Anti-Bullying Week 2019 is happening from Monday 11th November – Friday 15th November 2019 and it has the theme ‘Change Starts With Us’. The children took part in a special assembly where we discussed bullying and how we deal with it in our school.

Whether it is verbal, physical, online or in-person, bullying has a significant impact on a child’s life well in to adulthood. By making small, simple changes, we can break this cycle and create a safe environment for everyone. Because together, we can challenge bullying. Change starts with a conversation. It starts with checking in. It starts with work together.

Change starts here.
Change starts now.
Change starts with us.

This year the goal is to inform children to know that it takes a collective responsibility to stop bullying. We are excited for this campaign as we want to create empowering, positive messages addressing the fact that when it comes to bullying CHANGE STARTS WITH US!

To find out more please visit:

www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/anti-bullying-week

Every Friday, some of the children from Reception Class to Year 6 come together to attend Social Club.

It is an opportunity to build friendships and relationships across the year groups through a range of activities including football, team building Games, speed cup stacking, coloring, Lego and many more. The children get to enjoy juice and a biscuit together too.

As part of our study of Other Faiths, Year 5 visited the Brighton and Hove progressive Synagogue to learn more about Judaism.

They began with a welcome and an introduction to the synagogue.  Then they looked at the artefacts , including Shabbat items and festival and prayer artefacts. There was then an explanation of the artefacts and a chance to ask questions. Finally the children go t the chance to look at the scrolls.

The children were very well behaved and found out lots of new information about Judaism.

In today’s assembly we were lucky enough to be joined by Charlotte Reader, our Dance Teacher. Some children from Key Stage One performed a dance that they had prepared. The children danced with such confidence and skill. Well done to them!

After the children had done their dance, Charlotte then had the whole school up and dancing. The children really enjoyed themselves and danced very well.

Today was a very special day for the children in Reception Class and Year 6 as they found out who their Faith Buddy is for the year. The Faith Buddy relationship becomes a very special one that the Year 6 take great pride in. They share many special moments together including reading stories, sharing work, going to Mass together and many more. Today, as part of our Judaism topic, the Year 6 children shared apples and honey with their Faith Buddies and explained the significance of this during Rosh Hashanah.

The children in Year 6 took part in a Deanery sports day hosted by St Philip Howard High School. They competed against St Mary’s from Bognor and St Richards from Chichester. They played a range of sports which they all really enjoyed, especially cheering on their peers and supporting one and other. The children’s behavior was exemplary and they came away with the first prize trophy. Many thanks to SPH for hosting and for the other deanery schools for making it such an enjoyable day.

All of the children at St Philip’s get the opportunity to attend Forest School every term with Stuart Slade, our Forest School Leader. The children love the opportunity to spend time outdoors, learning about the world around them.

As Forest School during school time has been so successful we have been lucky enough to have Matt from Bluebell Bushcraft running a fantastic Forest School Club each week, after school on a Friday. The children learn about nature and their habitats, fire lighting and bushcraft techniques, campfire cooking and natural crafts.

Well done to our Year 6 gymnasts who took part in the Littlehampton Locality gymnastics competition on Tuesday 22nd October.The children represented the school very well with Lily being awarded the most improved gymnast in the competition. A big thank you to parents and staff for attending the event.

Today, Pastor Steve Lomas from Arundel Baptist Church came and gave an assembly to Key Stage 2. It was a lovely opportunity for the children to listen to and learn some of the stories and teachings from The Bible. The children listened to the Psalm  ‘Footprints in the sand’. Pastor Steve taught the children a song that they all got to sing along to. We look forward to him visiting again soon.

The Footprints Prayer

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”

He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.”

We would like to say a huge thank you to all of the children and families that have donated food towards our Harvest Festival this year. Fantastic generosity has been shown and we have managed to gather a large amount of really good quality food to help the charity Stone Pillow and The Priory. On Monday, we celebrated the gifts as part of our assembly where we gave thanks and sang Harvest songs. Thank you again to all who have donated.