St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School

Please see the following information regarding the DB Primary Virtual Summer School - Link Here

Play Schemes during the summer.

Little Rockets Langney (0-11 yrs) Littlerockets@hotmail.co.uk 01323 301220

Fireflies holiday club (3-11 yrs) firefliesasc@outlook.com 07392 848736

Cheeky monkeys (up to 9 yrs) Emmalisas@aol.com 07793 738147

Tom Thumb Nursery - Holiday Playscheme (2-11 yrs) office@tomthumbnursery.co.uk 01323 647630 / 07900 261 722

Bright Beginnings Holiday Playscheme ((2-11) manager.brightbeginnings@btconnect.com 01323 648484 / 07773640809

Family Information Service for help on 0345 60 80 192 or cs.customerrelations@eastsussex.gov.uk

Information is also on ESCIS (East Sussex Community Information Service) website,

https://www.escis.org.uk/category/family-information/.

End of Term letter

Friday 17th July

10 top tips to encourage children to read in support of Reading Together Day

To support the very first Reading Together Day, we have published tips for parents and carers of primary-aged children to help them encourage and support their children to read. They contain ideas on how to plan reading opportunities at home and make reading enjoyable and engaging, including during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Tuesday 14th July - a message from Bishop Richard

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xvbe8aev0tgwgvr/AAAdwz2uZ8j2G96pP1uTIfKxa/Bishop%20Richard%20-%20End%20of%20school%20year%202020.MOV?dl=0

Summer Challenge

 1. Find a poem you love
Go to www.poetrybyheart.org.uk. Explore one or more of the collections of poems and find a poem you love, or, like a new friend, one you quite like and want to get to know better.

• The Poetry Mix-It-Up. Hover over some tiles and let the lines draw you in. Click on the mix-it-up and see what else you can find.
• The Yellow, Green and Red Timelines. Time travel. Yellow for younger pupils. Green for growing pupils. Red for really old pupils.   
• The First World War Showcase. Poems written at the time and poems looking back to it, from people who experienced it from in different countries, languages and perspectives.
• The Shakespeare Sonnets Showcase. Fourteen lines, dressed to impress.
• The Romantic Poetry Showcase. For GCSE and A Level students, mostly.

2. Learn it by heart
There's no short cut to this. Like getting to know a new friend, you have to make time to do things together. Read your poem aloud to other people, illustrate it, write out the lines and stick them on the fridge door. Remember its sections as if they are scenes in a slow-motion movie or rooms in a house. Repeat the lines while you're walking the dog. Recite it to the dog or in the shower or in front of a mirror. Give someone else the poem and get them to test you.

3. Share it aloud
Once you know the words, think about how you want to say them. When starting to recite poetry, everyone goes too quickly - slow right down! And get your audience ready to listen - count to 10 before you start. Keep it much slower than your usual speech - let your listeners savour every word. Don't be tempted to add lots of extra emotion or actions - everything you need is right there in the words. Think about the ending - you want to keep your listeners hanging on the last word for one more second, thinking about what they've heard before they all start clapping. Recite it in school, in the park or at home. Get someone you know to learn a poem too and perform your poems to each other. Make a video and share it.  

4. Enter the Poetry By Heart competition
In the autumn, we'll begin our search to find England's best poetry reciters in key stages 2,3,4 and 5. It could be you! Enter your school or college Poetry By Heart competition and you're the first step on your way to the national finals, judged by top poets. Learn two poems from the Poetry By Heart website www.poetrybyheart.org.uk, one published before 1914 and one published in 1914 or after, and get ready to recite!

Thursday 25th June     

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-keeping-children-safe-online

 Wednesday 24th June - Updates and Staffing for 2020-2021

Dear families of St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School,

I hope this post finds you all safe and well. As we move through the phases of easing lock-down, it presents us all with a glimmer of hope but also with the challenge to ensure we keep safe. We know from all the Gospel readings at mass over the past few weeks that God is always with us, especially through His Son Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. It is up to us, in these difficult times, to show the power of love and kindness to each other that God always has for us all.

We cannot tell you how much we miss all the children that are unable to attend school and want you to know that you are always in our thoughts and prayers. We really want to thank you all for the hard work you have been doing at home by completing tasks in the Learning Packs sent by post or sharing your work online on the DB Primary year group forums. We have all been absolutely amazed by the quality of work you have been producing whilst at home - demonstrating great creativity in writing, history projects, artwork and mastery in your maths. When you put your growth mind-sets to it, you can really shine in all you do! Keep on working hard and logging on to DB Primary as the teachers look forward to seeing your work and responding to your emails - we all do! If you are having problems in receiving the learning packs or logging on to the learning platform or other websites suggested by your teachers, please do get in contact with the school by phone or email the office. The teachers are also really enjoying catching up with you in their fortnightly conversations by phone.

The government, this week, announced the further relaxing of social distancing measures to 1 metre plus, in certain situations, to start on 4th July. The school will wait for further guidance from the Government, Diocese, Local Authority and unions before reducing the 2m social distance measures further and will inform you in advance if there is any change. Please kindly keep to the 2m social distancing rule whilst on the school grounds unless the school announces otherwise.

We are very sorry to be saying goodbye to Miss Hamilton in class 6E at the end of this academic year. She has been an excellent teacher, respected by all who meet her and we will be really sad to see her leave. The commute to Eastbourne has proved problematic for Miss Hamilton and she has managed to secure a teaching post much closer to her home. We wish her the very best of luck for the future - she will be a great asset to any school she goes to!

We welcome Mrs Murphy and Mrs Osborne-Walker to the team as both take up teaching positions at the school from September 2020. Mrs Murphy will be class teacher with class 3C and Mrs Osborne-Walker will be with class 6. Please see the table below informing you of your child's new teacher for next year. All teachers and TAs are working closely together as year group teaching teams and have produced a letter of introduction with photos for your child. These will be placed in the next learning pack due to be sent out at the end of this week.

Preparations are also underway to ensure identified Reception children return to school from next week to complete government guidelines on their phased return with Year 1 and Year 6. The school is now running very much close to capacity. Again, we would love to have all families back at school and hope to see you all back in September - unless there are any government guidance changes before then we will make sure we keep you informed and any actions the school will need to take.

Packs have been sent today to all our new Reception children joining the school in September. Although we are unable to follow the usual meetings and 'play days' held to inform children and parents of the teaching, routines and facilities in the Early Years, the teachers have come up with great alternatives. Videos of welcome from the teaching team and virtual  tours are being posted on Tapestry and families will be sent account details to log on to this learning platform.

More than anything, we cannot thank you enough for all your kindness, patience and resilience during this difficult and uncertain time. You, like your children, have been amazing! Thank you, thank you, thank you for bearing with us. May God's love help us through the remainder of this pandemic and see us all through safe and sound to the other side, when we can all return to school in September, reunited as one happy school family (government guidelines permitting!)

Please remember, if you do have any queries or concerns do not hesitate to contact the school and we will try to ensure we resolve these or put you in contact with someone who can.

With the very best of wishes,

Paul Beverton

Summer Reading Challenge

Keep your children reading this summer! East Sussex libraries are offering lots of ways to help! Children and their families can  join East Sussex libraries online and have their library cards posted to them. They will also get a temporary membership number to use until their cards arrive, so they can start using all the fantastic online resources straight away. This includes access to over 7,000 e-books,  with over 1400 e-book and e-audio book titles for children to choose from. Some of our e-books for younger children also have a ‘Read-a-Long’ feature, just look for this feature under the title of the book. You can see our full range of children’s titles here: https://eastsussexlibrary.overdrive.com/library/kids 

There is also information about how to borrow e-books and e-audio books on their website: https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/libraries/online/ebooks-audiobooks/ebooks/

Families may also be interested in our free e-magazines and newspapers available through Press Reader: https://www.pressreader.com/catalog You can find out how to get started here: https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/libraries/online/emagazines-and-newspapers/newspapers/

Join the fun this summer with East Sussex libraries Summer Reading Challenge and meet The Silly Squad!! Fantastic reading fun for children and the chance to get rewards, play games and earn badges as you discover awesome books to read this summer! 

Click on https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/ for full details of how to join. 

Also visit their Facebook page on https://www.facebook.com/SummerReadingChallengeUK

St Thomas a Becket One-Way System

A message from all of us here at St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School...

School Privacy Notice

Staff Privacy Notice

Volunteer and Governor Privacy Notice

Whole School Curriculum Intent

At St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School our intention is that our curriculum extends opportunity, raises aspiration, opens children’s eyes to Jesus and God’s love and the world beyond their immediate environment, enabling them to live happy, healthy and productive lives and inspire them to become lifelong learners.

For full information please follow this link:  Whole School Curriculum Intent