5^th September 2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back to a new school year. I hope that you had a lovely summer and are excited about the new school year ahead. We offer a special welcome to the new staff, children and families who have joined us and we pray that their time at St John’s will happy, successful and filled with blessings.

Vision and Mission Statement

We believe that a bright future starts with an excellent education.

Our vision is to ignite a love of learning that enables every child to achieve their very best. We aim to provide the excellent teaching and genuine nurture that will enable all of our children to be happy, resilient, creative citizens who have the skills, knowledge and passion to change the world.

Our mission at St John’s Cathedral Catholic Primary School is to educate the whole child through the Gospel values of Christ and provide academic excellence within a Catholic community, where all are loving to learn and learning to love.

Staffing

We welcome Miss Kelly as the new Year 6 teacher and Miss Schmidt, Miss Kagiouli and Mrs Lubik as new LSAs. We also welcome back Miss Cathrow who has joined us the Year 3 teacher.

Mrs Gardner

As you may have heard at Masses over the summer, Mrs Gardner was involved in a very serious car accident during the holidays. She sustained extensive and life changing injuries. Fortunately, due to the expertise of the medical care she received and her own positivity and determination, she is doing very well. She remains in hospital and in need of our prayers and good wishes but is making incredible progress. Please pray for her and her family.

Mrs Brown

Mrs Brown has been incredibly grateful for your prayers and good wishes through her cancer journey and we were delighted when she returned to work in the summer and began her handover with Mrs Beaton to take on the SENCO role – a role that she was excited for and had a great vision for. Unfortunately, Mrs Brown’s cancer journey has become more complicated and she is unable to return to work at the moment. Please continue to pray for her.

SENCO Provision

During Mrs Brown’s absence, Mrs Warren will take on the statutory responsibilities of the SENCO role.

Designated Teacher for Looked after Children

During Mrs Brown’s absence, I will take on the role of Designated Teacher for looked after and previously looked after children.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Fr Ryan who was ordained at the cathedral in July. We were blessed to have his support in school last year and are delighted that he will be staying at the cathedral and continuing to support us in his role as governor and friend to the school.

Goodbye

We have to say a sad farewell to Fr Thomas who will be moving from the cathedral parish this weekend. We thank him for his support and wisdom during his time with us and send him to his new parish with prayers and good wishes.

Lunch Boxes

To ensure that parents are aware of what their children are eating as well as to reduce our school waste, we will be asking children with packed lunches to pack their uneaten food and rubbish into their lunch boxes to take home.

Uniform

Thank you for sending your children back to school in their full school uniform. They look incredibly smart and proud. Children are able to wear summer or winter uniform until October half term when they will need to move to winter uniform. Please continue to support us by adhering to the uniform policy. As the weather has started to change, please ensure that your child always has a coat with them too.

Winter:

Grey uniform skirt or pinafore dress or

Grey uniform trousers

White polo shirt with or without the school logo

Teal school sweatshirt or cardigan with the school logo White or grey socks or grey tights.

Sensible low heel, plain black school shoes or trainers. No markings or white soles.

Summer:

Yellow and white gingham check dress (or yellow gingham matching top and shorts/skirt) or grey shorts with a white polo shirt may be worn in summer (black or white sandals may be worn in the summer)

PE Kit

Navy blue shorts or navy blue jogging bottoms in winter Light blue T-shirt with or without the school logo Trainers for outdoor activities

Tape to cover earrings if worn

Haircuts

Hair longer than shoulder length must be tied back.

Hair should be no shorter than grade 1 and without shaven designs. Dyed hair or extreme styles are not permitted.

Any hair accessories should be hair coloured or uniform coloured

Medicines

The office are able to administer prescribed medicines that are needed during the school day and that can’t be administered at home eg inhalers, 4x day antibiotics where 3 doses are given at home and 1 is needed at lunchtime. The medicines must be prescribed, have the child’s name and dose on and be in the original packaging. They should be handed directly to the office and not left in the school bag or handed to the class teacher and a permission slip completed.

Education Sunday

Next Sunday, 14th September, is Education Sunday. St John’s is celebrating this at the 12 O’clock Mass at the cathedral. We invite all our families to attend and children to wear their school uniform. We invite our new Reception children to process in at the beginning of Mass and many of our children will be involved in the various ministries. Please bring you child along for this important celebration of Catholic education.

School Building Fund

As you will be aware, as a Catholic school, St John’s is voluntary aided and is only partly funded by the state. We receive only 90% of the allocated capital funding each year. To cover the remaining 10%, Catholic schools must ask all parents/carers to make a contribution through the school building fund to pay for the necessary building and repair projects. Generations of parents/carers have made this contribution in the past so that we have the school that we are so proud of today.

Thank you to those who have already paid and I ask those who haven’t to please consider making the contribution as soon as possible.

Safeguarding

If you have any safeguarding concerns, please note that the school’s DSL (designated safeguarding lead) is me, Mrs Park and the DDSL (deputy designated safeguarding lead) is Mrs Warren.

Thank you

As always, thank you so much for your support and generosity in making St John’s the wonderful place that is and helping us to live out our mission of Learning to Love and Loving to Learn.

Yours sincerely,

L. Park

Head Teacher