Dear Parents and Carers, What another busy week at St John the Baptist! It has been lovely to see children settled, working hard and enjoying so many opportunities. Our children have been out and about on trips, visiting our local library and...
Dear Parents and Carers,
What another busy week at St John the Baptist!
It has been lovely to see children settled, working hard and enjoying so many opportunities. Our children have been out and about on trips, visiting our local library and learning more about our Hoxton community.
The Cycle Confidence course has been a great success, with so many children improving their bike riding skills. We were especially proud when the instructors described our children as “a breath of fresh air”, with excellent behaviour and a pleasure to teach. What a wonderful reflection of St John the Baptist!
It has also been fantastic to see so many children enjoying our wide range of after-school clubs. A big thank you to our wonderful staff who give their time to make these opportunities possible.
Another great week at St John the Baptist.
Looking ahead, Reception and Year 1 families are invited to our Phonics and Early Reading Coffee Morning on Tuesday, followed by our Friends of SJB meeting on Wednesday at 3pm. On Thursday, Year 6 will join other Church of England schools across Hackney for a special celebration service. We also have our exciting Science Community Show from 3:45–4:30pm – free for all families! See below for more information on all of these events! We have sent home the dates poster so hopefully it is your fridge with all the dates. We did this after parents suggested it would be helpful for them.
Warm regards,
Ms Toni Mason
SJB at the Heart of Hoxton – Ambitious. Belonging. Creative.
We are delighted to share that our school is taking part in the Sports for Champions programme, which gives children the exciting opportunity to meet and be inspired by successful athletes. The programme aims to encourage young people to be active, develop confidence and resilience, and understand the determination and perseverance that can help us achieve our goals.
As part of the programme, we are very excited to welcome Hannah Beharry, British boxing champion and former elite-level boxer, to our school on Wednesday 4th November 2026.
Hannah represented England and Great Britain internationally and became the first British woman to compete at a European Boxing Championship. She also helped pave the way for women’s boxing in Britain at a time when opportunities for female boxers were much more limited.
During her visit, Hannah will meet our pupils and take part in a whole-school assembly, sharing her experiences and inspiring the children with her story of resilience, determination and perseverance.
We will be sharing more information about Hannah’s visit and how our families can get involved over the coming weeks. We are really looking forward to welcoming her to our school!
We have recently received notification that MarvellousMe, the app we currently use to communicate with parents and carers, will be coming to an end.
We know how important it is to have a simple and reliable way of keeping our families up to date with school news, messages and celebrations. We are therefore currently reviewing a number of alternative apps to find the one that will work best for our whole school community.
We do not want to rush this decision and are taking a little time to consider the different options carefully. We hope to let you know early next week which app we will be moving to, along with information about what you will need to do to get set up.
In the meantime, please continue to use MarvellousMe as usual and we will message you with its final message.
Thank you for your patience and understanding while we make this transition.
We wanted to update parents and carers regarding the School Crossing Patrol Officer for the crossing near our school.
We have continued to follow this up with Hackney Council, particularly in light of concerns raised by parents and staff about safety at the crossing. We are pleased to share that a new School Crossing Patrol Officer has now been recruited and is currently completing the necessary pre-employment checks. The Council is hopeful that they will be able to start after the October half-term.
In the meantime, we ask all families to take extra care when using the zebra crossing. We have received a number of reports of vehicles, particularly cyclists, not stopping to allow pedestrians to cross safely.
Please do not assume that a car, bicycle or other vehicle will stop at the crossing as there have been a number of cases of this not happening in the last two weeks. Please always wait until vehicles have come to a complete stop before stepping onto the road, and please take particular care when crossing with children.
For parents and carers whose children walk to or from school independently, we would be grateful if you could reinforce this important message at home and remind children to stop, look carefully and make sure vehicles have stopped before they cross.
The safety of our children and families is extremely important to us, and we will continue to follow this up with the Council. We will update families once we have confirmation of the new School Crossing Patrol Officer’s start date.
Today, we celebrated Teaching Assistant Appreciation Day and took the opportunity to say a huge thank you to our wonderful TA team.
Our Teaching Assistants play such an important role in school life. Every day, they support children with their learning, encourage them when things feel challenging, celebrate their achievements and provide care, patience and reassurance. Our teachers and pupils are incredibly grateful for everything they do.
As part of our celebrations, we shared a special video during assembly featuring children sending messages of thanks to their TAs. A special thank you also goes to a couple of our Year 6 pupils who helped to create the video!
We hope all of our Teaching Assistants know just how much they are valued and appreciated by our whole school community.
Tuesday 29th September Parents’ Coffee Morning
Wednesday 30th September – Black History Month begins
Friday 2nd October Science Community Show
Tuesday 6th October Reading Forest Library Launch
Wednesday 7th Friday 9th October – Year 4 Residential Trip to Ufton Court
Wednesday 14th October Parents Evening
Friday 16th October Parents’ Open Morning
Friday 23rd October Black History Month Showcase 9am – all parents and carers welcome!
Friday 23rd October – St Johns Hoxton Family Movie Night
The children in Years 5 and 6 have been exploring their new online chess accounts with Jospeh, our Chess in Schools tutor. This is a great way to practise and learn playing skills and Mr. Lancaster is on the lookout for who will represent the......
As we explore our class text ‘Hello Friend’ Reception have been busy drawing pictures of themselves playing with their friends. We used a mixed media approach and the outcomes are excellent; some of us even labelled with names....
Year 3 completed a science experiment this week. They were looking at which rocks are waterproof or absorbent. We looked at which rocks would be best to use for a roof....
Chestnut have been exploring the effects of air resistance on a falling object. We created parachutes and showed how the bigger the surface area, the greater the air resistance and the slower the descent. Ask them about the video of the bowling ball and the......
Cherry Class enjoyed a walk around Hoxton as part of our History lesson. We explored how Hoxton has changed over the years and discussed how it might change in the future. It was a lovely afternoon and the children really enjoyed sharing their amazing ideas!...