Message from Headteacher

Wow – what a half-term it’s been! I don’t think we’ve had a moment to catch our breath with so many events and activities taking place!

At the start of this half-term, we went straight into our Healthy Living Day, where children tried their hand at all sorts of fun activities linked to healthy living and eating – from cooking and tasting new foods to taking part in different sports and activities. Our Sports Days were also a real highlight – it was fantastic to see the children giving their very best in every race, cheering each other on and showing great sportsmanship throughout.

The Creative Festival was a showstopper! Every class took to the stage on our field with songs and dances inspired by West End musicals – what a talented bunch of performers we have at St Julian’s! And of course, the big screen took the event to a whole new level this year!

Lastly, I have to mention the Colour Run – what a way to finish the term! Children (and staff!) raced around the field while being covered in bursts of coloured powder. There was so much laughter, and even after many showers since, I’m still finding purple paint in my ear!

Thank you to the members of our PTA who have worked so hard and have given so much of their time throughout the year! We are truly grateful! If you’re interested in joining the PTA, please contact us and we’ll get back to you with further details!

A huge thank you to all our families for your support throughout the year – whether cheering children on, helping behind the scenes, or just being part of our school community. An extra special thank you for your kindness and generosity with cards, gifts and thoughtful words for myself and the staff – we really don’t expect cards and gifts at the end of the year, but are so grateful for your encouragement and kind messages of thanks!

I have to end by wishing our current Year 6 cohort the best of luck as they start high school. They are all such a wonderful bunch, and it has been a real pleasure to watch them grow and flourish as they’ve progressed through St Julian’s Primary. We’d love to hear from you all over the next term to learn how you’re getting on as you settle into your new high schools.

From all of us here at SJPS, have a wonderful, sunny summer break with your families – we look forward to seeing everyone back, refreshed and ready for another exciting year in September!

Best wishes,
Mr Mansfield – Headteacher

Return to School After the Summer Break

Please remember that Monday 1st September and Tuesday 2nd September are Staff Training Days. Most children will return to school on Wednesday 3rd September. Our Reception and Nursery children will have a staggered start – please see the Back to School letter for more details.

This graph shows the percentage of children who have excellent attendance and the percentage of those who have poor attendance. In some cases, we are aware of genuine reasons for school absence. 

This graph shows our whole school attendance across the year. Our target was 93% but we unfortunately did not achieve this.

End of Year Attendance Figures are in

School attendance continues to be a key focus for the government, the Local Authority, and our school. Regular attendance is vital for children’s learning, well-being, and long-term success. We encourage all parents to ensure their children are in school as often as possible and to book holidays or appointments outside of term time whenever they can. If you’re ever unsure whether your child is too ill for school, the NHS provides helpful guidance here.

Some key headlines for the past year:

• 54 children have missed between 15-18 days across the year
• 131 children have missed more than 19 days across the year
• The Education Welfare Service have carried forward legal prosecutions where attendance has been a concern with no improvement
• Our absence rate across the year is 7.9% overall. Of these absences, 4.0% were authorised and 3.9% unauthorised (it is so important that you let us know if your child is not in school and provide a reason for their absence)
• 24.8% of pupils are persistently absent and the Education Welfare Service is following these up
• 26 pupils have had unauthorised absences for more than 10 days

Absence Patterns:

• 73 pupils have been repeatedly late or absent on the same day of the week throughout the year
• 253 pupils have been absent before or after a school holiday period
• 35 pupils have recently worsened from previously good attendance
• 37 pupils have recently improved from previously poor attendance

Thank you for your continued support in helping every child make the most of their education.

Important – School Phone Number Has Changed

It didn’t go quite as smoothly as planned, but the school phone number has now changed! We’ve updated our website, letter header and our Google profile, so you should have no trouble finding our new number. It’s (01633) 631790. Save it to your phonebook! A huge thank you to Nancy and Tabitha, who kindly volunteered to be the voices of the recorded messages!

Transition Day

On 5th July, all children moved up to their new classes for next year for the day, They enjoyed spending time getting to know their new teachers and taking part in fun activities to get to know each other. You can see which class your child has moved to here.

Sports Days

A huge well done to all of our children who took part in our Sports Days this summer term! The effort, enthusiasm and sportsmanship on display were brilliant to see – whether children were sprinting for the finish line, balancing beanbags or cheering on their classmates from the sidelines.  We’d also like to say a big thank you to all of our parents and families who came along to support. Your encouragement really added to the atmosphere and made the days so special.

We count ourselves very lucky this year – the weather stayed dry for every event and, for once, we didn’t have to postpone a single Sports Day because of the weather!

End of Year Production

Congratulations to our talented Year 5 and 6 pupils for putting on a truly fantastic stage production of Matilda as their end-of-year summer concert! The children amazed us all with their acting, singing, dancing and incredible confidence on stage. It was a joy to see their hard work, teamwork and creativity shine through in such a professional performance. Thank you also to the staff who worked so hard to produce the show and the set!

Creative Festival

We loved SJPS Fest this year – our annual take on the Glastonbury Festival. And what a show it was!

This year’s theme was musicals, and every single one of our 716 incredible pupils took to the stage to perform a song or dance from a West End hit. From the colourful costumes and toe-tapping choreography to the stunning vocals and big smiles, each performance was full of energy, talent and joy.  We had inflatables, a catering village, a pizza oven, BBQ, and a host of external stall holders. One of the standout features this year was our giant 20-square-metre LED screen, which live-streamed every performance. It gave the day a real Glastonbury vibe and made sure every act had their moment to shine – even for those watching from the back!

Book’nic

During the last week of term, we loved hosting our Book’nic, where parents were invited in to sit on the field for a picnic whilst they looked through their children’s workbooks from across the year.

Year 6 Residential Visit to Urdd Centre

In July, our Year 6 children enjoyed an exciting residential visit to the Urdd Outdoor Adventurous Activity Centre in Llangrannog. They stayed for two nights and took part in a wide range of activities, including climbing, skiing, zip wire, swimming, quad biking and go-karting. As well as doing all that, they got to use lots of the Welsh they had learnt at school as the Urdd centre promotes the Welsh language.

The children had a fantastic time and, unsurprisingly, were very tired upon their return to school! A huge thank you goes to the staff who generously gave up their weekend to supervise and support the children throughout the trip.

End of Year School Reports

End of Year School reports were sent out electronically for all pupils in July. If you have not yet accessed your school report or your email was not up to date on our system, please contact the school office asap and we will send you a copy.

Government Personalised Assessments

All children from Year 2-Year 6 must complete Welsh Government personalised assessments online at least once a year. Children at St Julian’s undertook the assessments in June. Some year groups had the results included in their end of year school report, but you can view more in depth results by logging into your child’s hwb account and selecting personalised assessments. You can read more information here about the assessments and the progress reports. 

Walking Bus

Thank you to everyone who has taken part in our Walking Bus to school each Wednesday morning! We’ve enjoyed meeting you at the two locations and walking to school with you! This helps to reduce traffic on the roads and reduce parking around the school site, as well as getting us active and boosting our wellbeing!

Staff Update

We’re sad to say goodbye to some of our staff who are moving on, but happy to welcome new staff to the team!

• Mrs McKenzie (Teacher), Mrs Daly (Teacher) and Mrs Parry (Teacher) are leaving us! We wish them well as they begin new chapters.
• Mrs Haslett (TA) is retiring this Summer, but will remain in contact with the school to provide literacy intervention occasionally and Mr Jenkins (TA) leaves us to commence his Teacher Training qualification in Scotland!

We’re excited to welcome Mr Davies, who is joining Year 3; Miss Thomas, who is joining year 1;  Miss Young, who is also joining Year 1; Miss Lavender, who is joining Reception.

We also welcome Miss Blamire and Miss Mitchell who are joining our infant Cwtch Classroom as Teaching Assistants, and Miss Townsend who is joining Reception as a Teaching Assistant.

You can view our staff chart here.

Colour Run

Our Colour Run in the last week of term was an unforgettable highlight for everyone! Pupils, staff and parents all had a fantastic time as children raced around the field while clouds of bright coloured powder were thrown by parents and staff. The laughter, smiles and splashes of colour made it a joyful way to celebrate the end of the school year together. We didn’t manage to take many photos of the colour run, so if you have any, we’d love you to email them to us at our usual school email address!

Careers Fair

We recently held a Careers Fair for our Year 5 and 6 pupils, giving them the chance to explore a wide range of future career opportunities. Children were able to meet and talk with a nurse, a health visitor, construction workers, tradespeople, mechanics, as well as members of the police and fire service. It was a fantastic opportunity for pupils to ask questions, gain inspiration and start thinking about the many exciting paths open to them in the future.

Do you have spare wellies to donate?

We’re excited to be increasing our outdoor learning and Forest School activities next year! We do have some wellies that children can borrow, but not enough. If you have any old or outgrown wellies at home, we’d be so grateful if you were willing to donate them to the school. Please send them in with your child or drop them into the school office!

New Library Cabin

When the old council library next to our school announced that they were closing, our Pupil Parliament were really keen to make sure that we still had a great place to enjoy books. Our existing school library was just a tiny storage room, and the children felt we could do much better. So, we’ve bought a brand-new library cabin and have been busy putting up shelves and building furniture to make it a cosy and welcoming space. We know how important reading is – studies show that children who read regularly not only do better in school but also develop stronger imaginations and bigger vocabularies. That’s why we’ve got big plans for our new library, including letting children and families borrow books to enjoy at home. To help us fill the shelves with the very best stories, we’d love pupils to share their favourite book choices using [this online form]. Also, if you have any books that your child has finished with and you no longer want to keep, we’d be so grateful for donations of reading books for our library! Send them into the school office!

PTA School Equipment for Sale

The PTA are selling school-branded equipment. You can purchase them on ParentPay or on the first day back at school.

Year 4 Swimming Lessons

Year 4 children have completed their three-week swimming course. It is incredible to see the progress they all made in their water skills over the three weeks! Swimming lessons for children take place in Year 4, so our current year 3 children will be taking part in swimming lessons next year.

County in the Community

The school has continued to subscribe to ‘County in the Community’ this year, which involves children taking part in sports classes and reading intervention support in association with Newport County. Children in the junior school have enjoyed the programme and it’s something we’ll look to continue next year.

Join our PTA

We’re so grateful to the Parents and Teachers Association for all of their efforts this year, putting on great events for our children. If you’re interested in joining our PTA, we’d love to hear from you! We meet on the second Thursday of each half-term in the infant hall. Just turn up, or contact Mrs Walshe ahead of joining and she can give you more information.

Online Suggestion Box

Thanks to those of you who submitted suggestions to improve our school in the last couple of newsletters! The suggestions we received so far are:

• Host a family BBQ ✅
• Open up the school field in the summer break to let children meet up with each other to play. (We’re looking into this one. Obviously, we would need staff available and willing but will keep you posted if we can make something work!)
• Let younger children join in the colour run on the last day ✅
• Get more play equipment on junior yard for older children – (we’re working on increasing the equipment – we’ve purchased sheds and lots of equipment, but a fair bit has been damaged since it was bought at Easter) 
• Hold a 3d printing workshop for kids and parents – (look out for this, it will be in the Autumn Term!)

If you have any ideas on what we need to work on or improve as a school, please do let us know! If we adopt your idea, we’ll buy you a box of chocolates! You can use this link.

School Essentials Grant Information

If you’re in receipt of certain benefits, you may be eligible for the School Essentials grant. More information can be found here.

Online Office

Don’t forget that you can access our online office whenever you need, with searchable information, absence reporting forms and lots of other information too!

Helping Hands

Visit our Help at Home page for general ideas and tips for helping children with their learning at home.

Your child can access the online lessons we’ve created with key information linked to the learning themes in our school curriculum.

Contact our Family Support Worker for support with a range of things.

Browse our online parenting leaflets.

Class Dojo – Main Communication Platform

We want to remind all parents and carers that Class Dojo is our main communication tool for sharing important school updates and class news. Through the app, you can receive whole school announcements, as well as specific updates from your child’s class teacher. It’s a great way to stay informed about events, learning activities, and key reminders. We also use the online calendar which notifies parents of upcoming events. You can control the notification settings in the app to increase the number of reminders or reduce them. Please note that we don’t use the private messaging feature of the App, so don’t message us using that as we won’t see it.

If you haven’t already, please make sure you have the app and are connected to your child’s class.

Updates from Each Year Group