Have you ever thought about how a stick of rock has the same message running all the way through it? At St Thomas' our school is just like this. Our school family is a stick of rock and the writing that you would see would be our school vision, 'Encouraging each other, overflowing with hope.'
Each class at St Thomas' has its own name - which represents the virtues that we want to encourage every child to show: Love, Joy, Kindness, Gentleness, Thankfulness, Gratitude, Honesty, Forgiveness, Courage, Hope, Tolerance, Diversity, Humility and Peace. During the time each of us has spent here, we have been encouraged to think of other people in the charity work we have done. In this new year of the Tiger, we are looking forward to all of the charity work that will happen within the next 12 months. When Chinese New Year celebrations occur, people give red envelopes of money; and the school will be raising money for Red Nose Day soon.
This time of Chinese New Year, has made some of the Blog squad think about the differences in race, religion, gender and appearance of all of the children in our school family because of the different cultural celebrations that take place. We have people in our classes - who follow different religions - that we make sure are included in all of our learning and times of worship too (where appropriate). Every one at St Thomas' will be accepted as part of our school family. In PSHE we even make sure that we learn all about diversity and acceptance - this has even inspired the names of our Year 5 Classes!
As it's Chinese New Year, we need to celebrate! One group of people need celebrating today and they would be our Teaching Assistants! These amazing people comfort pupils when they're hurt or feeling low: they keep us safe and secure. One of the secret missions they undertake during the day are interventions: they hear us read, boost our phonics and Maths and guide us to make better relationships and choices too. We would like to also celebrate their smiles (which light up the play grounds and classrooms) and say thank you to them for always encouraging the children but also Teachers too!
Dragons remind us of fierce and fiery exchanges - they make us think of bravery and strength too! If someone has had a disagreement, a tiff or a falling out, there is a very particular way we deal with this... we sit down together and try to restore the relationship. We talk about our feelings and emotions from the time of the falling out; sometimes we need a helpful adult (such as the Learning Mentors) to guide us to make things better. Most importantly, part of our Church school family is to show compassion and forgiveness. When we do this, we understand how each other feel and we then understand each other better.