Yet another busy week of learning has gone by and, as usual, the children never cease to amaze me with their enthusiasm and joy of learning.

I can hardly believe that we are now only a week away from the start of Advent and celebrating the great feast of Christ the King this weekend. This week Jesus reminds us that although many things may change, His love for us is constant and through His Word we should know that He will always be with us. We are encouraged to sow seeds of hope as we look positively to the future; something we are all trying to do here in school. Of course next week we will all be making our Advent promises. (Where has this year gone?)

Nativities

Our classes are all currently planning and looking forward to their own special re-creations of the nativity and also some traditional simple carol services & presentations. Unfortunately with us all still battling to ensure our school community is as safe as can be, the decision has been made to record what we can of the children’s celebrations and present these on our website rather than taking the risk of inviting large numbers to gather as an ‘audience’. The last thing we want is for anyone to be ill over Christmas time!!!!

Look out for further details about these and other celebrations on your class news pages.

Fundraising during Advent

Many of you asked about Children in Need today: Charity towards others is never far from our minds, and the children have also been talking about charity work, which as always, is a vital part of our school Mission. We recognise that today was Children in Need Day and instead of simply undertaking an event on one day, we remember and give thanks to members of our school community who have undertaken some amazing fundraising activities to help raise money for our own, local ‘children in need’ and in particular, families within our own school. Our Year 4 class recently packed and delivered Christmas ‘Shoeboxes’; we continue to support local foodbanks and have also recieved some gifts on behalf of BFC which will be distributed to many of our families.

Our PTFA are holding a Christmas Jumper Day on December 14th, when children (and staff) can wear their lovely festive jumpers and bring £1 - this is also our Christmas Dinner Day in school (more details to follow about this!)

Our older children are also constantly coming up with great fundraising ideas - I know they are working on these to raise money also - so watch this space!

We will be looking to raise funds (as we have done for many years) for Brian House/Trinity Hospice, which they have greatly appreciated. We know that Brian House continues to struggle due to the pandemic and any funds raised going forward will support them as they carry out their essential and deeply compassionate work. And also not forgetting our own families and the children we love, such as Amy and the ways we can continue to support her and her family too!

Sacramental Programme

This weekend we welcome the children who will be undertaking the Parish Sacramental Programme for this year. Their families will be attending masses on Saturday and Sunday when Fr Loughran and the Parish will welcome them all officially at the beginning of their important faith journey.

We will keep the children and their families in our prayers and hope that, after lockdowns and restrictions, this can be a new beginning for them and the first steps of a journey which will see these families become an ever growing and strengthening part of our wonderful Parish Community. We hope to see you all at mass for many years to come.

Get Reading….

We all know at Our Lady’s, that reading inspires us all. But did you know that 1 in 11 disadvantaged children and young people in the UK don’t have a single book of their own? That’s a frightening thought - isn’t it? Currently Blackpool has teamed up with The Literacy Trust to promote reading across our town with the ‘Get Blackpool Reading’ campaign.

The Lteracy Trust is a great resource with hundreds of resources, videos and ideas not only for children (like this ‘Top tips for choosing a book’ video) but for school and parents too! Next week classes can tune in to Join Matt Haig for a special Christmassy session exploring his book, and soon to be Netflix film, A Boy Called Christmas. The true story of Father Christmas.

The children can hear Matt read from the book, discuss his inspirations and get exclusive sneak peeks from the film. They may even have a chance at the end to ask Matt questions from the class!

The Literacy Trust have teamed up with Blackpool Catering this year to give the Christmas dinner a 'magical' theme. Each child who registers for a Christmas dinner will receive a free book! What a great present!

We are also happy to support local author Dina Elizabeth Slater (who has close links to Our Lady's school!) as she launches her fantastic new children's picture book, 'Arthur and the Magic Book'. We want to take the opportunity to share a link to the free eBook for you to enjoy. Below there are also links to Dina's website, should you wish to find out more information. (You may have already seen this on our Twitter feed!)

Website: www.artandetta.co.uk

EBook: https://bit.ly/3k6VI9O

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artandetta

We will also look forward to a visit from Dina next year. Who has promised she will come and talk to the children about being an author - we love an author visit!

We hope that this Christmas you can give the gift of reading to your children… not simply by buying them a book - but by inspiring them to read: Reading with your child and to them is the single most significant treasure you can give!