Personal Development at St Hugh's
At St Hugh of Lincoln Catholic Primary school we go beyond the expected, so that all our pupils have access to a wide, rich set of experiences. We provide these rich experiences in a coherently planned way, in our curriculum and through extra-curricular activities.
Family Dining at St Hugh
On Wednesday 20th November, in KS2 we will be trying our lunch ‘family dining’ style. The children will sit in mixed year groups, so they always have a friend to talk to and nobody is left out.
All children then have a ‘job’ just like they would if they were sitting in a big family: someone helps to put out the cutlery and other children help put away the dishes. The older children help the adults to serve the food. Family Dining means that children don’t have to queue up for their food and everyone eats at the same time. During family dining, the adults model table discussions to encourage talk.
Some children may bring a healthy packed lunch. These children with a packed lunch will sit together and still have a role to play at Family Dining.
Eco Committee - 18/11/2024
We are excited to announce the beginning of our "Switch Off Fortnight" campaign. Led by our dedicated Eco Committee, the school will focus on reducing electricity usage over the next two weeks by ensuring lights, interactive whiteboards, and other equipment are turned off when not in use. A baseline energy reading was taken before the campaign began and usage will be tracked throughout. Results will be evaluated at the end of the fortnight to assess our impact.
Year 6 - History
In their history lessons this term, Year 6 have embarked on an exciting journey back in time to explore the fascinating Maya civilization. The students have been busy creating challenging, to-scale timelines in their workbooks, marking important events that shaped Maya society. From the rise of powerful cities to the development of intricate calendars, these timelines help the children understand the incredible achievements of the Maya people. To further enrich their learning, Year 6 used the outdoor classroom to examine a full historical timeline, allowing them to see where the Maya fit within the broader story of human history. This hands-on, visual approach brought history to life, deepening their appreciation for this ancient culture’s legacy.
Year 5 Trip to Planetarium
Year 5 had a wonderful time at the planetarium, where the children were amazed as they learned about the vastness of space, the fascinating planets, and the incredible relationship between the Sun and the Moon. They marvelled at the stars and enjoyed discovering how the universe works, with their curiosity shining bright throughout the visit.
Rosary Club - October 2024
Throughout October, Mrs Grace together with Leo and Clement are running a Rosary lunch time club. Children can bring their Rosary Beads and come and pray the Rosary at lunch times in our Creation Garden. Update - our wonderful Rosary club is flourishing and now has at least 30 attendees. Please know that we are praying for each and every one of you.
Commissioning Service
The highlight of our week was our Year 6 Commissioning Service on Friday. It was wonderful to have so many of the Year 6 parents present to celebrate with us too. The choir sang beautifully which added to the sense of occasion
We gave out the badges to our new school leaders to officially invest them into their new positions of responsibility. It is a great pleasure to see how enthusiastically they have already embraced their roles so we know that they are going to fantastic school leaders throughout the year.
Commission Service 2024/25
Prefects 2024/25
Games Captains 2024/25
Digital Leaders 2024/25
Ambassadors 2024/25
Librarians 2024/25
Eco Leaders
District Sports at Woking Sports
Well done to of all the children who took part in the District Sports athletics event at Woking Sports Box on Wednesday 12th June. They all really enjoyed themselves and tried their best. It was lovely to see how encouraging and supportive they were of each other. A parent mentioned that children were even running alongside the track cheering with encouragement for their classmates all the way to the finish line. They all looked amazing in the St Hugh kit and they really stood out among the other schools. We know that the children were very proud to be representing us and we are very proud of them for looking so smart and working as a team. Thank you so much to Mr Trussler for organising and attending this event.
Swimming Lessons
The Year 4 and Year 5 children enjoyed week of swimming lessons in the outdoor covered swimming pool at school. Children were organised into groups across the school day, where they enjoyed practising and developing their swimming skills and techniques with the swimming instructor. It was brilliant to see all the children thrive in the pool environment and watch them progress throughout the week.
Tri-Golf Tournament
Year 3 and Year 4 children enjoyed participating in an Inspire Tri-Golf Tournament at St Dunstan’s School last week. The children came 3rd against 8 other teams and represented the school beautifully. Well done to all of them!
Year 6 Residential Trip
Our Year 6 pupils had an exciting time on their Residential Trip to Calshot. During their week away they participated in many fun actives including skiing, orienteering, rock climbing and kayaking.
Woking Surrey Heath Music Festival - Doking
Our school choir on Tuesday evening attended the Woking and Surrey Heath Music Festival in Dorking. They sang with so much passion in a tremendous performance with other schools. It was an amazing show it was!
Lifestyle Medicine and Healthy Eating
On Thursday 18th April, Dan Newman, who leads Lifestyle Medicine at SJB, delivered a talk to parents about the importance of food and a good diet - Health = Wholeness. The aim of the session was an introduction to Lifestyle Medicine, establishing the important principles for eating well and providing some strategies to eat for optimum health.
Please click here to see a copy of his slides.
We are looking forward to his next session, after half term, which will be on sleep.
Year 6 - Career Talk
Mr Lisaka, governor and parent of children at the school spoke to the year 6 children about his job as a corporate lawyer. This linked in with their PSHE (Physical, Social, Health Education) learning this term. During the talk he spoke about how he became a corporate lawyer and the journey he had been on to achieve his career goal. It was great to hear some of the answers to the questions generated by the children. Many were making copious notes that could help them as they consider what their future career path may be. One of the key messages was that the children need to persevere to achieve their ambitions and the importance of a great education to ensure these could be realised.
Year 4 Visit to Sayers Croft
The children in Year 4 enjoyed a school trip to Sayers Croft. They were able to apply all of their previous knowledge around Rivers to their stream walk activity, which all the children thoroughly enjoyed. Alongside this, the children also enjoyed participating in bouldering, the activity playground, pond dipping and den building. All the children showed great resilience and team work towards all the activities throughout the day.
Year 1 - British Wildlife Centre
Year 1 had an amazing trip to the British Wildlife Centre. They learnt about the animals we might find in our local area and how rescue and rehabilitation centres are when extending the lives of many animals close to natural extinction such as the Scottish Wild Cat. We saw, owls, deer, foxes, polecats, hedgehogs, rats, weasels, otters and mice! However the red squirrels and snakes were hiding from us. They were even able to hold a red deer antler!
Y6 - Design Technology
Year 6 children have been creating playground structures within their DT lesson. Prior to this, the children had been looking at the different types of playground equipment and designed a playground of their own. This had an extra element of challenge as they needed to ensure the plan was to scale. To create their structures they have had the opportunity to use hacksaws and bench hooks to cut to length small pieces of doweling. Mr Scalzo, the school caretaker has been helping the children with their use of tools, drawing on his experience to ensure they complete the cutting safely and accurately. As they continue their creations, the children are adding other elements to their wooden structure. These are things like slides, swings and climbing equipment. We look forward to seeing their finished creations.
Y5 & Y6 Boy's Football Team
They were very successful in their recent match, winning 8-0!
MUGA
Our new MUGA is underway! The ground work was started over half term and will continue this week. Work should be completed by the end of the Easter holidays.
Update 15.04.2024: Our MUGA has now been completed!
Eikon Training - Wellbeing Champions
Our Well-being champions, received their Eikon training and came up with some wonderful ideas for improving our mental health and well-being. We will be sharing these with the whole school shortly.
Inspiring Assembly - Paralympian Gold Medalist
We had an inspiring assembly led by our very own paralympian gold medalist swimmer Miss Hannah Russell OBE. The children were thrilled to learn about Miss Russell’s swimming journey to Olympic success. They learned that achieving your goals is all about having great resilience and the support of those around you.
Year 6 - PSHE Learning
Year 6 children enjoyed viewing an Enact performance as part of their PSHE learning. Enact is a healthy relationships project funded by the Home Office, which this year has covered the role of the NHS in peoples lives and the benefits of it since its foundation. The performance started with a time portal opening and a flashback to Florence Nightingale and her work with hospitals prior to the foundation of the NHS shortly after t he second world war. It culminated with a physiotherapist answering the children’s questions about what it is like to work within her role within the NHS.
Children’s Mental Health Week
Children’s Mental Health Week theme this year is ‘My Voice Matters’.
My Voice Matters is about empowering children and young people by providing them with the tools they need to express themselves.
The wellbeing leads have led a number of initiatives this week to get the children thinking about their health and well-being.
Well done to all the children who entered the poster competition. We had so many amazing entries.
New 'Allotment' & Gardening
Following on from our cultural capital suvery, Mr Scalzo has drawn up a plan so that each class can have a raised bed each to start growing plants - fruit and vegetables. Our School Council and Mr Scalzo are making great progress with the plans. The 'allotment' will be situated by the 'Friends' container by the KS2 playground. Over half term the raised beds were built and filled with compost ready for planting. In a few weeks'time we hope to put a trellis fence in front of it to protect the plants.
Year 2 Trip to St John's Village
Y2 enjoyed a local walk to the shops at St John’s Village. They had so much fun investigating where our food comes from and discussing how many local products we have and how many of them are exported from different countries. They also completed a map of the main road, labelling all the shops we could see and the lovely Basingstoke canal.
Reception Trip
Their trip helped Reception to continue learning about where the food they eat comes from and they were amazed to see how simple it was to make delicious bread with so few ingredients! The children loved tasting the bread that they made. Pizza Express Woking helped to provide an enriching experience for the children. We hope they enjoyed eating their pizzas!
Stargazing
Many of the year 5 and 6 children along with some other Key Stage 2 children enjoyed an evening of stargazing. They were blessed with clear skies, which allowed astronomer expert Tom Holloway to guide the children on the different constellations and planets that could be viewed in the night sky. Many of the children and adults were able to located many different types of constellations such as Orient's Belt and Ursa Minor. We were amazed also to be able to see clearly in the night sky the gas giant Jupiter. The evening ended with a rocket launch, where all the children used an alka seltzer and a photo canister to create a build up of pressure to launch the canister into the air.
Life Space Visit
We had a visit from Mark Fisher from the Life Space. He helped the children to understand how their bodies work and how to make healthy choices.
Happy Chinese New Year
Thank you so much to Ms Lee and Mrs Chan for helping us to celebrate Chinese New Year. We learned so much about how it is celebrated and really loved the traditional dress and decorations. The children learned about the Chinese Dragon Parade during the Chinese New Year assembly today and many were keen to see one. Thank you so much for all your hard work and giving up your time to talk to us. We really enjoyed it.
Online Safety Talk
We had our second visit from Sharon Girling OBE. Sharon came into school to lead us in a day of e-safety awareness and training for pupils and staff.
Sharon is a former police officer who retired from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) following thirty years’ service. She was at the forefront of a national and international response to online child abuse and developed the processes and procedures that led to the creation of CEOP. She is currently conducting training programmes for schools, law enforcement and businesses both nationally and internationally. Sharon has been awarded an OBE for her services to policing.
We were delighted that on her first visit Sharon hosted a session for parents. Sharon gave parents a list of tips:
Parent should do’s
▪ Use your child’s correct date of birth
▪ Limit games to those curated by Roblox staff
▪ Monitor the account
➢ Review the chat
➢ Look at the private messages
➢ Check the friends and followers
➢ Recently played games
➢ Purchases and trades
• Online interactions
➢ Log in to roblox.com
➢ Click the Gear icon in the top right
➢ Select Settings then Privacy
➢ Restrict interactions via Content Settings and Other Settings
KS2 Advent Reflection
We were wonderfully entertained by all of KS2 when they performed their Advent Reflection at SJB. The clarity of the reading and confidence of the acting was particularly impressive as was the beautiful dancing and rousing singing. Thank you to all of them for helping us to remember the importance of Advent.
Year 4 Trip to Haslemere Museum
Year 4 enjoyed a school trip to Haslemere Museum to further enhance their learning of Ancient Egyptians. All the staff were extremely impressed with your knowledge and the outcome of your mummification teddies!
Girls Netball Team
Well done to our Y6 Girls Netball team! They played in a tournament at Greenfield School where they won 3 out of the 4 matches they played. What a fantastic achievement.
Year 2 - Tortoise Visitors!
Year 2 had two cute, scaly visitors in their class! Their names were Shirley and Tortellini and they are Mrs Licence’s tortoises. They learnt all about tortoises in their English lessons as they are reading Esio Trot by Roald Dahl, so looking after two real tortoises has been incredibly exciting! They have learnt lots about their diet and the special care tortoises need to have. They enjoyed feeding them with fresh lettuce and cucumber every morning and they were very gentle when they prepared their afternoon bath.
Reception - Paramedic Visit
Reception had the experience of seeing a ‘Real Superhero!’ They had a visit from a paramedic and learnt so much. Did you know why a Paramedic is called a paramedic? Para means parallel and a paramedic is a medic that runs parallel to other medics. They all had the chance to go inside the ambulance and see where all the equipment was kept. They worked out why everything is locked in boxes. When the ambulance is travelling fast to help someone, then it keeps all the equipment in its place.
Year 2 - Fire Safety
Year 2 had a visit from the educational officer from Surrey Fire & Rescue Service to tell them all about being fire safe. They worked as a team at the tables to order the steps to follow when there is a fire in their house: “GET OUT, STAY OUT, CALL 999”.
They also learnt that if we find an object at home that can be a fire hazard (matches, lighters, hair straighteners), they should stay away from it. The favourite part of the workshop was the role-play: one of the children pretended to call the Fire & Rescue Service and the other person was the Fire & Safety officer answering it. The children had a lot of fun and learnt so much!
Diwali 2023
We were able to learn more about Diwali during collective worship as Amiya, Vihaan and their parents explained to us how they celebrate the festival as families and as a community. It is a time to celebrate how light conquers darkness and how good wins over evil.
Y3 - Design Technology
In DT, Year 3 learnt about the advantages of eating food that is seasonal and grown in the UK. They spent some time working out what fruit and vegetables are available locally each season. However their favourite bit was making a crumble using seasonal ingredients! They learnt how to work hygienically and used the rubbing in method to make our topping.
Year 3 - Trip to Butser Farm
Year 3 enjoyed a trip to Butser Farm to support their learning in History. They found out how the Stone Age, Iron Age and Bronze Age people lived, going in a round house and visiting a Stone Age camp. They enjoyed hands on activities, carving chalk with flint, making a pottery pinch pot, making Bronze Age jewellery and building a wall using wattle and daub.
Reception - Road Safety
Reception had a visit from Mr Morley, our school crossing patrol officer. He shared some details about his job including why he wears such a big bright jacket! He also reminded the children about how to cross safely and he asked us all (adults too!) to remember to stay on the pavement until he indicates that it is safe to cross.
Y1 Trip to Brooklands Museum
Y1 got to see all the different types of transport and learnt about how they have changed and developed over the years. They saw cars, buses, and aeroplanes, learnt about what materials were used in the construction process and how it had changed over the years. A highlight of the trip was being able to go inside Concorde because it is the fastest passenger plane in the world.
Y6 Visit to Houses of Parliament
Year 6 went by coach up to London. They went to the Houses of Parliament first and had an amazing tour. They got to go into the House of Lords and stand where they would have debates when looking to pass new bills. They also got to see where the King would enter when he opens parliament and reads the King's speech. After their tour, they had a debating workshop where they debated about whether we should have a 3-day weekend... they decided that a 3-day weekend should be law.
Visit from Rabbi Zvi Solomons
Rabbi Zvi Solomons came to visit our school help us learn all about the Jewish Faith.
Creation Garden & Visit from Bishop
On 16th June 2023, the Right Reverend Bishop Richard Moth visited to bless our new Creation Garden. The Creation Garden was designed by our Y6 students. As part of the project they worked with a landscapre designer to plan and design the garden. The theme of the garden is based on the seven days of creation:
- On day one God created light
- On day two God created sky
- On day three God created land and plants
- On day four God created the sun, moon and stars
- On day five God created birds and fish
- On day six God created man and animals
- On day seven God rested
Year 6 decided that they wanted the children to walk through the ‘Days of Creation’ starting in darkness in a tunnel, which emphases the start of the journey and ending at the 'pool' of reflection on day seven.