We are at the end of our short Spring 1 half term.

Thank you for your support and partnership over the last half term. We wish you all a happy and fun half term, and look forward to hearing about all the children’s adventures when they return to school on Tuesday 20th March.

Keep praying for some better weather!

As part of our commitment to supporting mental health, we enjoyed dressing in clothes that make us happy today!

Outfits ranged from pyjamas, to Disney princesses, to football kits, to comfy joggers and sweaters. The children all looked great, and very happy- just as they should.

If you would like to know about the Now & Beyond Mental Health festival, please check out this website:

On Monday 5th February, children at St Lawrence enjoyed a dragon dance workshop, arranged through Telford & Wrekin’s multicultural development team.

The children learnt about the importance and significance of a dragon, and the colour red, as well as enjoying some traditional music and taking part in the dance themselves.

One pupil commented on much heavier the dragon head was than they had imagined!

This work was part of the research children have been carrying out into Chinese New Year and the different ways people celebrate important festivals.

On Tuesday this week, children from Years 5 and 6 at both Tibberton and St Lawrence schools took part in the Telford & Wrekin dodgeball competition alongside 30 other Telford schools.

As usual, we were up against schools who are 3, 4 or 5 times as big as us!

The children all played brilliantly, worked well as a team, and did incredibly well.

In the Inclusion Competition, Tibberton came 2nd and St Lawrence 3rd.

In the Main Competition, St Lawrence were the 2nd place winners!

We are very proud to all of the children who took part, and thanks to Mr Mullinder for arranging these experiences for our pupils.

Our Federation is keen to support families through Telford & Wrekin’s Family Hubs.

Family Hubs are one-stop centres where families can get free information, guidance and support on infant feeding, mental health, healthy lifestyles and many other services.

Bringing all this support together in one place is a huge advantage for families, as they can go for face-to-face advice and extra help right in their own community, when they need it.

Visit www.telford.gov.uk/familyhubs to keep up to date with the local support available.
Together, we can help every family and child in Telford and Wrekin to get the right help, at the right time.

Year 5 and 6 children from St Lawrence and Tibberton schools went to Manor Adventure near Craven Arms for a week of team building, outdoor adventure fun and mud last week. They behaved well, as we would expect, with their instructors commenting on how polite they were. Federation staff loved watching the children work together, support one another and face fears as they completed a wide range of activities, from abseiling to high ropes, from obstacle courses to axe throwing, from crate stack to rifle shooting. Our Christian values were truly lived out, through courage, kindness, respect and compassion.

Children and staff made some wonderful memories, and friendships were forged across our two schools. We are starting to look at options for next year’s residential, and can’t wait to see the children embrace this aspect of learning again.

Yesterday, we were pleased to welcome some of the parents into school for a reading workshop. Some information about reading was shared, as well as some ideas for making reading fun and interesting at home, before the children joined their parents to try out some of the ideas.

There was scrap building of the house from The Night Animals and the Hogwarts castle, den building, reading to cuddly toys, Lego construction, drawing, writing stories and lots of smiling and enjoying the pleasure of books.

Thank you to everyone who was able to join us. We will run a similar event in the summer term, and hope that more of you will be able to join us then.

We found out today that we have earnt a Bronze award for our work on developing trauma informed approaches towards managing behaviour, and being attachment aware. This has been the result of lots of training and renewing of policies and practices this year, and we are proud to receive the award.

Next step, Silver, and then on to Gold!

Pupils at Tibberton, our sister school, have been writing poems in response to worship this week.

Here is just one example:

Courage is a little voice at the end of the day saying I’ll try again tomorrow

Overcoming your fear

Understanding courage isn’t a roar

Respecting everyone’s fears

Always be courageous

Getting back up and trying again

Everyone has fears to overcome.

I wonder if anyone at St Lawrence could write a poem about courage? Please share it with us if you do.