Positive Parenting Coffee Morning - With Special Guests The Positive Parenting workshop is back for 2025 on 27th January at 9am and there will be a couple of special guests attending too! The focus this week will be "Self Advocacy and Transition readiness" and we...
Friday 7th February is NSPCC Number Day. We are asking all pupils to dress up in anything maths related. This could be numbers pinned on their top, dressed as a dice or a calculator. The possibilities are endless…
All funds raised from Number Day will help to support vital NSPCC services.
We are thrilled to announce a fantastic opportunity for our wonderfully talented SJSJ poets! We’re taking part in a national Poetry Competition, where your child’s creative work could be published in a poetry book with other winning entries. Not only that, but if St John and St James has a winning entry, that child will receive a gift bag worth up to £100!
How to Enter:
This is a wonderful chance for children to express their creativity and get recognised for their hard work. The winning poems will be professionally published, and the top entry will also receive a gift bag filled with exciting goodies.
Best of luck to all participants.
Our enthusiastic reading champions gathered at Hackney Town Hall for their half termly Reading Champions meeting. Children from across the community came together to celebrate their love for books, share their favourite stories, and discuss how reading can make a positive impact on their lives.
The meeting was filled with engaging activities, fun discussions, and a shared passion for exploring new worlds through literature. It was an inspiring afternoon, and we can’t wait for the next meeting! In the meantime, the reading champions have lots of ideas for further encouraging book talk and promoting their love of reading.
We can’t wait to see their upcoming projects. A huge well done to Imogen, Anna and Ayaz!
We were lucky enough to welcome students from Year 5 to Cardinal Pole last week to experience a PE workshop.
They had a great time using our facilities and engaging in multi-sports as you can see from the pictures.
We look forward to welcoming you to Cardinal Pole again soon!
Clodagh Benning
Assistant Headteacher
Cardinal Pole Catholic School
Firstly, we wanted to say a huge thank you for all of the donations we have received from you during the Autumn term. It’s been lovely to see how many of you are supporting us with this initiative and to see the children engaging so beautifully with the new provision.
This week, we will be installing our new reading shed in the KS2 playground, which will be one of our ‘cosy cabins’. Therefore, we are kindly asking for any donations of bean bags for the children to sit on, or other comfortable seating arrangements such as gaming chairs, as well as any decorations, such as fairy lights, you feel the children would like to have inside.
All donations should be left in the donation station which is situated in the KS1 playground, or handed into to the main office. Thanks in advance for your support.
As you already know, St John and St James is participating in the OPAL play programme, which is transforming our playgrounds and the way our children play within them. Research shows that play contributes to children’s physical and emotional health, well-being, approach to learning and enjoyment of school. Given the importance of play in children’s lives and current concerns about children’s health and opportunity to access time and space to initiate their own play outdoors, there are considerable benefits for children, parents, school and the wider community from participating in OPAL’s programme.
We are looking for enthusiastic parents to join our play team as Parent Play Ambassadors! We are looking for parents who can support the school to promote exciting and engaging playtimes for all children. As an ambassador, you’ll have the chance to make a lasting impact on our school community, through fundraising ideas, donation ideas and coming up with new ideas for resources which can be used on the playground to encourage creativity at playtime. If you are available, we would also love parent ambassadors to join us on our playgrounds and support the children in managing risk and using their imagination to play with resources provided in a range of ways. If you are interested in this role, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please let the office or Miss Gladstone know if you are interested.
Are you passionate about supporting our school community and making a difference in our children’s school experience? The St John and St James’ PTA is looking for enthusiastic individuals to take on key roles within our team. These positions are a great way to use your skills, connect with other parents, and contribute to the success of our school!
Open Roles
Lead the way in shaping our PTA’s vision and strategy! As Chair, you’ll:
Help us spread the word and keep everyone informed! In this role, you’ll:
Be the voice for nursery parents! As a Nursery Rep, you’ll:
Why Join the PTA?
Interested?
If you’d like to learn more or nominate yourself for a role, please email stjohnandstjamespta@gmail.com by Friday 14 February. We’d love to hear from you!
Together, let’s make 2025 a fantastic year for our school community!
We are pleased to announce that the annual Hackney RE calendar competition has commenced for 2025-26. Last year, over 120 entries were received across the borough so thank you to all children who participated. The calendar is sent to every school in Hackney and is a celebration of Religion and Worldviews teaching and learning in our schools. It also includes important dates of upcoming religious festivals and secular commemorations which help us when planning assemblies and collective worship. It aims to support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development beyond the RE classroom.
All the artwork is selected through a borough-wide poster competition, which is open to all pupils across KS1-KS3 in Hackney Schools. This year’s Religion and Worldviews theme is on ‘Festivals and Celebrations’. The entries can show religious and secular festivals and celebrations to reflect Hackney’s diverse communities.
Entries:
Please note that ALL entries (originals only) should be:
If entries do contain some text, please check words have the correct spelling before submission. The closing date is Friday 28th March 2025 and all entries should be sent to:
RE Calendar Competition
Claire Ramalli
School Improvement Team
Hackney Education
Hackney Service Centre
1 Hillman Street
London
E8 1DY
Mr Watson is our school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead.
If Mr Watson is not available, you can always speak to one of our school’s Deputy Safeguarding Leads:
| Name | Class | Reason |
| Leonardo | Year 1 | For looking after the classroom with care and thoughtfulness. |
| Nevaeh | Year 1 | For using excellent vocabulary in literacy. |
| Asiya and Sofia | Year 2 | For working independently and confidently to complete maths tasks. |
| Caleb O | Year 2 | For completing all of his tasks. |
| Ishaq | Year 3 | For great knowledge of 3D shapes. |
| Fatimah | Year 3 | For working independently during maths and being a great support to her partner. |
| Ruben | Year 3 | For outstanding behaviour and for being a fantastic role model. |
| Teddy | Year 3 | For incredible scientific thinking. |
| Jake | Year 4 | For amazing effort with his handwriting in lesson and handwriting intervention. |
| Maya | Year 4 | For being a positive reading role model. |
| Max | Year 4 | For fantastic positive attitude in the classroom and making sure everyone is doing the right thing. |
| Alicia and Dominic | Year 6 | For taking pride in the classroom and being so helpful. |
| Eda and Raheem | Year 6 | For excellent effort in reading. |
| Khloe | Year 6 | For producing a fantastic poem. |
| Raheem | Year 6 | For amazing effort with his handwriting in lesson and handwriting intervention. |
This week, Year 6 had the privilege of visiting the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple to complement their RE unit. We had an excellent time exploring the temple, participating in a very interesting tour and learning all about the Buddhist origins and teachings. Some children......
This week in Year 4, we have been looking at the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings in our history lessons. One of the things we have been learning about is how the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain in 410AD. One of our amazing students Umut has created a......
This half term, Year 3 have been exploring the programme scratch for computing. They will be using the programme to create their own interactive stories, games and animations....
In Year 2 this week we have been looking at the balance of good health and discussing what a healthy diet would look like. We looked at the different food groups and what certain foods do for our health and well- being. Take a look…...
This week in Year 1 our highlight was visiting a Synagogue. We have been learning about Judaism in RE over this half term and were excited to learn more! We saw all the special places in the Synagogue and recognised the different symbols like the......
Reception have been learning all about Winter this half term and this week we combined our topic learning with our fine motor practise to create some beautiful wintery snowflakes. The children had to carefully follow step-by-step instructions which included practising how to fold and unfold, cut......
Our creative activity in Nursery this week was to paint a snowman. The children firstly thought about the shape of the snowman’s body and how many circles they needed to paint. Once dried, the children were encouraged to think about different snowman features such as;......