Dear Parents and Carers

Gospel: Luke 18: 9-14

In Sunday’s Gospel we hear about the actions and feelings of both the Pharisee and the tax collector. Now, the Pharisees felt that the way to enter heaven was to keep to the rules and to set new ones for others and like others, felt that the tax collectors were sinners who would never be welcomed into heaven. However, we also hear about what both men were thinking deep down; what was in their hearts. This is what God cares about.

The Pharisee could be described in Luke’s Gospel as boastful, proud and that he was better than others. Whereas, the tax collector (rather surprisingly) is both humble and sorry – deep in his heart he asks God for forgiveness.

Let us not be like the Pharisee. Let us not judge others if they are different to us. In God’s eyes, we are all special and he is waiting for us and ready to listen to what we feel deep in our hearts. Amen.

Curriculum Update – Autumn 1

Year 6 have been learning all about World War Two. We have been focusing on the impact the war had on civilians. We learned about the Blackout, The Blitz, experiences of evacuees, the role of women, rationing and air raid shelters. We had a workshop with the National War Museum looking at historical sources and learned about real experiences. 

We linked our learning through English and we wrote lovely paragraphs based on the opening scene of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, incorporating speech and dialogue into our writing.  We wrote a formal persuasive letter from the perspective of the Minister of Health to convince parents to evacuate their children. Year 6 wrote beautiful setting descriptions based on the picture book, The Lion and the Unicorn where the evacuees are standing on the train platform waiting for their new life in the countryside.

We met out Reception buddies and had our Reception Welcome Assembly. We celebrated a whole school Mass, KS2 Mass, our class Mass with Fr Philp, invited our parents to our Year 6 Stay and Pray where we reflected on Mission Sunday and how we can "walk with love", designed, printed and painted in art (inspired by William Morris) and learnt about the story of Moses in great detail and how he helped the Chosen People of God on their journey to Israel. It has been a very busy term so far in Year 6!

This half term, Year 5 have been working hard and showing great enthusiasm in all their learning! In Maths, we’ve deepened our understanding of place value and applied this knowledge to different addition and subtraction problems. In English, we’ve explored imaginative retells, vivid setting descriptions, diary entries and non-chronological reports. We also loved creating our own pop-up books and sharing them with Year 1! 

Our Science topic, Earth and Space, has sparked lots of curiosity as we learned about the planets and moon phases. In Geography, we studied rivers and carried out two exciting pieces of fieldwork. In RE, we reflected on God’s creation, what it means to be good stewards of God’s creation, and how we can live out the virtues of being eloquent and truthful each day. We were also very proud to lead our Harvest Assembly, brightening up the Harvest and living out Catholic Social Teaching. 

Year 4 have had a fantastic start to the year! In Maths, we've been mastering place value and impressing everyone with our skills in column addition and subtraction. Our Science lessons have taken us outdoors to explore living things and how to group them — we even spotted a fox on our trim trail (who very quickly ran away!) In Art, we've been experimenting with pointillism, creating secondary colours using just dots. Music has been exciting as we have learnt to play different notes on the ukulele, and we have started to play these notes along to the "Doot Doot Song." In History, we've being learning all about the Romans, discovering their strength, battle formations, and links to our local area. In English, we've produced a range of brilliant writing, including story retells, setting descriptions, and letters from the perspective of Roman soldiers. In RE, we've been learning all about creation and exploring key stories from the Bible, including Abraham and Isaac, Jacob’s dream, and Joseph and his sons — thinking about what these stories teach us and how they connect to our lives today. What a busy and exciting half term it’s been. Well done to Year 4 who have all worked really hard! 

Year 3 have been busy learners this term, exploring a wide range of exciting topics across the curriculum! In Science, the children have been discovering how the human skeleton works and learning about food and nutrition. In Design and Technology, they’ve enjoyed creating their own pneumatic toys, while in Music they’ve been composing and notating cup rhythms and pentatonic ostinatos. P.E. lessons have focused on netball and team games, helping to build teamwork and communication skills. In R.E., the class has been learning about Baptism and Reconciliation, and in Geography they’ve been exploring Europe with a special focus on Paris. (The recent robbery at The Louvre caused quite a stir in Year 3!) Maths has seen lots of great work on place value up to 1000, as well as addition and subtraction. The children have also been practising greetings, numbers and colours in French, learning coding skills in Computing, and discussing current affairs through Picture News in PSHE lessons. Finally, in English, they’ve been retelling wonderful stories inspired by animals and the magic of Paris. What a fantastic term of learning! 

Year 2 have had a very busy first half term. They have all worked incredibly hard and have really enjoyed our new ‘Clever Writer’ approach to writing. They should be very proud of all the amazing ‘Star Writes’ they have produced. In maths the children have concentrated on developing their understanding of place value whilst in science our focus has been on exploring the properties of different everyday materials – they are definite experts at this now!  The children have also loved learning about the Gunpowder Plot in history. One particular highlight was analysing a range of sources and spotting the one that was wrong! In R.E. they have explored a range of Old Testament stories and have become experts at spotting links between the characters we have studied.  They also prepared a delightful prayer service to celebrate our Class Saint, St Therese of Lisieux who celebrated her feast day at the start of October. Well done Year 2. Enjoy half term.  

This half term Year 1 have been exploring the artist Yayoi Kusama. We have learnt about her life and love of art, experimented with colour mixing and created different size dots with paint. In our final project, we have used clay to make Kusama inspired pumpkins which we will paint in bright colours.

This half term in maths, year 1 have explored place value of number. We have used the less than, greater than and equal to symbols to compare numbers upto.10 and finding one more and one less than a number. We have also begun to add numbers within 10 together and create fact families.

This half term, our topic has been Marvellous Me! We’ve settled into Reception beautifully and have been learning all about our friends and families. We’ve also been exploring our amazing bodies and discovering how to keep ourselves healthy!

As part of our RE learning, we’ve been finding out all about Creation and the wonderful world God made. We especially enjoyed sharing our first class prayer service with our parents — it was such a special moment!

We’ve been working super hard on our fine motor skills to help us become confident writers. It’s been a fantastic start to our Reception journey — full of learning, laughter, and new friendships!

Please ‘spread the word’ to anyone who is applying for a Reception school place for September 2026 – we can’t wait to show them our school!

Autumn parent survey

Thank you to all parents who responded to the autumn parent survey. 44 families in total responded and I am pleased to report the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive along with some very thoughtful and constructive comments. I will provide a full summary shortly. Thank you again

15-23 November

This year's theme is 'Connection or Coincidence?'

Maths Week England: 17th November to 21st November 

As the name suggests, Maths Week is a week-long celebration of all things maths. Some perceive maths as being a little bit elitist (that is, being only for extremely clever people)! Maths Week sets out to encourage children to pursue maths by promoting a more positive and inclusive approach. 

If you use maths as part of your career in any way, we would love to hear about it and even better, if you would like to come into school to chat to our classes, please let Mrs Hickman know! It doesn’t matter what your job is, as long as you can talk about the type of maths you use.

Autumn study plans available here –

St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Stourbridge - Curriculum Plans

all dates for the academic year so far can be found on our school calendar St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Stourbridge - Calendar 

Friday 24th October – Final day of the first half term of autumn
Monday 3rd November – school reopens for pupils
Wednesday 5th November – Individual school photographs
Wednesday 5th November – Parents’ evening 1
Thursday 6th November – Parents’ evening 2
Monday 10th November – Odd socks day / Anti bullying week
Tuesday 11th November – Remembrance assembly
Tuesday 11th November – 2:45pm Remembrance projects showcase for all parents – (all classes)
Monday 17th November – Maths week England and Road Safety Week
Tuesday 18th November – Flu vaccinations
Monday 1st December – 9am Whole school Advent assembly(all can wear purple) parents welcome
Wednesday 10th December – 9:10am Music and Mince Pies (parents invited)
Thursday 11th December – Christmas jumper day
Thursday 11th December – 5:30-6:30pm – Carols by Candlelight at OLAS
Monday 15th December – Reception Christmas performance
Wednesday 17th December – 1:30pm – Year 1 and 2 Nativity performance
Wednesday 17th December - 5:30pm - Year 1 and 2 Nativity performance
Friday 19th December – 9:05am – Whole school Advent Mass
Friday 19th December – Final day of term. School closes at 3:15pm – carols sung in the hall.

Have a great weekend

Mr Wilkes

Interim Executive Principal