Dear Families,
As we head into the final couple of weeks of the school year, I honestly cannot believe how quickly the time has gone! It has been another incredibly busy week, full of exciting opportunities for our children beyond the classroom.
Our Year 5 pupils had a fantastic day at the Summer Science Exhibition, where they explored cutting-edge scientific discoveries, met real scientists and took part in hands-on activities. Reports back from staff was that some children were heard saying “I want to be a scientist!” There really is no better testament to the impact of a trip than children leaving inspired and excited about their future.
Meanwhile, Year 6 enjoyed their much-anticipated annual trip to Adventure Island in Southend. Within an hour of leaving school, staff received compliments about their exemplary behaviour on the journey from members of the public, and later they were praised again by staff at the attraction itself. We are incredibly proud of this year’s Year 6 pupils. They have been wonderful ambassadors for our school throughout the year and consistently set an excellent example to our younger children. Their trip was thoroughly deserved, and we hope they made memories that will stay with them for years to come.
Yesterday, the Friends of St John the Baptist also met with staff to continue planning this year’s Summer Fayre. We have lots of exciting ideas and are hoping to make this our best fayre yet! If you are able to spare a little time to help run a stall or support on the day, we would be incredibly grateful. The more volunteers we have, the more activities and attractions we can offer for our children and families, helping to make it a fantastic community event. If you are interested in helping, please do get in touch with the school office or speak to a member of the FOSJB team.
As always, thank you for your continued support. We are looking forward to making these final weeks of term as memorable and enjoyable as possible for all of our children.
Warm regards,
Ms Toni Mason
For all children 2 years and over – places are available for September 2026, January 2027 and April 20237 starts – Apply Now!
Apply using the QR code below or on our website https://st-john.hackney.sch.uk/
We have just noticed an error on the Summer Term Events list for July.
The entry for Tuesday 7th July states that the Summer Parents’ Evening Drop-in will take place at 8:45am. This is incorrect. As in previous years, the drop-in will be held between 3:45pm and 4:45pm.
We apologise for this mistake and for any inconvenience it may cause. If this change creates any difficulties for you, please get in touch with us and we will be happy to make an alternative arrangement. Thank you for your understanding.
On Friday 10th July, we will be holding an Own Clothes Day to help collect prizes for our Summer Fair tombola and raffle.
Children who would like to take part are invited to come to school in their own clothes and, instead of making a monetary donation, bring along a prize for the tombola or raffle.
Some ideas include chocolates, sweets, biscuits, toiletries, toys, games, books, gift sets or other new, unwanted gifts. Any food items must be non-perishable, unopened and within their expiry date please.
Thank you for your generosity and support. We are looking forward to Friday and hope that your donations will help make this year’s tombola even bigger and better!
The Summer Fair is fast approaching, and we’re delighted to launch our Summer 2026 Raffle!
Thanks to the incredible generosity of our families and local businesses, we have some fantastic prizes on offer, including beautiful toy and beauty hampers, vouchers from local businesses and gift cards – including a £40 Sainsbury’s gift card. The prize display is growing every day and can be viewed outside the school office.
Each child has brought home £5 worth of raffle tickets to sell. Tickets cost £1 per strip (5 tickets). Please write your child’s name and class on the back of each ticket stub before returning them in the envelope provided.
If you would like to purchase or sell more tickets, additional books are available from the school office. Some families have sold almost £50 worth of tickets in previous years, helping to raise valuable funds for our school, so every extra ticket sold makes a real difference.
Please return all sold ticket stubs, money and any unsold tickets to the school office by Monday 13th July. The raffle will be drawn at the Summer Fair on Tuesday 14th July around 5:00 pm.
Thank you for your continued generosity and support. Good luck!
Over the past few weeks, our Digital Leaders have been working incredibly hard to research, write and plan a whole-school assembly about digital footprints, a topic they felt was important for every child in our school to understand.
The Digital Leaders created all of the presentation slides themselves and made the assembly highly interactive, encouraging children to think carefully about the information they share online and the lasting impact it can have. They delivered their assembly with confidence and enthusiasm, and everyone learned something valuable about staying safe online.
We are extremely proud of the commitment, teamwork and leadership our Digital Leaders have shown throughout the year as they have helped to promote online safety across our school.
Please enjoy a few photographs of them delivering their fantastic assembly!
Sora continues to be incredibly popular with many of our children, giving them access to hundreds of eBooks and audiobooks that they can enjoy anytime, anywhere.
If you haven’t yet seen your child using Sora at home, we would really encourage them to have a look. Whether they enjoy fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels or listening to audiobooks, there is something for everyone. New titles are also added regularly, so there is always something exciting to discover.
Reading little and often makes a huge difference, and Sora is a fantastic way to encourage children to read for pleasure both in and out of school. Why not ask your child to show you what they are currently reading or explore some of the latest books together?
On Wednesday, we celebrated the end to an amazing year of chess at SJB by inviting some of our best players to take part in ChessFest which was held in a beautiful garden in central London. Not only did SJB finish second in the Hackney league......
The children explored outside play using building blocks together....
Plum had a fantastic time at Southend-On-Sea. After working so hard all year it was really nice to have some fun team time together. We saw students encouraging each other to try the rides and be supportive. We really are proud of our Year 6......
Year 1 are enjoying the plant unit in Science. They investigated and looked at a range of different flowers today, comparing the roots, stem, leaves and flower. We also looked at different root vegetables....
Cherry Class children have been immersing into their new book, The Selfish Giant. As a class, we spotted descriptive vocabulary that allowed us to paint a picture in our minds of the giant’s garden. Finally, they drew the garden on whiteboards, using the book as......
On Tuesday, Chestnut attended a science day at the very prestigious Royal Society. Definitely one of the best trips of the year and amazing to see the children so engaged by such a variety of talks, demonstrations and practical experiments, including robotics, VR, lightening, lasers,......