Lucy Shuker Visits St. Walburga's!

Lucy Shuker was chosen as one of our mission statement heroes and visited our school! Given that Wimbledon is just around the corner we had a tennis champion visit us. Lucy Shuker talked to the children and staff about her life and how she has overcome the fact that she is paralysed and has become a highly successful athlete as a professional wheelchair tennis player.

Lucy made history at the London 2012 Paralympic Games alongside Jordanne Whiley winning Great Britain’s first ever Women’s Wheelchair Tennis medal. Lucy’s other notable achievements include winning the Vitalise Women of Achievement Award in 2011, British Tennis Disability Player of the Year 2012 and the ITF Wheelchair Tennis Player Choice Awards in 2007 voted for by all the players on the world wheelchair tennis tour.

It was a pleasure to welcome a mission statement hero in the flesh and share their wisdom and experience with us. Thank you Lucy and good luck at Wimbledon!

This afternoon the whole school gathered together to crown Mary the Mother of Jesus. This colourful event took place on a glorious, sun-covered infant playground. As you can see below there was a class display of flowers created and processed up to the Mary altar.  

Along with the wonderful array of flowers, each class produced a piece of work that described the qualities of Mary. These showed Mary as:

> loving

> friendly

> peaceful

> prayerful

> caring (motherly)

> trusting (faithful) and

> obedient (serving God)

Thank you for your kind donations of flowers which I'm sure you agree look amazing.

Amelia Grace Rainbow Fund

As part of our work supporting the Year of Mercy, our corporal act of mercy for May is ‘care for the sick.’ On Monday, we were visited by a representative from the Amelia-Grace Rainbow Fund (Amelia's Rainbow) – a local charity which was established in 2010 in memory of a pupil at Corpus Christi school who died from an aggressive childhood cancer.

The concept of the charity started with Amelia when she used some of her money to buy an Xbox for one of her friends who she spent time with in hospital. She appreciated the gifts that she benefited from but felt that other children should also have the same opportunities that she did.  In this way the trustees try to ensure that all monies granted go towards creating an environment that is full of fun, laughter, achievement and memories.  The fund supports children in Dorset and the surrounding area who are suffering from Terminal, Life Limiting and Serious Chronic Illness that aims to create an environment full of fun, laughter, achievement and memories through providing funds for activities and play which may enrich the lives of children who are suffering with similar illnesses.

The School Council decided that they would like to raise money for this charity and held a ‘Rainbow’ Mufti day on Friday, 27^th May. In return for a £1 donation to the charity, the children wore their non-uniform for the day – the brighter the better to create a rainbow to remember Amelia-Grace.

Please look at the colourful photos below.

Happy 90th Birthday Ma'am

We had a wonderful day in school celebrating the Queen's 90th birthday. It was great to see so much red, white and blue! There were also lots of crowns, tiaras and some very regal looking costumes.

Our afternoon tea and cake sale was a success and we raised £189.54 for a local charity, Grief Encounter. A big thank you to everyone who donated cakes and especially to those parents who kindly came in and helped before and during the sale.

World Book Day 2016

All the staff enjoyed getting into character for World Book Day.

We all had a great day despite the Trunchbull being in charge!

Have a look on the class pages to see what the children got up to during the day and their fantastic outfits!

Bishop Philip Visits St. Walburga's

Tuesday 1st March

Bishop Philip visited our school today as part of his diocesan work.

The last time the school had a visit from a Bishop was in 1993, when Bishop Crispin came to open the new classrooms in the Year 5 and 6 corridor. Bishop Philip has made it his mission to visit all of the 76 schools in his diocese, and we were very happy and proud to welcome him to our lovely school.

Ruby and Eshamol in 6R write: ‘On Tuesday, we had a really exciting visit from Bishop Philip Egan. He led us in a really spiritual liturgy. We renewed our baptismal promises and he blessed us with holy water mixed with salt. After the liturgy, the Bishop visited some of the classes to find out what they were up to. It was a really nice, enjoyable day and we hope the Bishop enjoyed it.’

Elliot and Xavier in 2L write:’ On Tuesday, Bishop Philip came to our school. Bishop Philip told us the parable of the Good Samaritan. He told us to be happy and generous in our lives. He told us to be kind and helpful to each other.’ At the end of the tour, Joe and Amy from Year 6 presented the Bishop with gifts from the children – including a fantastic book.  

We would like to thank the Bishop for taking the time to visit our lovely school that we are so proud of.

The photos below are some work from the children in 1PW (note to the Bishop) and 4B (newspaper reports).

"This is 4B's news paper about the Bishop visiting the school. In the news we have written about what happened when the Bishop came to our school. We had extra play at lunch and it was so important that the last one was 1993". Jude and Harry

Icon of Peace

week commencing 1st February 2016 

St. Walburga's has been very fortunate in hosting the Pax Christi Icon of Peace, a very important religious painting which is travelling across the UK. The Icon of Peace is a large sacred painting made by monks at the Monastery of St. John in the Desert, near Jerusalem. It is dedicated to Pax Christi, the Catholic international peace movement.

The Icon of Peace depicts stories from the Bible, and saints of both Eastern and Western traditions, linked by the theme of reconciliation. During this Year of Mercy it is important to try and spread the message about reconciliation and forgiveness. In addition, it is acting as a pilgrimage of sorts which we’ve been asked to carry out by the Pope during this jubilee year of Mercy.

It was lovely to welcome parents who visited the Icon to reflect on the various stories and pick up a prayer card of the Icon.

More information can be found on  the Pax Christi website at:

www.paxchristi.org.uk 

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Author David Lawrence Jones Visits Our School!

Plughole portals, magical worlds and a light-up bath are all features of David Lawrence’s amazing series of Bradley Baker books.  We were given a real treat when David visited our school to tell us all about his books and what has influenced his ideas for writing.

Based on his experiences of story-telling as a child, David took us on a journey of what has inspired him to write over the years. We learnt about his life and family and also dipped into extracts from his books with children acting out parts and lots of audience participation.

David returned for a book signing two days later with an overwhelming response from the children.

‘We really enjoyed the visit from David Lawrence Jones and had a go at planning our own Bradley Baxter stories.’

                                                                      Isabella and Kacper in 4S