Dear Parent, Guardians and Carers,

Next week is Catholic Education Week. The theme this year is Pilgrims of Hope, which encourages Catholics, and indeed all people, to embark on a journey of faith, hope, and spiritual renewal, drawing strength from their faith and radiating hope into the world. At St Patrick’s, Catholic Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate the ethos of Catholic schools and highlight the inspiring life of Catholic schools today.

As has been the case for the past few years, we will have our St Patrick’s Open Days during Catholic Education Week. This year we will have our Open Days on Monday 19^th and Thursday 22^nd May. All new and existing families that have a child starting Foundation in 2026 are encouraged to attend one of the Open Days to see what St Patrick’s has to offer. On our Open Days, we will have an information session from 9.00am in the Languages/STEM room that will provide families with a snapshot of what school is like at St Patrick’s. Following the Information Session, our Year 6 students will take those present on a tour of the school. On the tour, parents will have the opportunity to see all parts of the school, including inside the classrooms to give them a feel for what St Patrick’s is like on a day-to-day basis. We look forward to welcoming many new and existing families to St Patrick’s next week.

Student Leaders Badging Ceremony

On Monday afternoon at 2:45pm in the Church we will have a special celebration where we will present our 2025 Student Leaders with their badges. Badges will be presented to School Captains, School Vice Captains, House Captains, House Vice Captains, SRC Representatives and Mission Leaders. Parents of students receiving a badge should have received a formal invitation to the ceremony. We hope that you can make it.

Pirate Day

Today we celebrated Pirate Day at St Patrick’s. Pirate Day is an initiative of the Kids’ Cancer Project to raise awareness and much needed funds for research into Kids’ Cancer, specifically Brain Cancer.

Pirate Day is close to the hearts of many at St Patrick’s as one of our current Year 6 students has been battling cancer for the past few years. It is our hope that your kind donations positively impact the lives of those battling childhood cancer.

Year 6 Combined Schools Shakespeare Performances

This week has been a huge week for our Year 6 students. After weeks of preparing for the Combined Schools Shakespeare Play, this week was performance week. The whole school attending their first performance on Wednesday afternoon. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the performance, and our Year 6 students should be really proud of the hard work that they have put in and for the confidence and talent they displayed throughout the performance. The Year 6’s then backed it up again on Thursday, where they performed in front of the students from Stratford Primary School. On Friday evening at 6pm, they will perform their play for the final time in front of a large crowd from the Stratford community. I’m sure that they will be glad to have a rest next week!

A huge thank you needs to go to one of our teachers, Meg Greenway, who directed the play. It was amazing.

End of Day Pick Up

The new end of day pick-up routine continues to work well. As you are all aware, the reason for this change was to improve the safety of children near the roadside. There is definitely less congestion out the front of school, making it safer for students and drivers at this time. Whilst some might see the new pick-up routine as an inconvenience, I’m sure that you’ll all agree that a little inconvenience is much better than a tragic accident. Please continue to support your child and the school with this pick-up routine to ensure the safety of everyone.

Kind regards,

Joel