School Values Award 2024
Each year we award our Schools Values Award, The children vote for someone in their year group who they believe throughout the year has followed our School Values.
It is such an honour to win this Award and we are very proud of them.
SIAMS Report 2023
In January we had our SIAMS Inspection. Please read the full Inspection Report below. In summary we received Judgement 1 which is the highest accolade. We are obviously delighted with our report. It states that:
'Jarrow Cross is a nurturing community built on a Christian vision where pupils and adults encourage one another and build each other up.
Underpinned by the Christian vision and the belief that everyone is valued, Jarrow Cross Church of England Primary School provides an inclusive environment for learning and growing together. Pupils, staff and parents are valued within the highly supportive and caring community.’
Courageous Advocacy
What is a courageous advocate?
A courageous advocate is someone who champions a cause which is special and meaningful to them.
At Jarrow Cross Church of England Primary School we have a strong emphasis on encouraging our pupils to become courageous advocates, not just locally, but nationally and globally.
At some point in life we will all face challenges and need support to help us overcome these barriers. We teach our children that it is important to help others when we can no matter who they are, where they come from or what challenges they may face. We teach this through the teachings of the bible and learning about other courageous advocates.
It is important for our children to appreciate their role as part of a community; to take responsibility, to be able to look after themselves & to foster an understanding of their importance, impact and influence in the world.
In recent years we have carried out a range of different fund raising to support many good causes, some of which include:
A non uniform day in which all children bring in an item of food to support our food bank
The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal
Changing Lives
Collecting crisp packets to make linings for sleeping bags for the homeless
Comic Relief
Children in Need
St Oswald’s Hospice
Hebburn Helps
Our children understand the importance of belonging to a local and global community and the sense of responsibility that comes with belonging. Thereby developing their ability to empathise and make a small sacrifice to benefit others. Together we consider the beauty and fragility of our environment, the actions we take, and the impact these actions may have on the well-being of everyone.
Our school community and curriculum actively embrace a responsibility for the world in which we live. For example :
Links with the local care home – singing and sending Christmas Cards
School Council seek the views of pupils
Work alongside the Friends of Jarrow Cross with community events such as Christmas and Garden Party
Strong links with local nursery and food bank
Eco- Warriors ensure recycling activities are ongoing in school
Children organising a penny trail with all profits going to Changing Lives
Collecting crisp packets to create linings for sleeping bags for the homeless
Children created welcome packs for Asylum Seekers arriving in South Tyneside
Examples of courageous advocacy by members of our school :
Children litter-picking one morning of the weekend in order to help their local community as part of an organised event
Brother and Sister saving their pocket money to buy toys to donate at Christmas
Children writing advertisements to promote the adoption of animals. These were used by the Newcastle Cat and Dog Shelter to support the rehabilitation of animals
Writing letters to large supermarkets to encourage them to cease stocking items which contain palm oil
Making a pledge to keep our local community tidy
Children created posters identifying issues around racism in football which were then shared by the local MP
Holy Trail
Our Year 6 children ran a 'Holy Trail' event to celebrate and remember the important events of Holy Week. The children from Year 1-5 visited the different stations, where they watched the older children acting out various events from Holy Week. They then had the opportunity to take part in prayer space activities.
Posada
Just like last year at Jarrow Cross we held our own Posada. Las Posada is a religious festival celebrated in Mexico. Las Posada means inn or lodgings and remembers the journey that Joseph and Mary made from Nazareth to Bethlehem. At Jarrow Cross Joseph and Mary visited every class, came to our Carol service and our last Celebration Worship of 2023. They enjoyed our singing and watching some of our children receive our School Vision Award.
ADVENT
This week on the first week of Advent we lit the first candle on our Advent Wreath. This candle represents Hope and waiting.
We talked about this time of the year being a time of preparation and how during Advent we remember this as the time of waiting for Jesus to be born.
We also talked about Light being an important part of the celebration of Advent.
We closed our eyed and pictured the flickering and dancing flame of the candles and remembered the words of St John ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.’
Second Week of Advent
We lit our second candle to remind us that Jesus brings peace to all who trust in him.
We remembered Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem and the kindness of the Inn keeper
who let them stay in his stable.
During our reflection time we thought about how far will we go to show concern for someone else especially at this time of the year.
Third week of Advent
During the third week of Advent we lit our pink candle. The pink candle reminds us of the joy of the shepherds when they were told about the birth of Jesus by the Angels. During our reflection time we thought about how excited the shepherds must have been during their visit to Bethlehem.
Kindness Calendar
We thought very carefully about how we can be kind to one another during this special time of the year.
We watched the Coca Cola advert 'Everyone can be Santa' for inspiration and then each class decided on acts of kindness which could be added into our calendar. We will be following our acts of kindness throughout December, not just at school but at home too!
Brother Kadim visits Year 6
Year 6 have been looking at the religion of Islam and finding out about our local Muslim community. We welcomed Brother Kadim from Newcastle Central Mosque into year 6 yesterday. He talked to us about his experiences as a Muslim and how he lives his life within the faith.
St Peter's Community Christmas Tree Festival
Some of our Year 1 children visited St. Peter's Church this morning to decorate a Christmas Tree for this year's Community Christmas Tree Festival. The Festival begins today and runs to 5th January. Trees can be viewed whenever the church is open over the next few weeks. I hope you like ours!
Remembering Bede
Today we took visited to St. Paul's Church to take part in a Service of Thanksgiving for the Venerable Bede.
During the service we remembered that Bede spent some of his childhood at the monastery ant St. Paul's and as he got older he travelled back and forwards from the Monastery at St. Peter's in Wearmouth to Jarrow.
The service was lead by the Bishop of Durham and he we reminded us what a truly inspiring person Bede was as not oly was he a writer but also a scientist and astronomer.
This was the first of a number of events celebrating Bede 1350, which will run through to May next year. These events will take place mainly in and around St Paul’s Church, Jarrow, celebrating Bede’s life and legacy.
Remembrance Day
Our Year 6 children lead our Remembrance Service. During the service we remembered all those who have died serving our country and why the Poppy is such an important symbol of Remembrance. It was a very thought provoking and meaningful service.
Well Done to Ruby on receiving our first School Values Award. The Award is for 'Encouraging others and building each other up' and Ruby certainly does this each day.
Each year we award our Schools Values Award, The children vote for someone in their year group who they believe throughout the year has followed our School Values.
It is such an honour to win this Award and we ae very proud of them.
Holy Trail 2023
As always during the lead up to Easter we took part in our Holy Trail. This year our Year 6 children lead each part of the Easter Story with a little help from Reverend Lesley and Reverend Jason! The children from the other year groups watched and then took part in an activity helping us all to remember Jesus' journey into Jerusalem.
Comic Relief 2023
We all know that although wearing a Red Nose for Comic Relief is fun it is part of the much bigger picture which Comic Relief sets out to achieve.
This year, we thought about the term poverty and analysed maps which focused on poverty globally, nationally and locally.
We tackled sweeping statements and misconceptions about poverty both around the world and locally. We explored what is done to support poverty locally eg food banks, housing companies, libraries, community centres, parks etc. From this, we looked at the quote 'We are all in the same storm but are on different boats...' and thought about how we could tackle poverty and the issues which are associated with poverty in the longer term.
Read our great ideas below.
It's Gold!
We are very proud to announce that Jarrow Cross has achieved the Quality Mark Gold Standard for the teaching of RE. The reward recognises the hard work and commitment to the teaching of RE over a period of many years. The Feedback from the assessor stated that :
'Pupils are knowledgeable and interested in RE and the RE curriculum
is well-planned and is supported by senior leaders and
governors. The subject leader is highly effective. She has a clear
vision for the subject, rooted in the needs of pupils and the
profile of the local community.'
We are obviously delighted by this achievement and would like to say a big thank you to Mrs Stavers for all of her hard work.
Y3/4 visit St Peter's Church
To help with their RE topic, Year 3/4 visited St Peter's Church. They explored the architecture of the building as well as the key objects located in there and how these objects play an important role in Religious rituals and ceremonies. They had great fun performing a Eucharist mass by the altar, ringing the bell and wearing various vestments representing liturgical colours.
Reverend Jason visits Year 2
Reverend Jason came into school to talk to our Year 2 children. He talked about his role in the Church, the importance of The Bible and how he uses the Bible both at home and at school. He also discussed why we call God the Father. We learnt lots from him.
The Big Frieze
This term The Big Frieze was introduced to our whole school. This is a pictorial Bible Timeline and a way of looking at the Bible not as a collection of books, but as one book which tells an overall ‘salvation narrative’. In January all year groups looked at the section of The Big Frieze which shows the Incarnation or the purpose of the coming of Jesus. Each theme has a symbol which will be revisited throughout the year.
Open The Book
This term Reverend Jason will be coming into school and working with some of our children to present a story from the bible. This is called Open the Book. This week our children were telling the story of Epiphany.
Make Christmas Happen 2022
As in previous years, with the generosity of so many people in our school and the local community we have been able to support so many families at what can be such a difficult time of the year. A big thank you to all of the staff involved in collecting and sorting the huge amount of donations which we received.
Las Posada
Las Posada is a religious festival celebrated in Mexico. Las Posada means inn or lodgings and remembers the journey that Joseph and Mary made from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
At Jarrow Cross we are holding our own Posada and figures of Mary and Joseph are going on a journey around our school visiting every classroom. On the last day of term we will take them with us on the journey to St Peter's Church for our Christingle.
Today Mary and Joseph visited Year 1.
During a Visit to Miss Elcoate's Class Mary and Joseph spent a little bit of time in the Reflection Area and then went out to play in the snow!
In Mis McNally's Class Mary and Joseph enjoyed some painting and then had a little rest!
Harvest
Our Year 6 children lead our Harvest assembly where they shared stories on how they said thank you and discussed our food collection that was created this year. Reverend Leslie then gave a blessing.
Lindisfarne Gospels
Our Year 6 children went to visit the Lindisfarne Gospels whilst they are currently on tour in Newcastle. We could not believe how well-preserved the Gospels are and how beautifully decorated they look!
Queen Elizabeth II
1926- 2022
Today Friday 9th September we came together to take part in a special worship to remember our Queen Elizabeth II whom most of us have known of throughout our lives. Not only was she our Queen, our sovereign, she was also someone who believed that leadership meant dedicating her life to the service of others.
After our worship we took part in some Prayer Space Activities during which we thought about what the Queen meant to us and wrote prayers dedicated to the Queen.
School Values Awards
At the end of each year we Award our School Values Award. The winners are chosen by the children who vote for someone in their Year Group who has followed our Values of Honesty, Trust, Friendship and Forgiveness throughout the school year.
They are very special Awards and we are so proud of all our winners.
Prayer Spaces
This term to link with our Christian Value of Perseverance Year 3 have been taking part in some prayer space activities. They had to persevere playing quoits and solving rubix cube problems. This took a lot of perseverance. They also thought about who would help them during times in which perseverance is needed.
The Queen's Platinum Jubilee
This week at school we are celebrating The Queen's Platinum Jubilee. We began the week by thinking about how important her Christian Faith has been to her throughout her life.
The Queen understands how important her faith has been during the good times and the bad. The Queen believes in the importance of prayer in her daily life and understands that Jesus was sent to earth to serve, not be served. This is a great way to describe how the Queen sees her role – to serve the country rather than being served by it.
Way of Learning
On Monday the Bishop of Durham visited us at school. He lead our worship and then chatted to some of our Year 6 children about what life is like for 11 year olds at the minute. We then came together with some other schools at St Paul's Church to celebrate the one year anniversary of the Way of Learning - one of the Northern Saints Trails. Bishop Paul then lead a service and we then took part in some interactive prayer activities.
Learning about Refugees and Asylum Seekers
On Wednesday Hannah from South Tyneside Council came into school to talk to us about Refugees and Asylum Seekers. She explained why and how people become refugees and why people seek asylum in many countries including the United Kingdom. She reminded us that over the years many people have become refugees including Mary and Joseph when they fled to Egypt when Jesus was a baby to escape King Herod.
Miss Elcoate will be working with some children to create a pack of information to help children settle into South Tyneside.
Holy Trail
On Wednesday members of the local church Community came into school to lead our Holy Trail. During the Holy Trail we remembered the last week of Jesus life.
We took part in activities to help us remember Palm Sunday, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, The Last Supper and finally Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Our Holy Trail ended with an Easter Service in the hall which finished with our favourite Easter Song
Easter Jubilation.
Staryland Democracy Event
Some of Y3/4 children attended an event held at South Shields Town Hall to help understand about Democracy and what it means. They listened to the imaginary town of Staryland’s needs, heard the candidates make speeches about what they would do if they were in charge and then voted for the candidate who they believed would make the best leader. Once the votes had been counted they then listened to the winning leaders closing speech and were invited to look around the mayor’s chambers by the mayor herself!
Comic Relief
Last Friday was Comic Relief. Although we had great fun and raised money by buying red noses and wearing something red , we also thought about the many people who are not as lucky as we are. To help us to do this we placed lots of cardboard boxes in the hall which to helped us think bout people who do not have a home. We then wrote on post it notes our feelings about what it must be like to be homeless and also our hope for the future that homelessness will become a thing of the past.
Penny Trail
As part of their RE lessons Y3/4 discussed a variety of different charities they could raise money for and how they could do this.
As they had been talking a lot about how it must feel to be homeless they choose Changing Lives a charity which supports vulnerable people. They asked for penny donations, made a penny trail around school and raised £115.02. The charity were delighted with their efforts and are coming in to talk to us during assembly very soon.
Well Done Y3/4!
Ash Wednesday
On Ash Wednesday Reverend Lesley came in to talk to us about the importance of the day in the Church Calendar.
She told us that it is the time before Easter when Christians think about how they can improve their behaviour. She also told us that the ashes are a symbol of being sorry for things they have done.
She drew a cross made from ash on the hands of some children.