Shoebox Appeal

WOW!!

The children at St Josephs have far out reached our expectations. They have managed to donate 150 shoe boxes to children across the world who other wise would not be receiving a Christmas present this year. 

They have surpassed their target of 120 boxes and far out exceeded their achievements last year of 92 boxes. 

This photograph shows the amount of children we have helped to have a great Christmas and receive a lovely gift. 

All 148 boxes, carefully filled, wrapped and counted.

Family Fun Day - Sunday 11th July 2016

The Friends of St Joseph's and the Angels for Children got together and organised a Fun Day at school to raise funds for both charities. We had 'Guess the Staff Member', 'Bottle & Jam Jar Tombolas' for adults and children, 'Face Painting', 'Mocktails', a 'Bun Stall' and a 'Bar and BBQ'.  The weather was good to us and we raised over £800 to share between the charities.  The Friends are currently raising funds for our Outdoor Play Equipment.

 

Mocktails for sale! 

Mocktails for sale!

 

Jam Jar tombola

Jam Jar tombola

Bottle Tombola

Bottle Tombola

The Cake Stall

The Cake Stall

Guess the Member of Staff

Guess the Member of Staff

Poetry with Matthew Hedley Stoppard

Last Thursday 8 lucky children from yr 3-4 went to the Court House in Otley  to write poetry with Matthew Hedley Stoppard the Otley town poet.  The theme of our poetry was the feelings of freedom. We initially thought about things which made us feel free like riding our bikes, dancing, playing football, swimming and playing on our computers.  We wrote creativity using adjectives, adverbs and descriptive phrases. Matthew then showed us how to write a Haiku.

"Haiku" is a traditional form of Japanese poetry.  Haiku poems consist of 3 lines. The first and last lines of a Haiku have 5 syllables and the middle line has 7 syllables. The lines rarely rhyme.

We used our creative writing to develop and draft the lines of poetry by counting the syllables.  We shared our work as a small group then wrote them out nicely for display.  

At the end of the session we gathered together in a big circles with other Otley schools and we all read our poetry aloud.

Celebrating the Jubilee Year of Mercy

The year lasts from 8 December 2015 – 20 November 2016

 
 

“The Holy Father wants us to experience and know, in a very personal way, God our Father’s desire to be close to us in every moment of our life. For the mercy of God is expressed in the Father’s will to constantly embrace us, his children.”
— Bishop Marcus

Diocesan Prayer for the Year of Mercy

O God, Father most merciful,
you created the world in wisdom and in love,
and you walk with your children on the journey of life,
pardoning and welcoming them always.


Your Beloved Son, the visible face of your mercy,
is present in our midst, and loves us with a heart full of merciful love,
and teaches us to be merciful and to love one another.


Grant to us your children, as we celebrate the Jubilee Year of Mercy,
an outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Consoler,
that our hearts may be open to our brothers and sisters
who hunger and thirst for mercy,
and the Good News of your merciful love which endures forever,
may be always and everywhere proclaimed.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.


The Good Shepherd Collection

The Bishop’s annual Good Shepherd Service took place at St. Anne’s Cathedral on 1 May 2015.

The Good Shepherd Collection 2015

The presentation of cheques to the Bishop for Catholic Care is known as the Good Shepherd collection. The Bishop explained to the students that his hands were covered as he blessed them with the Blessed Sacrament to show that the blessing came from God.
 
Each school in the Diocese then presented their cheque to the Bishop and he was eager to know what they had done to raise the money - this part of the service took over an hour - but a constant singing of Hymns not only kept the students in the right frame of mind, but also demonstrated the knowledge of the organist! At the end of which the Bishop said a few words thanking them for coming again to the Cathedral and thanked them for the money they raised. He said he had enjoyed hearing how they had done it.

Corpus leads the Good Shepherd Liturgy [DIOCESEOFLEEDS.ORG.UK]

The Good Shepherd Collection [BISHOPWHEELERCATHOLICACADEMYTRUST.ORG]

Musical Extravaganza at Prince Henry's Grammar School

Children from Year 3, 4 and 5 took part in a musical evening at Prince Henry's. The evening celebrated the musical talents of all the schools who are part of the Chevin Partnership. All will agree that our version of the Do Run, Run was amazing, which was then followed by our talented musicians who performed Longships. It was a wonderful evening and thoroughly enjoyed by all. 


A celebration of Catholic Education with the new Bishop of Leeds

Mrs Knight and Mrs Russell took three of our Altar Servers to the Celebration in the Cathedral Church of St Anne in Leeds this morning.  It was to mark the Episcopal Ordination of The Reverend Monsignor Marcus Stock as the Tenth Bishop of Leeds.  The children were great ambassadors for St Joseph's.  The Bishop took the time to talk to all the children who attended and even had his photograph taken with our children.

The Tenth Bishop of Leeds with Mrs Knight, Jessica, Jonjoe, Calum and Mrs Russell

We sat near the front

Presenting our school's card to Bishop Marcus

Pupils from each school in our Diocese presented a card to Bishop Marcus showing “Christ at Our Heart”.

"Love one another" [DIOCESEOFLEEDS.ORG.UK]

Mgr Marcus Stock Ordained as Tenth Bishop of Leeds [BISHOPWHEELERCATHOLICACADEMYTRUST.ORG]

Schools Celebration Event photo gallery (7 photos)

The TARDIS drops in at St Joseph's

St Joseph's returned to school on Monday morning expecting a normal start to the week, or so they thought. However, on returning to school they discovered the Doctor's TARDIS had landed in the school. There was no sign of the Doctor but a trail of green and red slime had been left behind by someone or something? Whatever it was would be solved by the children of St Joseph's!

Brownlee Triathlon at the John Charles Centre for Sport

Today, 17 pupils from Years 5 & 6 took part in the first ever Brownlee Triathlon at the John Charles Centre for Sport!  They swam 30m, cycled 1km and ran 400m.  It has to be siad, we have some athletes here at St Joseph's! Everyone enjoyed the well organised event and had fun.  The Brownlee Brothers were giving encouragement to the children both on the start line in the pool and at the finish line of the run, handing out medals.  See below for the action shots!

Sports Day 2014

What a competitive day! Red, Green, Blue and Yellow competed in a variety of races - obstacle course, egg (really a potato) and spoon, hurdles etc to be the winners of this year's sports day. There were tense moments at the finish line. Once all the points were totaled, Blue were the overall winners with Yellow coming in second; there were only a few points in it. Green were in third place followed by Red. 

As always we finish with the most competitive race of all: the Mums and Dads! No one likes to lose...

The Lambs Came to School

Georgia in Year 6 brought into school two lambs from her farm. Each class had the opportunity to meet the lambs and give them a stroke. They were very cute and everyone thought they were adorable! Georgia and her sister told us a litle bit about the lambs. The lambs were hand reared from being born.