Headteacher's Newsletter

11^th July 2025

Dear Parents,

Year of the Jubilee Pilgrimage

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As part of our preparations for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year in 2025, themed “Pilgrims of Hope,” the children took part in a special Celebration of the Word to nurture the children’s spiritual growth and sense of togetherness.

The Jubilee Year, which occurs every 25 years, is a time when Catholics are invited to embark on a spiritual pilgrimage, whether to Rome or local holy places as a journey of renewal and deeper encounter with God.

As part of our school pilgrimage, the children moved to a different classroom, accompanied by their teacher, for a moment of prayer and reflection. Each classroom was prepared with a focal point with a candle, a cross, and a Bible. To make the moment more meaningful, each class also brought along a special item from their own room to add to the new prayer table.

The experience provided a peaceful pause in our busy day, an opportunity to reflect, pray, and come together as a school.

Trafford Libraries Reading Challenge

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The Trafford Reading Challenge in 2025, part of the national Summer Reading Challenge, encourages children aged 0-11 to read six books during the summer holidays. The theme for 2025 is "Story Garden", which focuses on the connection between storytelling and nature, and encourages children to be curious, creative, and connect with the natural world. Children can sign up at their local library from July 5th, collect a collector pack, and get stickers for each book they read. Completing the challenge earns them a certificate and medal. 

Key Details:

Theme: Story Garden, exploring the link between storytelling and nature. 

Who: Children aged 0-11. 

When: Sign-ups begin Saturday, July 5th, 2025. 

How: Borrow and read library books, including ebooks and audiobooks. 

Rewards: Stickers, collector pack, certificate, and medal for completing the challenge. 

Activities: Libraries will host free, garden-themed activities throughout the summer. 

Goal: To encourage reading and prevent the "summer slide" (loss of learning over the summer). 

How to Participate:

Visit a Trafford library: Sign up for the challenge and collect your Story Garden collector pack. 

Choose your books: Read at least six library books, including ebooks and audiobooks. 

Collect stickers: Get a sticker for each book you read and add them to your collector pack. 

Get involved: Participate in the free, garden-themed activities happening at the library. 

Complete the challenge: Once you've collected all the stickers, return to the library to receive your certificate and medal. 

The Summer Reading Challenge is a great way to keep children engaged in reading over the summer and helps them develop a love for books and the outdoors.

Summer Activities

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The raring to Go magazine is a magazine detailing what’s on in the local area for families. Please follow the link for exciting activities for your family.

The link is: Raring2go! Altrincham & Sale Summer 25 magazine - https://bit.ly/R2GAltrinchamSummer25

Highlights in the issue include:

• Summer holiday days out
• Little Page Turners - Our book review competition
• Details of summer holiday clubs

Parent Communication

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We are excited to announce that we will be moving our communications to Arbor via our MIS platform. Adopting Arbor will allow us to communicate with you more efficiently and bring all core school data and workflows into one system. We are really looking forward to getting started with Arbor and invite all our parents to familiarise themselves using the link below.

Getting started - Log into the Parent Portal and the Parent App

We will shortly be sending further communication and how to register; please look out for this information and the registration email to register your child when prompted. All information changes should be made via the app and will be approved by the school.

We hope you are looking forward to using this new feature as much as we are! If you have any queries, please contact the school office.

School Payments

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Please can payments for school lunches, school clubs and the Sunshine Club be paid so that all payments are made by the end of the academic year: www.parentpay.com  

SUMMER 2

Attendance

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Please note that holidays in term time cannot be authorised in term time. Please check the term dates below for 2025-2026 before a holiday is booked.  ST VINCENT’S CATHOLIC PPRIMARY SCHOOL

We offer an open door to parents. If you have any questions about school life, please liaise with your class teacher.  Mrs Farrell (infant deputy, Mrs Sutton (junior deputy, and I are also available to work in partnership with you.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs A Harrop

Headteacher