Visit to St. Clares' for Harvest Festival 

Children and staff ventured to St. Clares' church to celebrate the harvest as a family. We were so pleased with the turnout of parents and careers who joined us to learn and worship together with Reverend Ann and the parish. Several children in year 6 took on the role of reading from the Bible to the rest of the church. They were very brave and spoke so clearly and proudly. We also celebrated together in song and Reverend Ann blessed us with water, it was so much fun!

Careers week at St. Francis’ Junior School.

In June we celebrated Careers week with a bang! Tuesday, we kicked it off with The Buzz Workshop with Lindsay from the National Careers service. All children took part in an interactive session with Lindsay in which they were able to find out about their personalised skills and attributes, and which careers these may be suited to. It was super fun finding out what animal we all were!

We then went on to research many local businesses. The year 3's focused on the police, what they do and how many different responsibilities they have. The year 4's looked at Chartwells, Amazon, Bishop Auckland College and Kleek. The Year 5s, have been researching a range of professions such as Quantum Pharmaceutical companies, DWP Work and Health, J and C Coaches and Education Psychologists which have surprised us how they are available locally as well as nationally!

The children took time to dive deep into the company websites and created a presentation to give in front of the whole school. The children did a fantastic job and we learnt so much about the companies that would be visiting us later in the week. This enabled us to have burning questions ready for the companies who visited us later in the week. We finished the day with a whole school presentation to show what we had researched during the day.

On Thursday parents and carers were welcomed back into school for "Believe and Achieve"! Employers from our local area joined us in school to talk about what they did and gave the children the opportunity to be curious and ask lots of big questions. At St. Francis' we want all of our children to be the very best they can be, and hope that events like this give them the confidence to dream big and reach for the stars!

Children were split up into family groups and went to many different companies to learn more about them. We got to practice our hairdressing skills, leant how to make fresh pasta, all about the responsibilities of a firefighter to name a few. There were 14 companies that came to school to work with our amazing children.

What an amazing, inspiring day we had during believe and achieve. We got to meet so many different companies and people to explore and dive deep into the world of work!

The feedback we got from the companies about the day and the children was amazing! We know how amazing the children at St. Francis’ are, but it warms our hearts to hear others compliment them on their manners, engagement and having fantastic questions.

I was amazed when "Seeing a young lads face light up when I told him I had asthma as a child, yet still got in the Fire Service." I was surprised by "the interest shown by all of the children and the depth of the questions they were asking. I think the parents will have picked up lots of useful information as well as their children." Daniel Loader, Fire and Rescue.

"I loved speaking to all the children they were engaged and very polite. The children asked some fantastic questions which were wonderful!" Jennifer Phillips, Bishop Auckland College.

I was surprised by "the vast interest from students for such a young age." I was surprised by "lots of technical questions i.e coding, motherboards, solar power." Emily Walsh, Husqvarna.

"The creation of this event is inspiring for your kids, giving them a chance to engage with a wide variety of employers is amazing - Trail Blazing!" Sgt Boys, Aycliffe Police.

A huge thank you to all the companies that spent the day with us, inspiring us and getting a glimpse into life at St. Francis’. A day we won’t forget.

Our fundraising story at St. Francis’ Church of England Junior School.

Here at St. Francis’ Junior School, in Newton Aycliffe, we believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to shine their light, learn through wonderful experiences, be given all the tools to access education and to use these skills to be the best they can be!  However, what do you do when your only form of transport to and from school is damaged in an unfortunate accident and with no money to fix or get a new one and with school being over 23 miles away?

Reverend Anne, who is the church leader of our parish, visited a school in Tanzania many years ago and has since been working closely with a school there- our friends, St John's Place, Secondary, Primary and Nursery School in Kilimatinde, Tanzania. They are missing out on an education, a school life and a chance to make and develop friendships. We are very grateful that no one was hurt but strongly feel that every child deserves an education and a childhood. The distance to and from school for these children is 23 miles, that would take over six hours to walk.

As a school, we have been working alongside the Great Aycliffe Parish to raise funds to buy the school a new bus. With £1000 as our target we set to work to raise awareness and raise money to help our friends in Tanzania.

In May, we held a school disco with part of the money raised through tickets going towards our target. The children and staff danced the night away. They enjoyed party games, dancing and a special visit from Spiderman himself! A big thanks to a party company, “Twice As Nice” who transformed our hall into a tropical Lula and supplied the games and tunes! Such a fun evening for such a worthy cause!

 Our next fundraising idea included the year 4’s collective worship. They learnt lines, songs and stories to inform parents all about St John's Place and the efforts we were making to help get the children back to school. They were so brave and did a fantastic job at raising awareness to our cause.

We were getting closer and closer to our target as the time went on but needed one more push. We held a sponsored walk and colour run! We invited parents, carers and all family members to join us in a walk around our local community followed by a colour run. It was great to see so many people joining us. We had great fun and we were all extremely colourful!

In total, we have raised £1,327.02! We are overwhelmed with the support and generosity of those who have donated, raised awareness or told our story as without them, we wouldn’t have achieved so much in such a short amount of time.

Thank you!

Year 3 and 4's trip to Washington Wetlands

What an outstanding day we all had at Washington Wetlands! The children were an absolute dream. It was mentioned by the staff at Washington Wetlands that "their manners were excellent and they had some fab questions". As always each child embraced the day with excitement and eagerness to explore.

Throughout the day, the children used their resilience and team work to complete challenges to help Ava, an amazing girl with wings and feathery feet, who needed our help to discover who she is and what she needs to do. The animals around the wetlands had clues and nature activities for us to complete. With the use of a “translator phone”, which Ava gave us, we were able to listen to what the creatures were saying and discover what we needed to do to show the animals that we really care about them and the natural world. Only then did they reveal their secrets that we had to return to Ava's nest to help her migrate to the South to find her family and discover the Guardians of the Wild, a great council of creatures that look after nature. 🦆🦩🦦

We also got to meet many animals. We spent time searching for many species of ducks (Did you know? There are around 120 different species of ducks in the world!) that reside at the Wetlands. We spotted many different ducks and their ducklings and even got to see some flamingos and observed how they stay safe in the wild. We got a real treat and witnessed the Asian short-clawed otters having their lunch. We also got the chance to pond dip to explore and learn about the plants and creatures that live there. We scooped from the pond with a small net and explored the plant life and creatures we scooped out with a magnifying glass. The top find of the day was a water scorpion! The children were so intrigued by the variety of creatures we found! An amazing learning experience for everyone! 🔍🌿🦂

We are the champions! 

As an award for winning 1st place in the Christmas Tree competition, we got the opportunity to visit ROF 59 as a whole school. We all had the most amazing time at ROF59. We spent 3 hours jumping, climbing, giggling and eating, courtesy of our local Police. This is definitely an experience that everyone will remember for life.

We were very impressed with the height children could jump, the flips and trampolining tricks. Most impressive of all was the encouragement, support and teamwork that all the children showed towards each other and staff. Our St Francis' family worked together to help everyone shine and be the best they can be!

Mrs Roche was encouraged to complete the Tarzan swing into the form pit. Mrs Lakey learnt how to flip and spin into the foam pit. Miss Mason taught the children trampolining tricks and Miss Cooper had the biggest smile jumping on the trampolines.

The children were such fantastic representatives of our school. Not only were they brilliantly behaved, they were so brave, giving all the activities a try and conquering their fears. 

Dan Smith visits St. Francis'.

The children and staff were very lucky to have a visit from author of books such as  My Friend the Enemy, My Brother's Secret, Big Game, Boy X, Below Zero and She Wolf, Dan Smith in November. Dan lives in Newcastle with his wife and two children and has written many books. 

We spent some time over the morning completing work around one of his books, we looked at parts of the books and used this to answer comprehension questions. During the his visit he held a presentation for the whole school, where he told the us about his time in a boarding school where he used writing as a a tool to escape and imagine another life. The children were then gifted a book from school which Dan very kindly signed.

A great afternoon had by all!

A fantastic day out!

What a treat we had! The Year 4's and Year 6's got together for a school trip.

First stop was Kingston Park. We had a guided tour of the Falcons home stadium, the home and away team changing rooms, the pitch and the posh executive boxes.

We also were lucky enough to meet two Newcastle Falcons players Tom and Bret, who answered our questions and even signed some autographs for us! We then got to play some rugby games that we have played in PE lessons. We then stopped for some lunch before getting back on the bus.

Jack in year 6 “it was great to meet some real players”

Mary in year 6 “it was exciting to look around the stadium today

Ben in year 4 “I really liked to meet the players and looking around stadium

Lleyton in year 4 “it was great I got my bag signed and we got to see the differences in the locker rooms for the home players and away.”

Our second stop of the day was Lumley castle for a Spooky History tour.

We were shown around the castle and grounds hearing some spooky stories on the way round. We even had a re-enactment of the story of how Lord and Lilly Lumley met. 

We have had a fantastic day and all the children were been fantastic role models, they have been a credit to us all!

Aycliffe Care Home: Celebrating Christmas as a Community

After what has been an unusual year for the local community, the children in Year 6 wanted to spread a little Christmas cheer and so with the warmest Christmas wishes they have sent Christmas cards and calendars to the residents at Aycliffe Care Home.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Year 5 - Young Journalists Academy

Today has been the start of an exciting adventure for Year 5, working with John Jerreries from the YJA.

As the children entered school this morning, instead of the average class day, Year 5 entered the world of journalism. At the beginning of the day, we re-introduced ourselves to each other, by sharing our passions and interests. This led us onto interviewing skills, where the children had to find out two facts and a lie. The rest of the class participated, using investigative skills to work out the lie. 

Just before the lunchtime, the children started to research into Fake News, and the reasons for their views. This led us to sum-up the day with understanding more about news articles, how news is spread and our adventures into article writing.

The articles will be created throughout this academic year.