Dear Parents,

We've almost reached the end of another term. It was lovely to see you all at the recent parent teacher meetings, many thanks for coming along I hope that you found your discussions useful.

Our recent Emotion Coaching parent workshop had over 50 parents present, you all squeezed in to the library! I hope that your emotion coaching journey has started and that you are finding some of the ideas from the session useful at home. if you see me at the school gate let me know how you are getting on!

All of our staff have now been trained in Emotion Coaching and we have 50+ parents on board too! There will be another workshop in the Autumn term so don't worry if you have missed the recent session.

As part of this move to Emotion Coaching, the Governing Body have recently discussed and approved our new Behaviour Regulation policy - it really is the best way for us to support young children with their behaviour.

Thanks again to all those parents who came along to our behaviour workshops last year, your input along with all the information gleamed from the children and staff in their consultation sessions have helped us to shape the new policy. A special thank you as well to Mrs Gallant who has been leading on the development of this policy in school.

You can find the policy on our policy page under News and Info and through the link below.

With just a few days to go until we break up for the holiday, the staff and I wish your family a wonderful and Blessed Easter.

Vince Burke

Head Teacher

As part of our preparation for Lent, we've invited Mrs Mandryk from CAFOD to visit all our Years 1-6 classes to talk about Catholic Social Teaching with the children, using words and props at their level to understand some of the key themes. Essential themes for primary ages pupils often focus on the poor and care for the environment.

We hope that your child enjoyed the sessions, we've included some information below, it would be lovely if you could continue the discussion at home. Mrs Mandryk used the CAFOD animals to explain social action, more details in the flyer below.

From the CAFOD Website:

"Catholic social teaching (CST) is rooted in Scripture, formed by the wisdom of Church leaders, and influenced by grassroots movements. It is our moral compass, guiding us on how to live out our faith in the world.

Read more about some of the CST principles which inspire our work.

• Dignity

• Solidarity

• The common good

• The option for the poor

• Peace

• Creation and Environment

• The dignity of work and participation

Our faith calls us to love God and to love our neighbours in every situation, especially our sisters and brothers living in poverty. Following in the footsteps of Christ, we hope to make present in our unjust and broken world, the justice, love and peace of God."

We've been canvassing for areas of interest for parents and support with children's safety online has been a regular request.

Our last parent workshop of the year has a focus on children and young people's internet safety.

Is your child let loose on the internet? Free access to youtube? How are you stopping them from seeing inappropriate content? What are the latests techniques used by predators to gain access to your child? Would you know if your child was being groomed? Is your child able to access pornography and other harmful images? Finding it tough now that your child is almost a teenager?

No matter what device your child may have access to, it's best to know how to protect them so that they can only see content that is safe and appropriate for their age. These sessions will also bring you up to date on what young people are using on their portable devices today.

We are pleased to welcome Sharon Girling back to St Cecilia's for another one of her highly informative and entertaining talks. Click here to learn more about Sharon.

Two of our pupils, Eden and Myles from Year 5 have shown tremendous determination in their sporting activity and have recently had great success within their favoured martial art - kickboxing. They have both won a plethora of medals and cups. They train frequently at the Absolute Martial Arts Club

Eden competed in 3 categories at the WAKO GB Junior Euro Cupback in November and came away with 2 Golds and a Silver.

Most recently, she took part in the WKKC English Championships in two categories and won 1x Gold 1x Silver. The point fighting win makes her the WKKC National Champion in -40kg 11-12 Girls point fighting and she has a place on the WKKC England Team for both categories at the World Championships in Orlando, Florida later this year.

Myles has recently been to 2 tournaments. First one was Northants Open where he won 2 X Golds and last week was the WKKC Championships in Manchester where he won 1 X SILVER and 1 X Bronze and, yes he too qualified for the World Championship in Florida in October.

This is great news, we are so pleased that both Myles and Eden's dedication has led to such great success and we look forward to more news after the world championships!

Miss Costello leaves us this term as she takes up a teaching position nearer home. After 8 years of service to the school as a Class Teacher and Subject Leader we will miss her and we wish her all the best in her new school.

Reception
Parents of children entering Reception Class this September will hear from their local authority on 17 April. The birth rate is dropping quite quickly so we are not expecting any disappointed parents this year! For the first time in a very long time, there are likely to be spaces in September, if there is a child moving to the area that you know please put them in touch with Mrs Saunders at office@stcecilias.school.

Nursery
Applications for Nursery Class have been considered and Mrs Saunders has started the process of completing the application process for the first batch of parents. If you hear from us, please confirm or decline you place for Nursery as soon as possible. We have a long list of applications to work through and would like to offer and confirm all places that we have available before the Easter holiday.

ECA booking is now live on SchoolCloud. Please apply online - see link below. The ECA dates are on our online calendar and shown below, they commence on 24th April.

Our Big Assembly for this month had a focus on worries. We talked about how it's quite natural to worry and how all of us have some sort of worry, we might worry about something everyday.

Some children can worry an awful lot, others hardly at all.

Some worries are big and stay with us for a while, perhaps when someone is sick. Some of our Y4 students shared their worries and how they coped with them, they provided some lovely examples.

At times we shield our worries from our children but that can lead them to not develop their own skills in managing emotions around worrying. Children will learn about worrying from the adults around them.

As a school, we would encourage you to share some simple, child friendly worries that you may have with your child so that they can learn from you how to manage their own worries.

I've included our usual Smalltalk video on worries for you below. We also have the reading of Ruby Find a Worry which might be useful for younger students.

At the end of the assembly the children correctly identified the school core virtues that they could use when they have a friend with worries:

• accept differences in other people
• be kind and supportive
• be friendly
• co-operate with others
• be respectful

We also spoke about our BOUNCE BACK process and how we can BOUNCE BACK from worries:

• A - Accept what can't be changed
• C - Don't catastrophise
• K - Keep things in perspective

Congratulations to all of our Violin players who recently gave a beautiful performance at the Sutton Music Service concert, shown above with Mrs Matusiak, our Violin Teacher.

Photos from their recent visit, can you sport Marcus from Y5 performing on stage at the Festival Hall, what an amazing experience!

Many thanks to our wonderful PTA for their organisation of the Eggstravaganza this morning. After so much rain, it was lovely to be outside in the sunshine. We saw an amazing array of Easter hats / bonnets, there was so much effort put in by so many of you, well done everyone.

We hope that you enjoyed the bouncy castles, arts and crafts, chocolate and activities. We had a super parade of hats around the field.

Great fun, thanks so much Nursery, Reception and Year 1 for coming along, we hope that you had a lovely time too!

London Road, Sutton, Surrey, SM3 9DL

Email: office@stcecilias.school
Website: www.stcecilias.school
Phone: 020 8337 4566

CASUAL CYCLE INSTRUCTORS

£12.79 - £14.10 per hour

The Sustainable Transport Team is seeking to recruit Cycle Instructors in the Sutton area to deliver Bikeability, the national cycle training programme for children. As one of our professional trained instructors you could earn up to £422 per week (Casual rate) to deliver our standard Bikeability courses involving 20 hours of contact with riders plus time for course administration and travel. Our Bikeability sessions are typically 10.00 - 12.00 and 13.00 - 15.00, plus travel time. All instructors must train on a 5-day Professional Course. It is an advantage if you already hold this qualification although not essential as training will be paid for the right candidates.

So if you are a regular cyclist, have good road sense, are a good communicator and enjoy working outdoors, then this could be just the job for you. If appropriate you will receive further training in First Aid, Safeguarding and Cycle Maintenance.

For an informal discussion about these positions please telephone Eric Chasseray, Sustainable Transport Officer on 020 8547 5826 or email eric.chasseray@kingston.gov.uk

We will soon be holding our ever popular open morning event at Cheam Cricket Club on Sunday 16th April between 10am and 1pm.

We have a fast growing girls section and a well established boys section and as spring approaches our open morning event gives kids of all levels a chance to try us out.

For more details see the flyer below.

They have been in touch regarding holiday playschemes and camps. Please see the flyer below and their website at https://www.megacamps.net/kids-activities-epsom.php

They are OFSTED regsigtered but do not have any connection with this school.

March

30th - End of term for Nursery

30th - Stations of the Cross - St John Bosco Class

31st - End of Term for Easter at midday.

April

17th - Start of Summer Term

17th - Y6 workshop with Young Shakespeare Company

17th - Reception Offer Day

20th - Y4 at a Music concert at St Andrew's Church, Cheam

21st - Community Police Officers in school

22nd - Y6 Netball Rally at Overton Grange

24th - Eco Schools "Get Loud on Litter" Week.

24th - Summer ECAs start this week

27th - Parent Workshop with Sharon Girling on Internet Safety at 6.30pm.

28th - PTA Quiz Night

May

1st - Bank Holiday Monday - School Closed

2nd-5th - DTWeek

8th - Coronation of King Charles II - School Closed

9th - 12th Y6 SATs Week

17th - Y1 to The Look Out Centre

18th - Ascension Day Mass Years 3-6

18th - Reception and Y6 Individual and group photos

23rd - Y5 trip to Greenwich Observatory

23rd - Y3 Assembly - Crowning of Our Lady's Statue

29th May - 2nd June - May half-term holiday

June

5th - INSET Day - School Closed

15th - Y1-6 Sports Day at David Weir Centre (Children go straight to the Centre)

16th - Borough Sports Afternoon

23rd - Reports published

27th and 29th Parent-Teacher Meetings

29th - Mass for Ss Peter and Paul Y3-6

July

3rd - ECAs end this week

10th-14th Y6 Residential in Dorset

12th Reception Class Visit to Bocketts Farm

19th End of Academic Year for Nursery

20th End of Academic Year Y1-6 at Midday

September

4th - Start for academic year for Y1-6 (EYFS start dates vary)