SEE BELOW FOR ST JOHN'S LATEST NEWS...

• Science Week 2025

  Fri 28 Mar 2025

  The children at enjoyed a fun and exciting week of learning, taking part in their annual Science Week. This year the theme was ‘Change and Adapt’.  There have been many experiments, investigations and interactive activities about animals, climate and technology to name a few.

  The highlight of the week for many children was a visit from Bug Fest. The children and staff were able to get up close and were even able to hold many of the creepy crawlies. This visit was fascinating, and although some were rather tentative about the mini beasts visiting, the day was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

  The parents were then invited to a wonderful Science Exhibition on Friday afternoon to see and hear about all the learning that has been going on throughout the week at school and at home.

  The staff would like to say a big thank you to all the children for their enthusiastic participation and to all of families for their support in making the week a great success!

  

• iRock Assembly

  Wed 26 Mar 2025

  We all enjoyed a fantastic iRock performance on Wednesday, being entertained by amazing and enthusiastic performances from 5 newly created bands.  Red Bone, The Pickles, The Other Band, The Wild Jet Lads and The Huskies played drums, guitar, keyboard and sang in front of the whole school.

   

  

• The Jungle Book

  Wed 26 Mar 2025

  Children and staff at St John’s C of E Primary school were thoroughly entertained and thrilled by the performance of The Jungle Book when M&M Productions visited school.

   

  Every child had a brilliant experience when the theatre team performed, and for some this was the first time they had seen a live show. The children were thrilled by the story, joined in with the songs, were entranced by the scenery, costumes and use of light and puppetry. They were also thrilled to be in the middle of the action, as the characters joined the audience on many occasions.

  The children were already familiar with The Jungle Book story as they had enjoyed the story during World Book Day. During this week of work, each class learnt sections of the story and performed them themselves and was filmed. Each part was then put together and a rendition was enjoyed by all. This made watching M&M’s performance even more meaningful as the story was so well known.

  “M&M Productions have become yearly treat for those at St John’s, and the enrichment the children gain from this experience is priceless. We have already booked them in for next year and feel this is a very valuable element to our school curriculum” stated Olly Priestley, Headteacher.

  

• Bug Fest

  Wed 19 Mar 2025

  The school had a brilliant day with Nick from Bug Fest.  The children were amazed to see the mini beasts up close, some were even brave enough to hold them.  We learnt lots of interesting facts and some us overcame phobias. 

  

• World Book Day 2025

  Fri 07 Mar 2025

  What a wonderful week of book celebrations for St John’s C of E Primary School! Instead of celebrating on just World Book Day, the whole school celebrated their love of books throughout the week. Reading is such an integral part of all children’s learning, and we felt it was really important to embrace this year’s World Book Day theme, ‘Read your way’ with a whole host of activities across the week to inspire our children.

  The children in every class learnt the story, ‘The Jungle Book’. This activity involved: reading the story, recreating characters and making props, practising speaking performances before each class retold a section each of the story. This was then filmed and put together with each classes’ version to recreate the traditional, well-loved story. We look forward to sharing our collaborative school version with the children ahead of a professional theatrical performance of ‘The Jungle Book’!

  This year, our whole school genre focussed on Aesop’s Fables. Each class studied a different fable and learned of their distinctive style and features, with each fable having hidden meanings and morals which helped the children’s learning and understanding. It was pleasing to see such an array of work produced across the classes from the chosen fables. The children enjoyed: recreating the story, producing artwork, building DT projects based on their fable, drawing comic book strips or retelling the fable in their own style.

  And the fun and learning didn’t stop here! We welcomed the children (and adults) into school dressed as a vast array of book characters. The children shared joy in their chosen costumes and enjoyed talking about their choice of character. During the day, the children also completed character trails around the school grounds whereby they had to locate and correctly name the characters found. Additionally, live lessons took place and artistic talents were put to the test with the children designing their own WBD token to enter the national competition.

  To finish the day, the whole school took part in a book quiz. This involved the children joining their respective House Captains and they were tasked with answering questions based on books the children have shared and been reading within their classes. The quiz was a real success with the children answering with great enthusiasm and passion whilst demonstrating fantastic knowledge of the texts that they have been exposed to in their classes. This led to very close scores…3 Houses had the same score and the other house only 1 point behind! Quizzing then commenced the following day with UKS2 to find the ultimate winner for this year. The winning House was then celebrated in the Praising Assembly on Friday and earned themselves extra play the following week.

  Class teacher said “A real highlight of the quiz was seeing the children answering the questions with such passion, about the books they had shared within their class. It really showed how engaged the children are when listening to their class books, and how important sharing stories is at school as well as at home”.

  St John’s most certainly enjoyed a busy, fun-filled literature week with many memorable moments shared.

  

• Year 6 complete their fundraising challange

  Fri 20 Dec 2024

  Congratulations to the Year 6 class who have completed their incredible cycling challenge. They have cycled from school to every capital city in the UK, and back to school in time for Christmas - 2225KM over the last 6 weeks! Throughout the challenge they have learnt about the areas visited, applied maths skills to work out percentage and distance and computer skills with QR codes and sharing the event online. They also had a visit from BBC news and 2Wish.The whole school is very proud of every single one of them for their efforts and kindness in completing this challenge and raising money for 2wish, a charity who continue to support to Harry and Rebecca Foster.

   

  They have currently raised £1454, a huge amount which smashed the original target of £500.

   

  

• Netball

  Fri 13 Dec 2024

  A huge well done to our St John’s Netball Team who took part in a friendly match against Rockwell Green. Both teams put in a great performance, demonstrated good sportsmanship and the scoreline was very close! A 4-4 draw in the last      quarter added to the suspense and the St John’s team were pleased with a super final shot through the hoop just as the whistle blew! A fantastic win! Well done everyone

   

  

• Year 6 fundraising bike ride for 2wish

  Fri 13 Dec 2024

  Year 6 students in Rashford Class at St John’s C of E Primary school, Wellington, had a very surprising visit.

  Over the last 5 weeks, every student in Year 6 has been helping to complete a huge cycling challenge in the classroom on an exercise bike. They are aiming to cycle 2225km! This is the distance which equates to: leaving our school in Wellington, Somerset and cycling (virtually, using an exercise bike) to London then Edinburgh, over to Belfast, down to Cardiff and then finally arriving back at school (hopefully in time for Christmas!). These capital cities link to our 4 school houses: St George, St Andrew, St Patrick and St David. This is proving to be an incredibly tough challenge, but the Year 6 children are going to attempt to complete it throughout November and December. Along the way, they have been discussing some Geography work, using maps and discussing landmarks; some Maths work, considering distances and our fundraising total; and some Computing work to organise our fundraising webpage understand QR codes and sharing our story online.

   

  The charity they are raising awareness of and money for is 2wish; this charity gave huge support to Year 6 Class Teacher, Mr Foster, when his daughter, Olivia, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, aged 15 months old in October 2023.

   

  So far, the class have made it Wales, cycling approximately 1800km and have already raised £900 which has almost doubled their target of £500.

   

  Today, their hard work has been filmed by BBC West, and children were interviewed while cycling and talked about how much they are enjoying the challenge, seeing the progress they are making and reading all the donation messages every morning.

   

  When interviewed Harry Foster said:

  “This is a charity very close to my heart. When Olivia died very suddenly and unexpectedly back in October 2023, aged 15 months, there wasn't any support available to my wife and I. In January 2024, 2Wish charity expanded into England; it was previously just a Welsh charity. At the time we felt as though we were stuck in a deep, dark well, with no support until they opened the lid and  let in some light.  They have provided us with the professional support and the kind and caring nurture we were so desperately searching for and as a result we aim to raise awareness and money for this incredible charity.

  The school council decided that they wanted to make 2Wish their charity of the year and myself and Mr Priestley decided that we would set the children a physical challenge.

  The pupils' effort and enthusiasm towards this challenge has been extremely heart-warming. They have all worked extremely hard, been 100% dedicated and their passion and kindness towards this challenge is infectious.

  The school’s response to supporting the charity has been absolutely fantastic. It feels like a very supportive family rather than a working environment. This fundraising idea, and potentially more in the future, just goes to show how the school truly live by their ethos of sharing joy and hope in the community.”

  Although the children and Mr Foster were aware that the charity work was going to be filmed today by news reporters, they were completely surprised when representatives from 2wish also arrived. Little did they know but school staff had arranged for Naomi and mascot Gorgeous George to visit Rashford class, as they wanted to thank the children in person for the effort they were making with sharing the charity and the fundraising. They presented the class with a framed certificate from Rhian, the Founder of 2wish, along with an individual certificate which will be presented to the children once the challenge has been completed.

  The children were absolutely thrilled, as was Mr Foster, to see 2wish, and loved meeting Gorgeous George. Many had their photo with George and cannot wait to see the whole event shared on the news.

  The children have worked so hard, and they definitely deserve to have their efforts shared far and wide. They really are a credit to the school, and fantastic ambassadors for sharing joy and hope in our community and even further. We really hope their efforts are shared, and possibly a few more donations made as they cycle the last 400km!

  https://2wish.enthuse.com/pf/schoolcyclingchallenge

  

• Christmas Lights Switch On

  Thu 05 Dec 2024

  Our head boy and head girl were given the privilege of switching the lights on in Wellington.  They were wonderful ambassadors for our school and for the whole community. 

  

• Wellington Christmas Switch On

  Thu 05 Dec 2024

  There was fantastic singing from our school choir as they performed in Wellington Town Centre for the Christmas Lights Switch On.  Well done to them all for getting up on stage in front of a big crowd and performing so beautifully.  A special mention to our soloists who sang so confidently, you have certainly made us all proud.