Dear Parents and Carers, Thank you so much for all the generous donations for our tombola. Your support is hugely appreciated and will help make our Christmas Fayre a truly exciting event for everyone. School is feeling even more festive by the...
Dear Parents and Carers,
Thank you so much for all the generous donations for our tombola. Your support is hugely appreciated and will help make our Christmas Fayre a truly exciting event for everyone.
School is feeling even more festive by the day, and we are looking forward to all the nativity performances next week. The children and their teachers have been working incredibly hard to prepare something special for you all.
A special mention must go to our Year 5 and 6 pupils who visited the Emirates Stadium this week to take part in a chess competition, including matches against a Grandmaster. It was a truly memorable experience for them. Please scroll down to see some wonderful photos from the day.
Wishing you all a wonderful and restful weekend.
Warm regards,
Ms Toni Mason
It is with heavy hearts that we will be saying goodbye to our fantastic Art teacher, Natalie, at the end of this term as she begins a university teaching course. We wish her all the very best and thank her sincerely for her hard work, creativity, and dedication to our school. We are pleased to share that we will be welcoming a new Artist in Residence – Julie. She is a close colleague of Natalie’s and someone who comes highly recommended. She will be visitng next Thursday and will meet some of the children before taking up her post in January. Please see below a farewell message from Natalie.
To all of my artists at St John the Baptist,
I am starting a new job at an art university in January, teaching students how to design and make jewellery. This means I have to leave SJB and hand over to a new artist. I am very sad to say goodbye to such a wonderful school of children. I have been so inspired by the children at SJB—your creativity and your joy for life.
As well as teaching students, I will also be learning how to become a teacher myself. Maybe one day, if you keep practising your art, you might even have me as your university teacher! Please keep creating and learning through art. You have such spirit and positivity, and I will think of you for years to come. I hope you will think of me and our art classes too.
Good luck, artists!
Love Natalie
Today, 15 children from Years 5 and 6 attended the London Chess Classic held at The Emirates Stadium. They got to play an actual Grand Master, receive coaching and tips from tutors and then compete in the tournament. A fantastic and very memorable day out.
Calling all parents and families! Don’t miss our magical Winter Fayre!
On Tuesday, 16th December, from 3:45pm to 5:30pm, the school will come alive with festive cheer, fun activities, and delightful surprises for everyone to enjoy.
🌟 What to Expect:
🎅 Meet Santa Claus in his grotto
🎁 Fabulous stalls with unique gifts
🍰 Tasty treats and drinks
🌟 Raffle prizes to make your holiday extra special!
Christmas Raffle – Tickets coming home on Monday
Don’t forget to return all tickets and money by Monday 15th December. We will draw the raffle on Tuesday 16th December at our Winter Fayre.
Tickets cost £1 per 5 tickets (a strip). Each child has been given £5 of tickets to sell.
Bring the whole family and let’s celebrate together. Your support makes all the difference and helps our school community shine even brighter! We can’t wait to see you there!
This week, we proudly launched an exciting new initiative in school: our Prefect Reception Buddy System. Ten children in Reception have each been paired with one of our prefects, creating a special play partnership that supports both learning and friendship.
Once a week, our Year 6 prefects join their Reception buddies for a dedicated play session. Before beginning the programme, the prefects received training on how to engage younger children in purposeful, educational play designed to help develop early language skills. Their enthusiasm and maturity have already shone through.
We are delighted to share that the scheme is going brilliantly so far. Both the little ones and their older buddies are thoroughly enjoying the sessions, building confidence, communication, and wonderful connections.
The adults in Reception have been especially impressed, noting how calm and settled the classroom feels during these sessions, and how exceptional our prefects have been in their new roles. Their success has been so striking that we just had to share it with you.
We look forward to seeing this initiative continue to flourish over the coming weeks.
We recommend you buy your child a watch.
Learning to read time is a critical skill that helps children understand the concept of time, manage their daily routines, and develop a sense of responsibility.
The best way for our children to grasp this essential skill is by consistently practising with a watch they are wearing. We encourage you to support your child in this endeavour by ensuring they have a watch to wear both at home and at school. By wearing a watch, your child can frequently see the time and will be able to practise reading it when asked throughout the day.
To see the types of watch we recommend for supporting your child to be reading please use the link below:
Recommended style of watches
We’ll have Christmas crafts, games, snacks, music, short movie and Santa making an appearance.
Please note that school ends at 1:30pm and our event begins at 1:30pm, so feel free to head straight over after pickup.
This is a free event, but we have limited tickets, so everyone who is coming will need to sign up in advance to secure a spot.
We can’t wait to celebrate Christmas with you! 
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We’re delighted to share that Pines and Needles are selling beautiful real Christmas trees inside the grounds of St John’s Hoxton Church this season. If you’re looking to bring some festive magic into your home, you can enjoy 10% off trees up to 7ft with the discount code SCHOOL10.
If you do purchase a tree, please remember to tag @pinesandneedles and use #pinesandneedles on social media.
This week in maths, Rowan Class explored how to partition three-digit numbers. The children used counters and part–whole models to break numbers into hundreds, tens and ones, strengthening their understanding of place value. ...
Year 5 have been building surveyors for the day as they’ve been learning about why particular materials have been used to construct our school. Hopefully they didn’t find too many problems!...
Elm class were using their acting skills to get ready for their Writing...
Maple class used freeze frames to explore characters, settings and emotions before writing their stories....
Nursery enjoyed looking at books in the new library today. They re-told the stories and looked at the pictures....