Today was a lovely day. This morning, the sun was shining, some of our children were receiving their First Holy Communion and all was as it should be at st.Francis’. It was lovely to see so many people at church and we thank Mary Doran, Mrs Rossall, Father Sony, all parents and carers who have prepared the children for today and everyone who supports St.Francis Hill chapel. What a significant and very special Mass it was.

The children have had a very busy week – spending lots of time outside enjoying the sunshine, and inside having far too much fun! Our young leaders have been working with all the children across the school getting them playing different sports and taking part in different activities during break and lunch time. Having a wander around the playground at lunch time to see what the children were up – turned into me becoming a judge of an impressive variety talent show – something I am very experienced at, having pretended to be Simon Cowell on many talent show panels – this was of course done with the help of some very observant Year 2 children, who also fancied themselves as judges.  The children are so very creative and fun to be around – it really is a pleasure to wander around at lunch time to see what they are getting up to. My wandering on Thursday afternoon reminded me of my very first visit to St Francis. I visited on a UFA afternoon some 10 years ago, and I was blown away by the variety, smiles, laughs and skills that the children were demonstrating. It is nice to see after so many years, that spirit of UFA has definitely not faded over time. UFA is a favourite part of the week for children to access different aspects of the curriculum, in fun creative ways – and the children love it! Check out the photos to see to children in their UFA groups. 

Wow, two words you would not usually associate with each other..Reception children having fencing lessons?

With the help of our minibus, the children in UFA will be going out and about every week. Mrs Rossall and Mrs Jones took the board games group out to Belmont Care Home this week and they brought smiles to many faces. Thank you to the staff and residents of Belmont House for welcoming us. We hope to go again very soon with a different group of children. Next week, the photography group are visiting an art gallery and they will spend the afternoon working with a real artist! Stating the obvious, my animal welfare group needn’t go anywhere outside our school for a few weeks because we have four new chickens and two nests of newborn rabbits to tend to! We have had an unbelievable turn of events regarding our lovely animals and we have been blessed with tiny rabbits- Wallace and Gromit’s ‘The Ware Rabbit’ is no patch on us! We are looking after them with lots of love and care and I politely ask you all to leave the hutches alone because we do not want our scent on the babies, which could most likely cause the mother rabbits to disown and stop feeding the little ones. We will let nature take its course but I will keep a close check on their progress. Mothers and babies are all doing well and the little ones continue to have plump tummies and wriggle nicely beneath the blankets of fur.