At St Joseph’s, we are very proud of our community links and the opportunities that we provide for our children to enhance their experiences in line with our curriculum intent. Below you will find lots of happy news, events and accomplishments that our school community have been a part of.

2022-23 News

Girls Gregory the Great Cup – Runners up 

On Monday 10th July, our Y5 girls’ team represented St Joseph’s at the Gregory the Great Cup against many Catholic schools in Leeds. The team played fantastically, showing excellent skills, teamwork, leadership, communication skills, drive and resilience! The first stage of cup was a tournament within the leagues, and the team only conceded 2 goals throughout this tournament and we won 4 out of the 6 matches we played, against Ss Peter and Paul, Holy Rosary, St Joseph’s Hunslet, St Anthony’s, Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart. After the tournament stage, we were then grouped into either the Gregory the Great Cup, Gregory the Great Plate or Gregory the Great Shield. The team did not give up, and showed real perseverance and drive throughout all their matches! It was absolutely brilliant to watch! The girls team came away as Gregory the Great Plate Runners Up, with a close final match against Ss Peter and Paul, who rightly deserved the overall win! Huge congratulations to the Y5 girls’ team – what a wonderful day and a huge success for them all! 

U11s Bishop Cup – WINNERS

Our U11’s football team are the proud winners of this year’s Bishop Cup. They have played many matches over the course of the year and were up against a fantastic team from St Francis, Morley in the final. It was a challenging game with many shots on target saved by the two outstanding goal keepers. Both teams kept up their pace and attack, as well as ensuring their defence was solid throughout. Following on from an early goal, both teams gave it their all, with St Joseph’s coming out as the stronger team on the day with a 3-0 win. Well done to all of the teams who were part of the competition and thank you to everyone involved who works tirelessly to ensure our children across the diocese have the opportunity to be part of such a wonderful event.

Huge congratulations to our U11’s team…a great achievement! You can be very proud of not only your success but the way in which you represented St Joseph’s throughout!

KS2 SJF Football Festivals

Over the last week, some of our KS2 pupils have attended a football festival held at St John Fisher Catholic High School in Harrogate. As always, our children represented our school excellently, showing superb behaviour, fantastic manners, perseverance, resilience and skill. In Y5/6, the A team won 5 out of 7 games and came 4^th in the tournament and the B team won 3 out of 7 games, coming XX in the tournament. In Y3/4, our A team came joint 3rd and our B team came 6th out of 9 teams in total. We are so proud of all the children that attended both events! A huge thank you to Mrs Powell, Mrs Auld and Mr Delafield and all our parent helpers for making this event possible and continuing to support us in providing a range of wonderful opportunities for all of our pupils.

U11s Team Represent Leeds United Football Club at Elland Road, Premier League Primary Stars Tournament

Premier League Stars Huge well done to out U11’s football team who represent Leeds UTD at the Premier League Stars Competition held at Elland Road. St Joseph’s were the Leeds school who represented Leeds United during a tournament involving teams from all around the country and held at Leeds UTD’s home ground. The children had a great time and played great football. Although they didn’t win their group stage, we are beaming with pride…as St Joseph’s were the team, from the whole competition who were awarded the ‘Fair Play’ Trophy which has pride of place on our school trophy cabinet! Congratulations to the whole team! Huge thank you to the coach, Mr Arthur and Mrs Cooper who attended the event with the team along with their team of supporters.

 Catenian Cup

The Year 6 boys football team enjoyed a lovely sunny day out at the superbly organised Leeds Catholic Cup. St Theresa’s hosted 250 Children comprising 25 teams organised into 5 leagues of 5 teams.  In the morning session, the children played 4 league games. They played brilliantly, winning all the games, scoring 9 and conceding only 1.

After lunch the children moved onto another league against the winners of the other 4 leagues. These games were no easy feat, but the boys displayed great skill,  teamwork and leadership resulting in 3 wins and a draw, scoring 5 and conceding none at all. Every single member of the squad contributed and they were rightly very pleased with their efforts. It was a lovely day out and the whole tournament was played in a fantastic spirit!

Harrogate Ladies College ‘International Woman’ junior essay writing competition

Harrogate Ladies’ College launched a junior essay writing competition to mark International Women’s Day. The competition, entitled ‘Inspirational Woman’ was open to Year 3, 4 and 5 pupils across the district, and entrants were invited to write about a woman who had inspired them. Out of 100 applicants, one of our Year 3 pupils, was shortlisted as a finalist after writing about her inspiring auntie! We are so proud of our superstar writer who won the ‘best handwritten category” for Year 3! Our young author was invited to Harrogate Ladies College to receive her award and celebrate this amazing achievement!

Y3 Sacrament of First Reconciliation

On Saturday 25th March, our Y3 children received the Sacrament of First Reconciliation. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is also known as confession. This is a way of renewing and refreshing our relationship with God and means to seek forgiveness. Our First Reconciliation preparation sessions emphasise the central place of Jesus in our children’s lives and invites them into a prayerful, reflective relationship with God. It also develops their understanding of the Gospel values of love, joy, peace and forgiveness which pave the way for the Sacrament. It was wonderful to see so many families come together to celebrate this special time for our Year 3 children. Every child received the Sacrament of Reconciliation after confession with Father Andrew, and then lit a candle and said a special prayer afterwards in The Chapel of Our Lady in church, with Mrs Cooper. A huge thank you to the Y3 team at school for preparing the children for this Sacrament and for preparing such a lovely service for this special occasion.

St Joseph’s attend and assist at the Leeds United Premier League Draw

LSNA Netball Competition

We have attended our first netball tournament of the season with a Y5/6 mixed netball team. We hold netball training sessions weekly so it was extremely exciting to attend the tournament. Schools entered into this tournament would take points through to quarter/semi finals in the future. To say this was St Joseph’s first netball competition in quiet some time, they played fantastically, coming together as a team, supporting each other, showing excellent encouragement and sportsmanship. The children had the opportunity to play in different positions too. A huge well done to our netballers for representing St Joseph’s at the Leeds Schools Netball Association (LSNA) Netball Competition!

WVLP Basketball Games

A group of mixed Y6s attended the WVLP Basketball Games, held at Boston Spa Academy. We are extremely passionate about ensuring that all children have the opportunity to play competitively in sport and the basketball games really highlighted that we have some talented basketballers at St Joseph’s! We came 5th in the competition which we are very proud of because this was our first basketball competition since before the pandemic. The children played well, improving each game they played, supporting their team mates and supporting other schools too. Congratulations to our Y6 basketball team!

FA’s Biggest Ever Football Session for GIRLS

U11s Boys’ Football Success! National Finals – We are going to Elland Road!

Our U11s Boys’ football team were at Leeds United’s training ground in Thorp Arch yesterday with Mr Arthur and Mrs Cooper for the regional finals of the Premier League Tournament. Once again, showing their excellent commitment and dedication to the game, sportsmanship and skillset and after a fantastic, memorable day, the boys won and are through to the national finals! They will be representing Leeds United Football Club at Elland Road in June where they will wear the first kit and play against other Premier League teams whose local teams have played in similar Premier League tournaments! Our Y6 team (which includes 2 Y5 boys too) represented our school wonderfully at this event. We are so proud of you all! A huge thank you to Mr Arthur for volunteering his own time to support with our Y6 team. We are very grateful to you.

U11s Girls’ Football News! Premiuer League Tournament – Runners up!

Our U11s Girls’ football team participated in the Premier League Girls’ Tournament on Tuesday at St John Fisher’s. They played excellently showing incredible teamwork, skillset and represented St Joseph’s brilliantly. They played right until the end, conceding only one goal throughout the whole tournament and after a tough, nail biting final, just missed the win in the end. The girls can be extremely proud of themselves because we are! It was a fantastic opportunity, and they had a wonderful time. There’s still so much more to come from our wonderfully talented girls’ football team! Watch this space!

Live Simply Projects – Mrs Ward on the Radio! 

At St Joseph’s, we are constantly striving to find new ways to to fulfil our Live Simply promise in both our school grounds and across the community. Since winning our Live Simply Award from CAFOD in 2019, we have continued to work on our ‘Live Simply’ mission, and we have been very busy these last few months working on our most ambitious whole school Eco Project to date. Sharing, exploring and being proactive, we have met the challenge of the 3 Rs head on: reduce, reuse and recycle were the key themes in our project alongside our  ‘Live Simply’ promise, and we really have gone above and beyond! Every class from Reception to Year 6 has taken part in custom workshops designed just for them, by Zoe Phillips of ‘By Deckle and Hide’, making items to benefit the wildlife in their own school environment and to share beyond their own school gates within their community. Each session has been supported with discussions about environment, sustainability and how every single item they make can make a make a direct difference to wildlife, not just today but over time to come. To see more information about our Live Simply projects this year, please click the button below to visit our ‘Live Simply page. Click here to visit our Live Simply webpage

Mrs Ward and Mrs Phillips recently featured on the radio on Thursday 23rd February 2023 on BBC Radio York Live to talk more about our very special ‘Live Simply’ Eco Projects. If you missed this, don’t worry, you can listen below!  To listen to Mrs Ward and Mrs Phillips on the radio, watch the video below.

Football Success: Girls’ Team & Y6 Boys’ Team

On Tuesday 22nd November, our girls’ football team and Y6 boys’ football team both played against St Mary’s Boston Spa. The boys won their game 3-0 and the girls played an excellent game with a final result of 9-0!! This was the second time the girls played as a team, and for some girls, their first ever competitive football match! We are extremely proud of our children and their commitment to their school football team. Thank you to Mr Arthur who arranged both of the games and to Mr Lawrence for refereeing the girls’ game.

Sports Competition: WVLP Football Tournament

We sent over 20 children from Years 5 and 6 to a football tournament at Boston Spa Academy against other schools in the local area. The children played really well in teams that hadn’t been established before this event. This year, our aim is for all children to participate in competitive sporting opportunities so we are pleased that so many children were able to play at this event. St Joseph’s won the division played in and whilst we did not win the overall tournament, the children’s sportsmanship, courtesy and manners were spotted by the organiser of the event and other schools that were there!

The organiser of this event emailed all schools the following:

I would like to thank the schools who patiently waited for the minibuses to return from their first run to take you back to your schools.  Your students are an absolute credit to you for how they conducted themselves waiting for the minibuses.  I really was blown away with how polite and courteous your students were with some incredible conversations!

Football Success: Y5/6 Girls’ Team

Our girls in Year 5 and Year 6 had their very first football match of the league this year against Primrose Lane Primary school and they won 6-0! This was a huge success, and a great boost for the girls, as this was their first time playing together as a team. We are extremely proud of the girls and cannot wait to watch them play in the league matches throughout the year. We are working hard behind the scenes to arrange lots of opportunities for our girls, as well as the football league we have entered. Watch this space!

Football Success: Year 6 Boys’ Team

Our Year 6 boys’ football team have now played 2 matches. Their second match of the league was against Primrose Lane Primary School and they won 8-0! This is a huge success for our Y6 team and one that we hope to see continue throughout the league. The boys played excellently as a team (which was established in Y5 last year) and we are extremely excited to watch the boys’ football journey once again this year.

Young Voices Concert 2023

At the start of this half term, some of our KS2 children attended the fabulous Young Voices event at Sheffield Arena. This event followed months of hard work, rehearsing for the event where our children performed along with thousands of other school children, to an audience of parents and carers from our school, across the city and beyond. ‘

The whole event was spectacular, and the children not only performed to the very best of their ability and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, they conducted themselves proudly when out in the community representing St Joseph’s, Wetherby! A huge well done and congratulations to all involved!

Christmas Cards to the Community!

The pupils at St Joseph’s have been creating cards to share with the local community. We gave cards to residential  and assisted living homes in and around Wetherby, Martin House, groups for the elderly and for some of our parishioners at church. We were so pleased to spread some Christmas cheer! Below is just a glimpse of the happiness that we spread!

Wetherby Jubilee Awards

We are incredibly proud of 4 of our pupils who were nominated and shortlisted for the Wetherby Jubilee Award at Wetherby Town Hall for standing out for their outstanding contributions within the community. The children in the photograph, along with Danielle, who was unable to make the event, all received their award for being shortlisted, from the Mayor of Wetherby, Councillor Neil O’Byrne; and Deputy Lieutenant Jeremy Burton; in recognition of their wonderful contributions! Well done to our four pupils for their ongoing wonderful positive contributions within the community.

Wetherby Lion’s Dickensian Market KS2 Choir

On Sunday 11th December, some of our Key Stage 2 members formed a choir to perform some Christmas songs at the Dickensian Christmas Market in Wetherby Town Centre. They sang brilliantly and with great enthusiasm! Well done to our wonderful choir and a big thank you to our parents for bringing them along to this community event!

2021-22 News

JoFest!

On Saturday 2nd July, our school community gathered together for JoFest, our annual school festival held by the Friends of St Joseph’s (FOSJ). It was such a fun, filled day with stalls, games, pizzas, tennis, a fun football tournament and so much more! Thank you to all parents, adults and members of staff for helping to set up in the morning, help to run a stall or clear up at the end of the day! Thank you also to those who lent their gazebos for the day. Everyone had a wonderful time and all monies raised by the FOSJ will go towards providing the very best opportunities for our school children. A HUGE THANK YOU to the FOSJ for organising another wonderful and successful event and to all of our families for supporting the event and coming along! 

Football Success: Y5 Champions of Champions!

Our Year 5 football team, made up of Y4 and Y5 pupils, were crowned the ‘Champions of Champions’ after winning their final match of the year against East Garforth. This team have played so well together this year – they are the perfect example of hard work, commitment, passion, commitment, dedication and excellent teamwork and sportsmanship! What excellent role models we have in our school for our younger children who may be interested in, or already play football. We can’t wait to watch this team continue to play together as they move into Y6 next year! Well done boys – you are CHAMPIONS!

Canon Nunan’s Golden Jubilee Celebrations

On Sunday 12th June, our whole school community, along with our parish, joined together for huge celebrations to mark Canon Nunan’s Golden Jubilee. Canon said Mass and we enjoyed our celebrations on our school grounds.

Thank you to everybody who was able to come along and celebrate with Canon Nunan on Sunday. He was so pleased to see so many of us come together to celebrate mass and his Golden Jubilee. It was such a wonderful day, made incredibly special by so many people. Thank you to everyone (adults and children) who was able to come along, who helped on the day – setting up, running stalls and helping to clear away. Thank you also to the children who all sang beautifully, to the readers who were so clear and confident and to the musicians who did a great job! Thank you to Mr Atkinson for lending us his sound system and setting up early on the day. Thank you to the Dent family for the loan of the small marquee and to all of the parents who ran the bar, tea and coffee and helped clear away the stalls. Liz, Jacinta and Phil from the parish organised such an amazing event and we were very happy to be involved and help with making sure the event ran smoothly. Canon has now announced his retirement and I know he is preparing for the next chapter in his life. Please keep Canon Nunan in your thoughts and prayers at this time.

Football Success: Y6 Leeds North East Schools League – WINNERS

Our fantastic Year 6 boys’ football team have done it again! They have been crowned the winners of the Leeds North East Schools League! What an incredible achievement. We are all incredibly proud of these boys and the team has gone from strength to strength this year. A huge thank you to Mr Delafield for giving up his own time to arrange and attend all of these matches and for his commitment to supporting our school with boys’ football!

“These boys have been a real credit to the school, representing St Joseph’s with all the values that they have been taught. As footballers, they have been terrific, with a togetherness and great team spirit, that has produced unbelievable results, and their achievements speak for themselves. As individuals, they all continue to grow into special human beings who we all should be extremely proud of.” Mr Delafield 

Let’s Run

On Monday 27th June, 24 KS2 children and all of our Year 1 and 2 children took part in a Catholic schools cross country running event. Our KS2 children raced a competitive cross country in year groups, girls V girls, boys V boys, against 21 other Catholic schools in the diocese. Our KS2 children had to run 1.5km in their cross country race. The race had some tricky hills to overcome, but all of our children gave the race their all, and never gave up when it got hard. Our KS1 children (and staff) then took part in a fun run. There were hundreds of children taking part in the one mile race, and all our children were amazing. They wowed us with their perseverance and stamina, even the teachers found it hard to keep up! St Joseph’s came 12th after all the races, a great achievement. All our children represented St Joseph’s incredibly well, they were fantastic role models with outstanding behavior.   We are so proud of you our Let’s fun runners 2022! We are looking forward to Lets run 2023 already!

FOSJ School Disco

On Thursday 19th May, the FOSJ held the first school disco we have had for a number of years in the school hall/ICT suite. We had a fantastic attendance with 160 children coming along to enjoy the event! The FOSJ are pleased to announce that they raised an incredible £1083.50!!! Thank you to all families that supported this event, the FOSJ members for arranging this event and the members of staff and parent helpers that also heled out at the disco. Thank you to Shuffles Entertainment who was our Disco DJ for the event. What a huge success! For more information about events that the FOSJ are arranging or to get involved, please visit our FOSJ webpage: FOSJ Webpage

Young Voices

On Friday 13th May, many of our Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 children attended the Young Voices concert which was long awaited, after a couple of years with no concerts due to covid restrictions and then another 2 postponements this year. Well, what a time they had! It has been lovely to hear from the children, and parents who also attended the concert as audience members, what a wonderful time was had by all! Please check out the website under ‘School News’ or ‘Extra-Curricular Opportunities’ to see some more photos and find out more about Young Voices, and all of the other opportunities we have at St Joseph’s for our pupils. Thank you to Mrs Cooper & Mrs Harrison for arranging Young Voices and to Mrs Jackson, Mrs Hope and Mrs Hilton-Green for giving up their time to attend the concert as parent helpers. Well done to all of our children for representing our school so fantastically – we are so proud of you all! Watch the video below to experience Young Voices with us!

Football Success: Y6 Leeds Primary School’s Cup – RUNNERS UP!

On Thursday 12th May, our Y6 boys’ football team (made up of Year 6, Year 5 and Year 4 boys) played in the FINAL of the Leeds Primary School’s Cup against St Anthony’s Beeston at Yorkshire Amateur FC. What an incredible achievement to get to the final of the Y6 Leeds Primary School’s Cup. Unfortunately, after a tough game, the team lost 1-0 to St Anthony’s. We are so proud of them all and their achievements they’ve made in football. What an incredible year of football they have had with so many highs, successes and achievements! The dedication, passion, skill, teamwork and commitment to the sport was shown in every single game the boys played and they are a credit to themselves, their families and our school! Congratulations boys on your achievements in this league! Thank you to all our volunteers including Mr Delafield who coaches the Y6 team and to Mr Arthur who coaches our Y5 team. Thank you also to the parents and families that came to support the team!

Football Success: Y5 Moran Cup – WINNERS!

On Friday 6th May, our Year 5 boys’ football team (made up of Year 4 and Year 5 pupils) played the Moran Cup FINAL at Whitkirk FC and we are so proud and pleased to announce that St Joseph’s are the WINNERS of the Moran Cup after winning 2-1 against East Garforth Primary School. Another perfect example fantastic skill, passion, commitment, drive and best of all, excellent teamwork! The boys performed brilliantly! Congratulations to East Garforth Primary School who are now the runners up of the Moran Cup. Their boys also played brilliantly! A huge thank you to Mr Arthur for giving up his own time and coaching this successful team and a massive congratulations to the all the boys who played in the Y5 boys’ football team throughout this league. Thank you also to all the parents and families that came to support the team! We are very proud!

Wetherby Free Press – “St Joseph’s Leads the Way”

We are extremely pleased to have also been featured in an article on the Wetherby Free Press, which was published on Friday 29th April 2022.

Football Success – Moran Cup Finalists!

On Thursday 28th April, our Year 5 boys’ football team (made up of Year 4 and Year 5 pupils) played at the Moran Cup semi-final against St Mary’s, Rothwell. Another example of fantastic skill, passion, commitment, drive and best of all, excellent teamwork! The boys performed brilliantly and St Joseph’s won 4-0! We are incredibly proud of this fantastic team and what they have achieved so far in this cup. The team will play in the FINAL next Friday (6th May 2022) – more information will follow in our Head Teacher’s Newsletter once we have confirmation where the final will be played. What an incredible success for our Year 5 boys and a huge well done to the 2 Year 4 boys that played in the team too! Thank you to our brilliant volunteers for making these successes and achievements possible!

Football Success – Leeds School Cup Finalists!

Our footballers have been preparing for the semi-final of the Leeds School Cup which in itself is an incredible achievement! The Y6 semi-final match was played against Ss Peter and Paul, Yeadon at St Joseph’s on Wednesday 27th April and many of our families and staff joined the boys on the pitch to wish them luck and spur them on! They played brilliantly, showing their excellent skilset and sportsmanship throughout the whole game and we are pleased to announce that St Joseph’s won 2-1! The boys will now play in the FINAL on Friday 13th May which is an away game – more information will follow about this in our Head Teacher’s newsletters. We are incredibly proud of our brilliant boys! What a huge success! Team work, drive, commitment, passion and skill was seen on the pitch from both teams and it came down to that final goal! An incredible achievement! Thank you, as always, to our wonderful volunteers and coaches for making this possible!

Earth Day – Harrogate Advertiser

Our school has been featured in an article in the Harrogate Advertiser which was published on Tuesday 26th April 2022. Our school is extremely passionate about our ‘Live Simply’ mission and we all took part in a range of activities on Earth day to work towards a greener planet!

Click here to the read the article about our school in the Harrogate Advertiser.

Building on our Live Simply mission, last half term’s topic ‘Our Precious Planet’ and our ‘8 to be great’ pledges, Adrian from Boston Spa Green Group visited Year 5 and Year 6 to talk in more depth about the climate emergency through a morning workshop. The children started off looking at the carbon footprint of familiar foods and were surprised to learn of foods we eat on a daily basis having a high carbon footprint, such as meat, butter and eggs. We learnt that it is always best to shop locally and seasonally. Adrian also talked to the children about biodiversity and we learnt that one simple oak tree can house up to 2,300 species. Throughout the workshop, the children were making links to their own experiences, prior learning and knowledge linked to our Live Simply mission and our ‘8 to be great’ pledges. Adrian was extremely impressed with the children’s knowledge and understanding of the climate emergency and their current participation and practice in working towards achieving the goal of net zero and greener planet for all. Thank you to Adrian for visiting our school! For more information, or to get involved, please click on the button below.

Easter Bunny to a Senior

In the lead up to Easter, lots of our children designed and created Easter cards or artwork as part of the ‘Easter bunny to a senior’ to brighten up an older person’s day through ‘Home Instead’ These were sent to many older people in our community to bring a smile to them at such a special time in the year. Home Instead got back to us to say that we did just that and we even got some photographs of the care staff receiving the cards and some of the residents with the gifts they received. We feel very happy that we have been able to support our local community at Easter time.

Ukraine Appeal

Our school community came together for one of the biggest appeals we have ever done in school. We cannot thank our school community enough for their generous donations towards our school’s Ukraine appeal which was part of a wider scale community appeal. Discount Feeds in Wetherby teamed up with Millbry Hill Country Store to help with assisting in collections of vital items for the Ukrainian people. Our Mini Vinnies collected donations for 3 days and then loaded 3 cars full for the donations to be taken to Discount Feeds round the corner. We were astounded by the support from our school community and as a school, have continued to keep the Ukrainian people in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult and worrying time.

Reading Eggs Story Competiton

Charlie in Year 2 entered his story “The Rainy Day” for the Reading Eggs Story Factory competition on world book day and came 12th in the world! Charlie faced tough competition from children as far as Australia. Charlie thoroughly enjoyed writing his story and is rightly very proud of his achievements, as is our whole St Joseph’s School Community. A huge well done Charlie!

You can read the full article about Charlie’s achievements by clicking the link below to the Harrogate Advertiser page.

2020-21 News

Lessons in Lockdown Book

During the months of January through to March, we found ourselves in another lockdown that took us back to learning remotely at home. Throughout this time, we all stayed connected. We enjoyed our weekly chatterbox sessions, keeping in touch on Showbie and Tapestry and many other ways. We also wanted to come together as a community once again. St Joseph’s created their very own ‘Lessons in Lockdown’ book filled with a variety of reflections by pupils and staff that captures insights into how, nearly a year into a global pandemic, we have all experienced the challenges faced. From new skills gained, favourite recipes, losses, realisations, to impromptu notes left by children for their parents to find, the pupils of St Joseph’s have shown how important family and community are, and how much we have all learnt from this past year. Our book project sought to bring together our local community and is supported by Reading Roots bookshop in Wetherby who will be displaying some of the entries as well as taking orders for a limited period.

Thank you to all of our pupils and staff who contributed to our school’s lessons in lockdown book. Thank you also to the FOSJ who worked so hard to bring this project together and to the Reading Roots bookshop for their support.

Lockdown Tapestry

Back in June, during the lockdown we all found ourselves in from March, our families, pupils and staff came together to create a ‘lockdown tapestry’ to capture all of our experiences during this strange time. Our pupils and staff were invited to make a creative square that visually represented their lockdown experiences for them and their families.

A huge array of textiles and techniques were used to create these mini masterpieces! The squares are absolutely beautiful and during the summer, over 100 squares were sewn together around a centre piece celebrating our school and our community. The final tapestry is bright, full of love, energy and hope, showing how we all stayed connected and together during the lockdown. The tapestry is now on display in our ICT Suite for everyone to see.

We couldn’t have done this without our wonderful families, our pupils and staff’s contributions with their lockdown squares. Thank you to all of you who created a lockdown square. We also have to give a huge, heartfelt thank you to Zoe Phillips, who coordinated the whole tapestry project as well as Clair Cook, who worked on sewing it all together and Bryony Robinson who created the beautiful centre piece. Thank you to everyone involved. This is a wonderful piece of art that has captured the lockdown experience of all of those at St Joseph’s.

St Joseph’s Lockdown Tapestry 2020[/caption]

A Celebration of Home Learning!

We hope you enjoy the special video we have made to celebrate all you have done during your time learning at home. This is just a snapshot of some of the activities you have enjoyed at home. We know that so many of you have worked hard and enjoyed a wide range of tasks. We are so proud of every single one of you! Thank you for working hard and for proving yourselves to be St Joseph’s resilient, active and life-long learners! We hope you enjoy the video.

A Happy Compilation!

Thank you to all our pupils, families and staff that took part in our Happy Compilation video. We hope you enjoy it!

A message from the staff at St Joseph’s

Spreading the Happiness

During our time away from school, we have been so lucky to hear about all of the amazing things our pupils have been doing to keep themselves and others going through these uncertain times.
One of our pupils has taken to her karaoke machine every Thursday night to sing so many fantastic songs during the applause to thank our NHS, careers and key workers. She has the most beautiful voice and we love hearing her singing each week. She is putting a smile on so many people’s faces and really bringing her community together. She is now taking song requests each week! We are so proud of her and the happiness she is bringing to others.

Here she is singing last Thursday night! We hope you enjoy it!

2019-2020 News

Young Voices 2020

On Tuesday 7th January, a large group of pupils from Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 attended the Young Voices concert (the largest school concert in the world). Our pupils performed alongside 5,000-8,000 other children as a single choir to a huge audience of family and friends. This year, we were joined by Tony Hadley, The Shires and Ruti winner of The Voice UK 2018. During the lead up to the concert, the children worked incredibly hard learning all of the songs, lyrics and dances for the show and they performed fantastically on the night! Our absolute favourite had to be the Queen Medley song – full of incredible Queen hits that some of the children hadn’t actually heard before.

The Young Voices concert not only gave all the children that attended the opportunity to learn a brand new range of songs but also to perform in an extremely large ensemble whilst following the conductor’s signals. We hope that by providing our pupils with the opportunity to attend such a wonderful event that it will inspire them to pursue their passion in music in the future and will encourage them to become lifelong learners in music.

Thank you to all the children for all their continued hard work preparing for the concert and for their fantastic input and behaviour on the day. Thank you also to Mrs Holmes, Mrs Mahony and Miss Hazelgrave who came with us to Young Voices. A fantastic time was had by all!

Jubilee Award 2019

Louisa in Year 1 was nominated for the Jubilee Award in Wetherby in December 2019.

Louisa was nominated for her kindness and bravery when she donated her beautiful red hair to the Princess Trust to help children who have been affected by illnesses and suffered hair loss. Louisa didn’t like the hairdressers at all but was so brave and put the needs of others before herself.

At the awards ceremony, Louisa was rewarded with the runner up award. However, the panel was so amazed by Louisa that they made a special trophy just for her in runner up position. When Louisa was asked how she felt about having her hair cut off she said “I felt happy because I was helping other children who needed it.”

We are all so incredibly proud to have Louisa in our school community and we all say a massive well done!

Child Friendly Leeds Award

We are very proud of Imogen who was awarded ‘The Child of the Year Award’ 2019. Imogen is an incredible and inspirational 7 year old who is a real ambassador for children’s mental health, encouraging others to talk about difficult issues they may be dealing with. Imogen is recognised for her resilience and perseverance and is an absolute ray of sunshine! A huge well done to Imogen!

The prestigious city-wide event celebrates all the work that is happening across the city to make Leeds the best place for children and young people to grow up in. This year just under 600 nominations were submitted for champion children, child friendly places, people who go the extra mile and great organisations with the winners announced in February at the Leeds City Variety Theatre.

To read more please visit https://www.leeds.gov.uk/childfriendlyleeds/cfl-awards

2018-19 News

Jubilee Award Winner

A group of eight very special Wetherby youngsters gathered at the Town Hall on Wednesday 19th December for the annual Jubilee Award ceremony.

After hearing why each of these young people had been nominated by their school teachers or youth group leaders Charles, age 11 from St. Joseph’s Primary School, was declared a worthy winner.

Councillor Galan Moss, Mayor of Wetherby, had headed the panel which considered the nominations and said that it had been “inspiring to learn about the efforts and achievements of these young people”. He also commented that choosing a winner and runner up had been a difficult task for the panel but that Charles’ nomination had stood out because it was about helping other people.

Charles is extraordinary boy who stands out for so many reasons, all of which are rooted in his inherent desire to serve people through his actions. Not only does Charles make a difference in school, in church and in his wider community but he also makes a huge difference at home. Charles is such a caring, sensitive and considerate young man who really does care for everyone! Charles really is a wonderful young role model man who gives his own time so freely to others which is an inspiration to all – he gives without taking! Well done Charles! We are very proud of you!

Employer of the Year Award

I am delighted to inform you that our school was nominated for (and won!) the Leeds Trinity University’s Graduate Employer of the Year Award.  Well done to our senior leadership team for the direction and support they give to all our staff.  We are very proud of you! Jo Parascandolo – Chair of Governors.