hardship yet they show tremendous faith and love.  Help us to learn from these groups the importance of love as a gift more precious than other possessions.”

Week Commencing 24th February 2020

On Wednesday, children and staff from years 3, 4, 5 & 6 attended a lovely Mass for Ash Wednesday led by Deacon Stuart.  The children were reverent and respectful in church as always and read and sang beautifully; many thanks to all the children and staff.  Reception and Infant children received their ashes on Wednesday afternoon in school.

During Lent, out Liturgical Leaders will be sharing special prayers with you and our St. Anne’s community.  This week our Leaders have chosen the following prayers:

“Lord, in the parable of the talents you teach us to use the gifts we have been given for  

 our benefit and that of others.  Help us to recognise the potential of our own and others’    

      gifts to enhance lives each day.”

“Lord, I offer you my hopes and fears during Lent.  I offer you the light and shadows within me.  May your light shine through me clearly, that the others will recognise your goodness in me.”

Father Hudson’s Care is the social care agency of the Archdiocese of Birmingham which is a very worthy charity.  Once again we are asking for your support as part of our Lenten fund raising activities.

This week, each child will have received an information letter along with a self-assembly collecting box; please encourage him/her to put a small amount each day in the box.  Would you kindly arrange to return The Good Shepherd Collection boxes to school by Friday 27^th March 2020.  Your contributions are greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

Week Commencing 10th February

This morning, Year 5 performed their assembly on their PSHE unit "Dreams and Goals".  The assembly consisted of their hopes for future jobs and vocations and they expressed their understanding of training and the journey they must go on in order to achieve their dreams.  

We also linked this to our God given talents which we must share with the world and choose a vocation that would nurture God's world for the better.  The children were fantastic and sang, acted and spoke confidently and eloquently.  It was a very popular assembly enjoyed by all!

On Thursday, six children from Year 5 took part in a debate held at Solihull Council Chambers.  Along with other schools, the children had to put forward their argument to the Mayor of Solihull.  The subject was ‘Should children under the age of 12 be banned from eating sweets and chocolate?’  All of the children performed wonderfully and were a credit to St. Anne’s.  A special mention to Konrad who won a £10 book voucher for being ‘Debater of the Day’.  Well done to Konrad, Abbigail, Ella, Kyle, Jack & Roxanna.

Week Commencing 3rd February 2020

Thank you for supporting the NSPCC National Number Day today.  Our reception children had great fun exploring with numbers and representing numbers in different ways in the outdoor area.  We had some super number sentences!!!

Each child put out the coins that they had brought into school and spelled out ‘Find Your Brave’.  The Rock Star/Pop Star non-uniform theme went down brilliantly with some wonderful and funky costumes!  Such an amazing effort by all for a very worthy cause.  We look forward to sharing with you the amount raised as soon as we have the figure.

St. Anne’s Catholic Primary School will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary in April 2020.  As part of our celebrations we are working on putting a collage of photographs together showing ‘St. Anne’s through the years’ and we really need your help please.  If you have any photographs that could be part of the collage would you please arrange for us to have a copy, either electronically by sending them to the school office via email: parentmail@st-annes.solihull.sch.uk (please put ’50 Years’ in the subject line of the email so we can easily recognise emails relating to the 50^th Anniversary) or if you have hard copies by sending them into school, ensuring that your name is on the back.  Also if you have friends, family or neighbours who have had links with St. Anne’s through the years, please ask them too!  We really want this to show as many of the wonderful pupils, families and events that St. Anne’s has celebrated over the last. 50 years.

Please arrange for any contributions to be sent in by Monday 16th March 2020 and many thanks in advance for your support with this important project.

This morning class 2OC celebrated Candlemas in their Class Mass.  All the children were wonderful; they each had a special part to play and carried it out fantastically.  A wonderful celebration for all who attended and a super effort Class 2OC.  Thank you to year 2 staff and thanks to the Year 5 children who attended Mass with their Reception buddies. 

On Monday this week, some of our Year 6 children attended an event in honour of Holocaust Memorial Day at the Civic Suite in Solihull.  Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) 2020 marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau with the theme ‘Stand Together’. Over many years, the Council and its partners have commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day by holding a service in Solihull. 

Some children attended the service in the morning with the remaining children attending a talk by Rabbi Pink about his own family’s experiences during the Holocaust. 

The children represented St. Anne’s brilliantly and enjoyed learning so much about this very important day.

Week Commencing 20th January 2020

This week the children in Nursery have been learning all about Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rat.  The children have enjoyed tasting a variety of Chinese foods and opening fortune cookies to find lucky messages.  The children were excited to take home a lucky red envelope which they put under their pillow and opened the next morning to find a lucky coin!  The children have been creative by performing a lion dance, a fan dance and a ribbon dance to music using percussion instruments and we made a class story map to show all the different ways people celebrate Chinese New Year.

Children across all year groups were amazing this week – they carried out a litter pick around our school. They were so enthusiastic and worked brilliantly together to make our environment greener!  Our new eco committee in St. Anne's were wonderful in leading and encouraging children from other year groups to help gather litter.  A big thank you and well done to all involved in our big clean up!

Week Commencing 13th January 2020

The Virtue for this half-term is ‘Compassionate and Loving’

‘Our pupils are taught that compassion means always trying to be respectful and kind to one another even if it just means a smile to someone. Every year we raise money for charity and we support those in need. Our pupils are taught to love one another as God loves us.’

We are delighted to inform you that Saint Anne’s have been awarded a five-star rating and made the top ten schools in Solihull in the Birmingham Mail Real Guide to League Tables for our results from 2018-19 cohort.

St. Anne's was rated in TOP position in Solihull and ranked 163^rd overall across the country, out of 14,749 primary schools in England!

The school earned a maximum five stars in different categories including progress, attainment for all and attainment.  Parents can go online to browse the full data, compare different schools, and find links to contact details and recent Ofsted reports:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/st-annes-catholic-primary-school-6492024

We are very fortunate to have such wonderful, committed staff, fantastic children and great families and together we can continue to make Saint Anne’s the best it can be.

                                                                                            The Year of the Word

                                                                                          'The God Who Speaks'

30th Sep'19 - 31st Dec '20 celebrating, living and sharing God's word

Launch: 30th September 2019 – The Feast of St Jerome

Campaign Year Begins: 1st December 2019 – The First Sunday of Advent.

An initiative announced in February 2019 by The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales dedicated the Year 2020 to Sacred Scripture.  It has been given the name “The God Who Speaks” and it takes the Bible as its focus.  It takes place in cooperation with the British Bible Society and it offers all Catholics an opportunity to enrich current practice and to develop and explore new ways of responding to ‘The God Who Speaks’.  Scripture is at the centre of everything the Church does.  The Word of God shapes our prayer and worship. The Bible shows us how to understand the world, how we are called to live and relate to each other.

 ‘We are invited to listen afresh to the word of God as did Our Blessed Lady at the Annunciation, to encounter anew the presence of that word, and to proclaim it afresh in the Church and the World.’ - Pope Francis

Throughout 2020 there will be a range of events, activities and resources to participate in school and around the country, focusing on three themes of celebrating, living and sharing God’s Word. 
The year will also serve to commemorate two important anniversaries of Scripture’s role in the Church;
2020 will mark the 10th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini;
it is also the 1,600th anniversary of St. Jerome’s death.  For Catholics all over the world, St. Jerome is a very important Saint and Biblical scholar.  

"We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life." - 1 John 1:1

On Tuesday morning, the school joined together in prayer to celebrate the first Mass together of the New Year. Father Christopher then blessed the Bible during Mass, as part of launching the Year of the Word, signifying the importance of the Bible.

The prayer for the       Living God, You walk alongside us and speak to us throughout the Scriptures.

Year of the Word:      Your Son, Jesus Christ, listens to our hopes and fears and shows us how to live for

                                    one another.

                                    Send us the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds so that we may be your witnesses

                                    throughout the world. Amen

Autumn 2019

Week Commencing 16th December 2019

On Wednesday morning we held a beautiful Advent Mass in Church.  As usual the children were amazing both in terms of their singing and their behaviour.  Thank you to Mrs Cope and everyone involved in organising Mass.

Bambinelli Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday) when all the children bring their figure of baby Jesus from their nativity scenes to St. Peter’s Square to be blessed by the Pope.

St. Anne’s Nursery and Reception children have made their own beautiful Bambinellis and on Wednesday morning Deacon Stuart came to school to bless them.   The children have taken their Bambinellis home, meaning that Jesus will be present in their home during the Christmas season.

Some of our Year 3 children went to Orchards Care home in Shard End on Wednesday to sing Christmas carols to the residents; we also celebrated some very special birthdays!  The children gave the residents handed out a lovely Christmas card to all.  The children wished everyone a Happy Christmas and New Year.

On Thursday morning, the children of Key Stage 2 come together to share in the annual Christmas Carol Concert. The children travelled on a journey through the very special build up through Advent leading up to Christmas Day; through readings from the bible and a mix of traditional and modern carols.  We then ended the Carol Concert with the twelve days of Christmas and Santa Claus is coming to town, really getting into the Christmas Spirit. Wishing you all a Happy and Holy Christmas from all of Key Stage 2!

Week Commencing 9th December 2019

The children in year 5 had a visitor linked to their work on The School of Sanctuary on Wednesday.  Barbara spoke to the year group about the wonderful work her charity does in helping asylum seekers who are waiting for help as they have not yet been given refugee rights.  She spoke about a dear friend of hers named Muhammed who was a businessman in Pakistan before he was forced to leave due to his conversion to Catholicism.  The children learned about the tough conditions he now has and were informed about all the wonderful ways they could welcome refugees to their community linked to the fact that Jesus was a refugee due to Herod's actions.  

Barbara also left two wonderful books with us; Welcome to Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird and We Are All Born Free by Amnesty International. 

The Year 3 children performed their Advent assembly this week.  The children were fantastic and have really enjoyed preparing to share the very special message of the importance of preparing for the birth of Christ.  The year 3 children and staff hope that everyone enjoyed the performance and are looking forward to preparing for Advent. 

A big thank you to all of the staff and children involved for a truly beautiful Advent assembly.

It was a proud occasion on Thursday evening when our Year 6 children received the Sacrament of Confirmation in Church.  Canon David Evans visited school in the morning and confirmed the children in the evening. He was very impressed by our school and the children’s knowledge and understanding of the Sacrament and why they had chosen to be confirmed.

Thank you to everybody who helped to make it such a special occasion and most of all, to the children who with the support of their families and sponsors, received this very special sacrament and led it beautifully.

The Virtue for this half-term is ‘Attentive & Discerning’ -

‘Our pupils are taught to be attentive to always listen to the word of God. The Bible shows us how to live a good life. They are taught that the views of others are important and should always be listened to. Our pupils are taught that everyone deserves to be heard. They are taught that to be discerning is to choose between right and wrong in the light of God’s word’.

Week Commencing 7th October 2019

Canonisation of Blessed John Henry Newman

We are looking forward to the Canonisation of  Blessed John Henry Newman on Sunday 13^th October 2019.

Prayer with Archbishop Bernard

On Wednesday afternoon, the children and staff of St. Anne’s School joined together in prayer by praying together the rosary as part of the extraordinary missionary month, during a live stream with Archbishop Bernard. As disciples of Jesus, we live out our Mission by praying for everyone in the world. The Liturgical Leaders then presented each class with a set of rosary beads, which are the same beads used by Archbishop Bernard during the time of prayer. They have been placed on the focal point and used during class worships to pray the rosary together as a class. 

Harvest Mass led by Year 2 children - Tuesday 8th October 2019

Children in Class 2M led a wonderful Mass this morning celebrating The Harvest. Every child had an important role in the Mass and Mrs McGuire was so proud of them all. The children read eloquently, sang beautifully, carried the offertory gifts reverently and led the congregation with actions so well for the songs. The children greeting members of the parish and the community as they arrived were so ‘welcoming’ as they entered St. Anne’s church to join Class 2M for a wonderful celebration.

Week Commencing 30th September 2019

Thank you all for your very generous donations for the Macmillan Cake sale last week.  We raised an amazing £318.60 for this wonderful charity!

Year 6 confirmed their new status as the School’s leaders this week by celebrating a wonderful Mass on Tuesday morning.  All of the children in Key Stage 2 represented St. Anne’s wonderfully by showing great reverence and as always, by their lovely singing. 

Our Year 6 children were presented with their Leaders’ badges and certificates in a special ceremony this morning.  Many thanks to the family members who joined us on the special occasion and well done to our Year 6 children who we are sure will be super leaders in our school.

Children in year 3 led a wonderful Mass this morning marking the Memorial of St. Vincent de Paul.  The children were reverent and respectful in Church as always and sang their hymns beautifully.

Today we held a cake sale in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.  A huge thank you to the junior children who brought cakes in to sell and to all children who bought cakes to raise money for this wonderful charity; we look forward to letting you know how much we raised in the upcoming weeks.

Over the last few weeks we have been celebrating in assembly all the leaders in our school.  Our children lead St. Anne’s so well in so many different ways.  Here are some examples; Liturgical Leaders, School Councillors, Mini Vinnies, Eco Leaders, Sports Leaders, Year 6 leaders, Faith friends, Year 5 buddies, Altar Servers, Play leaders.

Week Commencing Sunday 8th September

Last week, the children across the school this week have focused on what Our Mission means to them.  They thought deeply about how Our Mission can be threaded through school, home and our community and thought particularly about the words that really stood out to them.  

Our Mission is part of our continued faith journey, a statement that all children and staff live out daily.  Our Mission embeds everything we do and we will continue to discuss this and keep it alive in different ways across the year. 

Week Commencing Sunday 1st September

“Our pupils are taught to be grateful for all that they have, all that they are and that is. They are taught that generosity is the root of good deeds. They are encouraged to be generous with their time, their talents and to use them to support others.”

Our first school Mass of the new term was held today.  The children all sang beautifully and were reverent as always in Church.  It was lovely to see parents and family members at Church today and we thank you for joining us.  Thank you to all the staff who organised Mass.

This Sunday, 8th September, is Education Sunday. 

Education Sunday is celebrated annually on the second Sunday in September – our children have been learning about this in school this week and the learning will continue with next week’s edition of the Wednesday Word. 

The theme this year is ‘Form and flourish – to re-form’.  If you would like more information and/or resources, please visit the Churches Together in England (CTE)

website: https://www.cte.org.uk/Groups/325728/Home/Resources/Education_Sunday/Education_Sunday_2019/

In assembly today, we have been discussing our Mission Statement with the children.  The children’s responses were amazing and expressed what our mission statement to them and how they practice our mission. 

Autumn 2018 - Summer 2019

‘Our pupils are taught that compassion means always trying to be kind and respectful to one another even if just means a smile to someone. Every year we raise money for charity and we support those in need. Our pupils are taught to love one another as God loves us.’

Our first school Mass was held today.  The children all sang beautifully and were reverent as always in Church.

All the Catholic Primary Schools in the Archdiocese of Birmingham joined Archbishop Bernard through a live video link in a very special service of prayer and adoration of Jesus.  It was a beautiful service in which our children participated with great reverence, demonstrating their love and respect for Jesus.

Year 6 confirmed their new status as the School’s leaders this week by celebrating a wonderful Mass.  All of the children in Key Stage 2 represented St. Anne’s wonderfully by showing great reverence and as always, by their lovely singing.  The Year 6 staff would like to give a big thank you to all of the parents and family members who were able to support their children on what was a very special day.

We are delighted to announce that we, St. Anne’s Catholic Primary School, have achieved the School Games Gold Mark Award for the 2017/18 academic year.

The School Games Mark is a Government led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community, and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success.

Our sporting achievements this year include: Athletics, Dodgeball, Football, Gymnastics, Inclusive Quad Kids, Inclusive Tennis, Indoor Athletics, Hockey, Netball, Personal Best Festival, Rounders, Tennis and Tag Rugby. 

With an increasing number children year on year competing in local inter-school competitions, we are extremely proud of our pupils for their dedication to all aspects of school sport, including those young volunteers, leaders and officials who made our competitions possible.

As part of our application, we were asked to fulfil many different criteria including participation and competition, and we are pleased that the hard work of everyone at our school has been rewarded this year.

A special thanks to Miss Smith, Mr Humpherston, Mrs Welbourne, all the children who have competed and taken part in clubs and events and St. Anne’s staff for training, supporting and encouraging the children in all sporting events.  We look forward to applying once again in 2019!

We are delighted to announce that we have also recently gained our Artsmark Gold Award.  Artsmark’s motto is ‘Bringing learning to life through arts and culture’ and we are very proud of our ability to do that and thank all the staff and children who engage so wonderfully with the Artsmark activities.

Children in year 3 led a wonderful Mass marking the Memorial of St. Vincent de Paul.  The children were reverent and respectful in Church as always and sang their hymns beautifully.

Class 2M entertained the local community at the Tea Dance in St Anne’s Parish Centre.  They sang their hearts out and behaved impeccably – Mrs McGuire was so proud!  A treat was given for their amazing efforts.

Children in year 6 led a wonderful Mass on along with their Year 1 buddies on St. Francis of Assisi.  The children were reverent and respectful in Church as always and sang their hymns beautifully.

 Thank you for your generous contributions for the cake sale last week – we raised £278.66!  There was also a cake sale at the  Parish Centre which raised a further £56.97 bringing the grand total to £335.63 which is a fantastic amount to raise for this very deserving charity.

Class 2M celebrated a beautiful Harvest Mass -  we were saying thank you to God for all the food we have and the children donated money to CAFOD for boys and girls all over the world who need our help.  The children read amazingly, sang beautifully and showed great reverence in Church as always. 

The Virtue for this half-term is ‘Faith-filled & Hopeful’

‘Our pupils are taught about their faith from home.  They begin on their journey of faith with the Sacrament of Baptism, through to Confirmation.  Our pupils are taught that hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen.  The best way not to feel hopeless is to get up and do something.  We are taught that it is important not to wait for good things to happen to you.  If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope and you will fill yourself with hope.’