News: Events

An excellent way to find out more about St Joseph\'s School is to attend one of our Open Mornings.

The next Open Morning will be taking place on Tuesday 6th March 2012 from 10am – 12noon.

The Open Morning includes a tour of the school, followed by the chance to meet the Head Teacher and staff with coffee and cake!

This Open Morning is suitable for those interested in the Nursery (age 3+) to Year 10.

We would be grateful if you would book so that we know how many visitors to expect. Children are welcome to attend with parents.

Individual visits are available by appointment with the Registrar throughout the year during term time.

If you would like to attend the Open Morning or if you would like to book an alternative date to view the school please contact the Registrar, Rebecca Walker on 01566 772580 or registrar@stjosephscornawall.co.uk

On  7th October 2011 the junior children at St Josephs School held their annual harvest festival assembly. The children performed a selection of songs and poems on a harvest theme and looked at how harvest is celebrated in the five different continents of the world. The assembly was enjoyed very much by the large gathering of parents who attended and they were treated to refreshments afterwards. The guest speaker was Mr Keith Roberts of the newly formed Launceston Food Bank and after the service he was presented with a fantastic 90kg of food that was donated by the children. He is seen here in front of the display with Charlotte Farrington, the Junior School’s charity prefect.

Scholarships available from age 7 to 15 and are worth up to 30%

Scholarship package available for students entering Year 10 for GCSEs in September 2012. Give your child the opportunity to achieve their full potential and get the grades they deserve. Gaining good GCSEs will help your child progress to the next stage of learning.

St Joseph\'s School offer small class sizes and by doing so achieves outstanding GCSE results. In 2011 56% of pupils achieved all A* and A grades and 94% of pupils achieved all A*-C grades.

Let your child experience St Joseph\'s School by booking a taster day today!

On Monday 19th September the Year 10 GCSE Art and Textile group from St Joseph\'s School explored Tate St Ives.

One of the Year 10 pupils said ‘We had a great time exploring the work in the gallery and especially getting static hair in the room full of balloons! After exploring the galleries we discussed the works we most liked and disliked and made drawings and notes in our sketchbooks. After a quick lunch and photo call, we headed off through the narrow streets of the town to Barbara Hepworth\'s amazing little studio and gardens. It was lovely being able to sit in the garden and draw her incredible bronze and stone sculptures. Some were huge! Thank you Mrs Green for organising such a fun day out!’

 Photo – left to right

Rosie Bright, Maisie Webber, Alice Wilson, Megan Abbot, Tilly Spence, Sophie Jarvis, Holly Fanshawe, Georgia Harding, Emily Langton, Hannah Wormald, Jasmine Hardy, Beth Benyon.

A fantastic year of achievements was celebrated at the annual Junior Prize Giving at Launceston Town Hall at the end of the Summer Term 2011. The school welcomed parents and families and the Mayor and Mayoress of Launceston, Mr and Mrs Tremain.

The evening began with a charming music concert by the Junior Orchestra accompanied by Mr and Mrs Jones. This was followed by Year 2’s performance of Let’s Go Fly A Kite and shortly after the String Group performed Fiddle Time.

Next up the Year 6 class performed Wavin’ Flag followed by the Junior Chamber Choir performing I Can See Clearly Now.

The music concert ended with 3 songs by the whole Junior School Choir.  All of the children sang and performed beautifully.

The pupils and parents were delighted when Mr Jo Absolom (Guest Speaker) known, for his acting roles in The Bill, Doc Martin, Silent Witness and many other TV shows spoke about his acting career and encouraged pupils to follow their dreams.

The evening concluded with an award ceremony where a number of pupils received prizes for their fantastic achievements throughout the school year. Mr Absolom presented the children with their awards.

Pictured above is Mr Jo Absolom presenting the Stephen Body Sports Cup For All Round Endeavour to Year 5 pupil Michael Barton.

St Joseph\'s Year 11 Leavers Ball

On Tuesday 28th June Years 5 and 6 went to Plymouth Pavilions to listen to the BBC Concert Orchestra. The concert was called MusicMix and featured the full 60-piece orchestra. We listened to orchestral music from Haydn and Brahms as well as popular TV and film music including Doctor Who and The Incredibles. Towards the end of the concert everyone in the audience sang ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me’ accompanied by the orchestra. We all had a great time and it was a wonderful opportunity to participate in a live orchestral event.

On 6th of July the curtain went up at the Town Hall, on St. Joseph’s School’s production of the musical ‘Fame’.  Staff and pupils put months of hard work into the production which played to sell-out audiences on both nights.

The musical tells the story of the hopes and aspirations of a group of young students at PA, a school for performing arts.  This scenario gave ample opportunity for St Joseph’s pupils to show off their singing, dancing and acting skills in a production which bubbled with energy.

There were strong performances from the lead characters:  Abi Logg as the actor Nick Piazza, Grace Waterhouse as actress Serena Katz, Harriet Dawson as ‘comic’ actor ‘Joe’ Vegas, Lucy Bruton as the tragic Carmen Diaz, Millie Boardman as hip hop dancer Tyrone Jackson and Grace Hocking as the strict English teacher Miss Sherman, all of whom sang and acted with great panache.  There were some tremendous song and dance routines from the whole cast, every individual performing  with  infectious enthusiasm.

The team behind the scenes including Directors Jemma Bateman and Rosemary O’Brien, Music Producers Ashley Withey and Elisabeth Mann, Choreographers Teresa Sparrow, Jane Gardner and Sarah Watson and the Production team Tracey Ivell, Rebecca Walker and St Joseph’s pupils are to be congratulated on a highly professional production which was clearly as much fun to perform as it was to watch.

Pictured above is the newly elected Mayor, Rob Tremain and the Mayoress, Pat Tremain with Christopher Thorns and Beth Chadburn

On Wednesday 25th May, Chris Thorns and Beth Chadburn in Year 5 attended the election of the new Major of Launceston at the Town Hall.  Chris and Beth were very proud to be representing St Joseph’s and showed a keen interest in the election ceremony, particularly as they both represent the school’s own council.  Beth and Chris said that they found the whole event very exciting and felt immensely proud to be participating in such an historic occasion.  

World Book Day was on Thursday 3rd March. At St Joseph’s we celebrated by having a book themed  hat competition. Well done to everyone who took part, both juniors and seniors. Our judges: Mrs Bartlett, Mrs Hayward, Mr Thetford , Mrs Praetor and Mrs Sandercock had a difficult job to choose the best entries. The winners they eventually chose were:

Nursery         Peter Pan                        Matthew Rowland
Reception      Secret Garden                  Phoebe Scott
Year 1           Madeline                         Florie Greenwood
Year 2           Sponge bob                     Kate Robinson
Year 3           Rapunzel                         Liberty Scott
Year4            Edwardian Garden             Harrison Scott
Year 5           Wizard of Oz                    Alicia Jasper
Year 6           Wizard of Oz                    Maddy Brewer
Year 7           Sorting   Hat                    Daniel Brewer
Year 8           Dictionary                        Benneth Bell
Year 9           Willy Wonka                     Kate Marks
Year 10         Peter Pan                         Amy Meeson
Year  11        The Enchanted Woods        Rhian Callcut

Special Staff hat prize - Mrs O’Brien

It was a lovely sunny day so Mrs Hayward presented the prizes outside in the playground. We were able to take some nice photographs of the entrants. 

We also organised a book swap in the library at lunchtime and lots of pupils swapped books they had read for books brought in by other people.  Special thanks to helpers Imogen, Jess, Alicia, Isobel and Max for helping to set up the event and to Torin for organising the tokens.

Mr Gonella gave us an outline for a continuous story, including the themes, characters and setting that should be used. The story was emailed from class to class throughout the day. Last time we tracked the story down it had moved onto the Senior School and was with year7. We hope we can make the story into a book once it is completed.

Pupils were issued with World Book Day book tokens. These can be used in local booksellers to purchase the selected World Book Day titles. It was a non - uniform day and pupils who did not wear uniform made a donation to the Book Aid charity. We raised £164.

We also had some quizzes and colouring competitions. The winners of these were:

Colouring

Nursery/Reception        
Jacob Jellard
Woody Watson
Lottie Wilson

Year  1                              
Catherine Finn
Florentine Streather

Year  2                               
Bruno Hargadon
Kate Robinson

                                                                                                                                                                                                          Year  3                               
Luke Smith
Izabella Turner

Year  4                               
Charlie Barnecutt
Sam Luckhurst

Quizzes

Junior Quiz              
Alessia Hargadon    
Korinne Streather

Senior Quiz             
Katy Benyon      Year 11   
Rhian Callcut       Year 11      
Torin Gillies         Year 7

Mr Fanet organised a special book titles competition. Pupils were given a list of books in French and asked to give the English titles. We hoped that dictionaries would be used to find the answers but suspect that the internet was more popular!

Many thanks to all who were involved in making this a successful day.

 Helen Argent  and  Paul Davies   Librarians  

The Nursery and Reception pupils at St Joseph\'s School had a very special visit last week from Father Christmas. The children were very excited to meet Father Christmas and they were all very lucky and received a gift. In the afternoon the Nursery and Reception pupils had a Christmas party to celebrate the beginning of the festive period.

Pupils and staff from St Joseph\'s enjoyed the last week of term and celebrated the beginning of the festive period with a Christmas Lunch.

Pictured above are Year 7 Pupils Tom Bolton, Edward Clark and Joseph Helps with Mr Colin White - Maths Teacher.

 

St Joseph\'s School raised a total of £384.03 for Children In Need this year. A fantastic amount! The children and staff dressed up in spots for the day and also held a cake sale. Well done to all.

Congratulations to all pupils who took part in Senior Prize Giving 2010.

Headmaster, Mr Garrett said \'Congratulations to all pupils who won awards at last nights Prize Giving. The concert that the boys and girls in the Senior School performed was outstanding -a real credit to the school. Thank you to all the parents,staff and guests for attending and a special thank you to Mr Neil Roskilly (Chief Executive Officer - The Independent Schools Association) who was the guest speaker at the event.\'

Pictured above is Josie Kane - Head Girl 2009-2010 making her speech at last years Prize Giving.

Photos of this years event will be available soon.

Thank you for visiting our stand at the Royal Cornwall Show 2010. If you would like to visit the school please contact Rebecca Walker to arrange an appointment.

St Joseph's School raised £389.90 this year for children in need. The children and staff are pictured above making penny lines in the playground to see which group could make the line the fastest! Of course all the pennies were donated to children in need. The children also held a cake sale and dressed up in aid of the charity. Well done to all.

Well done to Nursery, Reception, Years 1 and 2 for the fabulous production of 'Whoops-a-daisy Angel' which took place in the school hall. As always these special events can only take place with the help and support of many different people, so the Early Years Team would like to thank all the parents who responded so positively to requests for costumes and props. The children have really loved wearing their costumes and were sure you will agree they look superb in their finery. We would also like to thank Mrs Hayward for her kind assistance with the lighting. Of course, such a musical undertaking would be impossible without the able leadership of our talented Musical Director Mrs Nicki Smith. Thanks also go to our junior colleagues who often helped with the heavy job of setting up the stage. All the members of the Early Years Team Mrs Budden, Miss Davey, Mrs Kemp, Mrs Bourner, Mrs Worden, Miss Clemence, Mrs Wright and myself have played their part, with ideas for staging, costumes, creating props and other things too numerous to mention. But the final and most important mention must go to our wonderful children who have worked so hard over the last few weeks learning the songs, words, the dances, the moves and how to cope with an audience. We have all had such fun and hope you enjoy watching the performance as much as we did preparing it. We would also like to thank Coombe Valley Nursery and Treetops Nursery for attending the performance. Mrs Marks (Early Years Co-Ordinator)

Last Friday, Year One and Year Two stepped back in time at Lanhydrock house to investigate their class projects for this term. Year One explored the Children’s Wing of the house and found that life experienced by Victorian children of more than one hundred years ago was very different from that of children today. However, many of the toys seen in the Day Nursery were recognised by the children and modern versions of them still played with by our children today.
Year Two explored the domestic side of Victorian life, with special reference to the type of  food that would have been eaten then, how it would have been preserved and prepared for the table. Life without a fridge and a freezer was actually seen to have been possible, at least for the more affluent Victorians! Our thanks go to Mr John Carter and Mrs Nina Bryan for driving the minibuses and accompanying us on our visit around the house.
Mrs Sue marks

Explosions, coloured flames, shattering frozen objects and copious amounts of foam were just some of the spectacular demonstrations witnessed by students and staff.

On Tuesday 22nd September pupils and staff of all ages gathered to watch the lecture "A Pollutants Tale", given by Dr Tim Harrison from Bristol University.  The demonstrations illustrated information about the atmosphere's composition.  They included the properties of liquid Nitrogen, the effects of Carbon Dioxide on solution pH and the combustion of Hydrogen.  All the students and staff enjoyed the informative and humorous lecture.

Harriet Dawson, Yr8

An Inspired Day at the Tate, St Ives

As part of the introduction to their Art GCSE fifteen year 10 pupils visited the Tate Gallery in St.Ives.  They looked in detail at artists such as Katy Moran, Carol Bove, Lucie Rie and Alfred Wallis. The Critical Thinking Workshop lead by Steven Paige, himself an acclaimed and successful artist, inspired and motivated pupils. They all engaged with the artworks and used their sketchbooks to record and draw as they explored the galleries. After lunch the pupils visited Barbara Hepworth’s home and garden making their own sketches of the very impressive “larger then life” sculptures. A great day was had by all and the pupils’ use of descriptive language throughout the visit demonstrates a sound and exciting start to the course. Well done!

The Romans Invade St. Joseph's School!

Exeter Museum brings history to life in a fantastic educational day for years 2 and 3.

The children and staff all had a fascinating day and learnt so much about their way of life.

We tried on clothing and jewellery, wore armour, held shields and swords, smelt a variety of oils and spices then enjoyed crushing them to make the most delicious aromas.

Sam was wonderful at the sling shot! The children then went on to fight the Britons on the school field. There was some debate about who won the battle. Mr Newton, Chief of the tribe suggested that the Romans definitely won.

A very big thank you for all the parents who joined in with the battle and helped support the children.