St Maria Goretti Catholic Primary School

Here's just a little snapshot of what happened as part of 'Celebrating RE week' at school!

Have a look at this photostory to see all the fantastic activities we got involved in on Friday 23rd at our Sports Charity Day.

We all dressed up in our favourite football kits (however there was a distinct lack of PNE kits) and brought chocolate to donate to our Easter Tombola. All the money raised will be shared between CAFOD, Bernardos and SMG.

A big thank you to UCLAN for spending the day with us and providing lots of fun activities and a huge thank you to Miss Prescott for oganising the day, which ran perfectly.

Have a look at Willow's class page for lots of new photostories from the past few weeks and from the beginning of our Science Week.

Mrs Bailey

Please enjoy the photostory of the year 5/6 residential trip to Hothersall Lodge - I think I can safely say that it was an enjoyable trip for all involved! From my point of view the children's behaviour was excellent and they listened well to all of the instructors as well as not making our lives too difficult at bed times!

Shining with love, pride and success as always!

Friday 2nd March is CAFOD family fast day

Activities in school

1) Children will be encouraged to bring in their money for toast and pay for the toast but not take it, or just take a half piece instead.

2)Children will be encouraged to take part in a water fast between 8.45am and 12.15pm.

Please note that these ideas are optional, though are seen as relevant as they allow children to appreciate the everyday lives of children in Zambia who CAFOD are raising awareness about.

Children are asked to bring in as many 10p pieces as possible as classes will be competing to see who can make the longest river of coins.

Children are also asked to bring in 20p to take part in a competition to guess the amount of taps we have in the school building that provide us with clean drinking water everyday.

http://www.cafod.org.uk/primary/lent-2012 - please click on the link to the CAFOD website to watch the videos and read the stories of children such as Rosena who make the CAFOD appeals so worthwhile.

This lent, we are joining Bishop Michael in asking you to talk to God, even if it has been some time! Enjoy and reflect on this wonderful video made by Mrs Bailey and look for the posters around school titled 'the light is on for you'.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the Sacramental Programme for 2012.

I contacted all junior parents last week via our texting service to gather interest and have been speaking to the children in school - it seems that there could be a large take up this year!

Please pop in and see me so I can put you down on my list as a definite and can just have a brief chat about your situation, for example, if your child wishes to make their First Holy Communion this year but has not yet been Baptised, do not let this be a barrier to you allowing your child to enter the programme! More information will follow to the parties involved in time but the dates of the meeting are as follows:

Meeting 1 - Thursday 26th April (3pm - 4pm)
Meeting 2 - Thursday 10th May (3pm - 4pm)
Meeting 3 - Thursday 24th May (3pm - 4pm)
Meeting 4 - Thursday 31st May (3pm - 4pm)
Meeting 5 - Thursday 21st June (3pm - 4pm)
Meeting 6 - Thursday 28th June (3pm - 4pm)
First Holy Communion Mass - Sunday 1st July (Time TBC)

Mr Murphy

SATS booster class will begin next Wednesday (29th Feb) and will carry on every week! The last class will be on Wednesday 9th May.

Booster is not compulsary but over 90% of the children attended every week last year.

Booster takes place 3pm-4pm.

The week of the visit to Hothersall Lodge there will be no booster class.

Football club will now take place on a Friday after school - First session being Friday 9th March.

Mr Murphy

Allow your child every opportunity to shine with love, pride and success

On Friday 9th December the Year 3/4 children are putting on an assembly for children, parents and staff to show off their new found musical talents.

We have been learning about pitch and rhythm since September with a specialist Music teacher and we would love you to come and watch our little performance. Doors open at 1:4opm, show starts at 1:45pm.

We hope to see you there!

Come and have a look at Willow Class page to see what happened when Laura visited us from Manchester United and when we took on the challenge of designing a new juice flavour.

- Mrs Bailey

Goretti's Gifts were selling their handmade cards, bags and tags at Virgin Active Gym this evening and recieved lots of compliments not only about the quality of the products but also about their manners, drive and ambition!

The gorgeous gifts will be on sale after school for the next week - make sure to come and take a look!

Click on the pictures to go through to our catalogue page!

Click here to go to Willow's class page where you can find out about our fun day

Goretti's Gifts - the year 6 company who aim to make 'amazing prezzas for your bezzas' are now beginning to sell their handmade cards, tags and gift bags! Click on the picture to be taken through to the company website!

Click on the photostory to watch our Basketball Team training.

Mr. Savage is a PE Specialist and has recently started a Basketball Club for our year 3 and 4 children.  There are still spaces available if you would like to come along.  Thursday after school from 3pm - 4pm.

-Mrs. Bailey

As you will no doubt be aware, the combined teacher, non-teaching and school leadership trade unions will be taking industrial action on Wednesday 30 November 2011.  This action is about changes to the pension schemes of their members.

We have examined the situation carefully and taken the decision that school will close on this date. This is because the number of staff taking part will make it impossible for school to open safely.  The school will re-open as normal on Thursday 1 December at 8.45am.

The decision to close the school or send pupils home is never taken lightly, and we apologise for the inconvenience caused. We do hope the matter is resolved quickly. 

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

On Wednesday 23rd November we went to Preston Guild Hall to represent school in Preston City Indoor Games.

Well done to everyone.

-Mrs. Bailey

A little bit of clowning around in Willow Class.

We've been measuring liquids and making models for storywriting - take a look!

Click on the photo to go through to the Oak class page - there you can view the photostory of our trip to Haydock Park

I just want to say a quick word about the school football team - I can't lie and say that it has been an easy start to the year, but didn't a victory taste sweet on Friday!

For those of you that braved the cold, I hope you really enjoyed it - the smile on all of the children's faces as the first goal flew in was certainly worth all of the heartache we've suffered up until now!

But I just want to let you know that when we've been training in between games, no matter how much I've grimaced, joked, made them run, jump or practise - that smile has never dropped from their faces!

A massive well done to all the boys that played on Friday - we could all learn from their tenacity and spirit; you're another reason why this school shines so brightly!

I should also just quickly mention the pupils and staff at Grange, we've played them several times during my time at school and they are always keen to organise matches, to see them played fairly and with a friendly atmosphere.

Very Proud
Mr Murphy

Please enjoy the memories of our 'WOW' week based around Pop art and the sixties!

We certainly enjoyed ourselves - although we're still scrubbing off the hand prints!

Photostory of Playleaders 2011.

On Friday 14th October Year 6 children began their first Playleader training session with Sarah Cooper (Corpus Christi High School).

The energetic group have one more session before the can put their skills to the test, making play times and lunch times great fun for everyone at St Maria Gorettis.

-Mrs Bailey

Click on the title bar  to go through to the Oak class page where you can look at pictures from our trip to Preston College... We are a class of budding builders!!

Have you ideas about how to improve our school?

Do you think you have the skills and qualities to make an excellent school councillor?

Yes? Then remember...

SMG School Council Elections   Thursday 29th September.

Cake Sale

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 Thank you so much for all your kindness and generosity this week. We raised £130 from the cake sale which is absolutley amazing.

Mrs Chambers (new Associate Head), Mrs Nicholas (new Associate Deputy & Year 4/5 teacher), Mrs Bailey (Year 3/4 teacher) and Mrs Vango (Reception teacher) would like to thank all the children, parents and staff for the warm and friendly welcome they have received this week.  They are very impressed with your wonderful school and are determined not only to continue the great work but to lead St Maria Goretti to even greater success.  They each bring their own unique personalities, skills and expertise.

This is the fourth Associate Headship Mrs Chambers has undertaken in the past 4 years, having been asked by the LEA to drive up standards and lead whole school improvement.  Throughout her extensive career she has been fortunate to work in a variety of educational establishments from very large, challenging and socially deprived schools to affluent, aspiring faith schools.  She has produced a document which received HMI commendation; enjoyed a sabbatical in order to read, research and visit schools which offered innovative and exciting ways of teaching and more recently participated in a study tour to look at school leadership overseas.  She is passionate about all children receiving the best education possible and believes that what makes good primary education great is the fusion of excellence and enjoyment.  Mrs Chambers believes all schools should create a stimulating environment for the children and in recent years has involved Wayne Hemingway in school learning environment improvements, Harry Yeung at the Yang Sing in cooking lessons, and in a tennis week had pupils knocking up with Greg Rusedski.  In her last school, she set up a school radio which ran a 'child led' daily broadcast offering news items, music and guests including footballer, David Dunn and chef, Nigel Haworth.  She has lots of plans for SMG...... !?!

Mrs Nicholas has been a teacher for 15 years and has held various roles, including Assistant Headteacher and Literacy Consultant. She has taught both younger and older children and has enjoyed every minute of it.

Her specialist subject is Literacy and she has been a 'Leading Literacy Teacher' for Lancashire for a number of years. Her experience has given her the opportunity to support other teachers in schools to improve the way they teach Literacy.

More recently she has trained teachers across Lancashire to be 'reading recovery' teachers.

Mrs Bailey is in her second year of teaching and as a PE specialist she is also excited to take on the role of PE subject leader. She is looking forward to supporting the children in winning lots of sporting events and bringing lots of trophies home. She is very enthusiastic and has lots of new ideas which she hopes to bring to the school to help develop the children, especially in sport and outdoor education.

Outside school she is a scout leader and regularly brings ideas from her scouting background into the classroom to enhance the children's learning.

In her spare time she enjoys going to concerts and her claim to fame is she once sang on stage with Bryan Adams.

Hi,

I am Heather Vango and I am the teacher for Beech Class (Reception year).

I was born and bred in Preston and, having qualified as a teacher in 1988, I began my career in a leafy suburb of London called Barnes. In 1990 I moved schools to teach nearer to where I was living and worked my way up quickly to leading two nursery and two reception classes as Early Years Coordinator. Along with this I became a teacher governor on the schools Board of Governors and was blessed with a son whom I called Isaac.

 In 2000, I moved back to Preston with Isaac and began supporting and running the toddler groups at West View Leisure centre. I really enjoyed this as it gave me a chance to play on the bouncy castle several days of the week!!!  

I began working for Headstart Pre-School Centre as a teacher of preschool in 2002. I had lots of fun teaching the nursery children and began supporting the organisation, planning and teaching of all the children in the centre who were aged 0-5 years. When the nursery was taken over by another company I became the education consultant working with staff and children over four sites supporting the observation, planning and teaching of all the children which was a challenge but extremely rewarding.

In 2008 I decided to widen the breadth of my experience in early years teaching further and went to work in Blackburn for a children's centre which catered for 120 children at one time. In 2010 was asked to move to a larger centre as a trouble-shooter to help solve the major challenges they were experiencing in their safeguarding, teaching and planning. In both centres I undertook the implementation of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and trained all the staff in its principles, goals and practice. As part of my role I was SENCo and supported the children with special needs through writing and implementing Individual Education Plans, and worked with speech therapists, physiotherapists, and hearing Impairment specialists (to name but a few) ensuring the Inclusion of all the children in the centre.  Along with this, I worked with the reception class staff in local schools to ensure the smooth transitions of children who were moving to school.

I am dedicated teacher who loves to find new ways of exciting children and motivating them into wanting to learn. I also love gymnastics and support the boys head coach at a local gymnastics school several times a week which I enjoy immensely.

I am thoroughly looking forward to teaching at St Maria Goretti and hope that we can have a fun time together!!

If you would like to contact the headteacher please use the following email link.