Ofsted Visit

OFSTED—HMI—National Subject Lead for Primary English—Library Visit

The National Subject Lead for Primary English, HMI, Lesley Sullivan, came to visit our school library at St Joseph’s on Thursday 18^th April.

News of our excellent library had travelled far and Ofsted Communications decided that our library would be an excellent place to film a short video on the importance of getting the basics right in the teaching of English in primary schools.

We were delighted to host HMI, Lesley Sullivan.

The morning was spent in the library and she was really impressed, not only, with our resource but, with our junior librarians who showed her around. Afterwards, they had a long talk together about reading, their favourite books and the importance of having libraries in primary schools.

It was a special moment to have been asked to host this event following our recent Outstanding award from Ofsted.

 

Ofsted Inspection

 

OFSTED INSPECTION - Outstanding

 

Author Visit - Helen Peters

Author Visit – Helen Peters

Wednesday 12^th June

Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4 & Year 5

What a fantastic and inspirational visit with Helen Peters!

Helen Peters, award-winning author, was in school on Wednesday 12^th June to give a presentation on her books and writing to our Years 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

There was great excitement as children and staff gathered in our lower junior assembly hall.

Helen is author of Friends and Traitors, The Secret Hen House Theatre trilogy, and the Jasmine Green animal rescue series. She introduced to the children, ‘A Llama called Lightning’, the sixteenth book in the Jasmine Green series with beautiful illustrations by Ellie Snowdon and ‘Friends and Traitors’, a second world war mystery. Her stories are about adventure, bravery, family and friendship.

Helen spoke in a fun and engaging way about her path to becoming an author. The children were enthralled by the stories from her childhood growing up on an old-fashioned farm in Sussex, surrounded by family, animals and lots of mud. As a child she loved reading and putting on plays. Together with her friends she transformed an old barn into a theatre. All this led to her becoming an English and Drama teacher and eventually becoming a writer.

Helen’s cute photos and illustrations of animals that feature in many of her stories filled the hall with lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the children.

“It was so interesting and my absolute favourite part was when she talked about the animals and showed us cute pictures”. – Sophia (Diamond Class)

It was also fascinating for the children that Helen explained clearly how a book is made from pen to print. She showed her note books and rough drafts and explained that an editor is just like a teacher who corrects and helps you improve your writing which the children immediately related to.

“I loved how she explained how the books were actually made” Theo (Diamond Class)

It was wonderful that Helen also made the time for the children to ask her questions and gave warm and engaging replies.

To finish off her talk Helen engaged the children in a fun quiz about her writing. There was much laughter and excitement.

This was followed by a book signing in the library for the children who had pre-ordered copies of her books.

We now have signed copies of Helen’s books in our library and they have been flying off the shelves.

Thank you so much Helen for coming into St Josephs and inspiring the next generation of writers.