Holy Family Catholic Primary School
Reception Catholic Life and Mission
‘To Work, To Pray, To Play in the Light of the Lord’
Tuesday 28th January-celebrating the Jubilee year of hope 2025
Mrs Rees led a whole school worship this afternoon so that all children in school could see the very special Jubilee logo and hear how special it is. We all had a photograph with it before it continues it's journey onto Christ the King tomorrow.
Remember this is the Jubilee year of HOPE. What can you do to keep hope alive in your homes?
Friday 24th January - Jubilee Year of Hope
As 2025 is the Jubilee Year of Hope, we are being encouraged by the Pope to be 'Pilgrims of Hope'. In Reception, we read 'The Hope-o-potamus', a story about an optimistic hippo who refuses to give up, no matter how many challenges come his way. This story conveys the importance of hope, courage and never giving up, making it a perfect story for our Reception children to understand the meaning of 'hope' as we begin our journey within this Jubilee Year.
“For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope.” Pope Francis
Friday 29th November 2024
Preparing for Advent
Tuesday 5th November 2024
Remembrance Day activities
Monday 7th October 2024
Here are some of our Reception children who have kindly donated food to be sent to the Leeds Homeless Street Aid. Well done Reception for showing our class virtue of kindness so well!
Thursday 19th September 2024
Reception class are very proud to have kindness as their class virtue, we spoke about how we are so kind that we are blooming with kindness both inside and out. To show this new understanding of our class virtue children decorated a flower for our virtue display titled ‘Blooming with kindness’
Thursday 12th September 2024
Today in R.E. we talked about how we can keep God’s world clean and tidy by picking up rubbish off the floor and putting it into the bin. We discussed how when we leave rubbish on the floor or at the beach we are impacting the lives of the animals that God created.
Jesse 'The turtle will get sick if he eats the rubbish'
Teddy 'The park is all dirty they should put the rubbish in the bin'
Ivanna 'It is not kind to the animals'
Reception class then worked together to clean up around school and helped keep God’s world clean by picking up any rubbish we found.
Thursday 5th September 2024
Together we dressed our altar for the first time. We spoke about how dressing our altar is special as it means we are getting ready to talk to Jesus.
Amelia 'It's a green cloth'
Millie 'Candle'
Leo 'This is the cross that Jesus died on'
Skyla 'The bible tells us stories about Jesus'
Wednesday 12th June 2024
This morning Reception class had their final assembly where we spoke all about Father's Day. We shared our messages about why we love all the dads, grandads, uncles and other father figures we have in our lives. It was fantastic to see so many parents join us for the assembly.
Friday 10th May 2024
As we are in the month of May, We have been learning all about Mary our Mother. In Reception class we learnt that Mary was crowned with flowers so we decided to make our own Mary crowns. We then proudly wore our crowns and had a procession outside, we went back into class and sat on the carpet and closed our eyes to say a prayer
Wednesday 8th May 2024
This morning Reception class joined their Year 6 buddies and walked down to Church to celebrate mass with Father Neil. Reception class sat lovely in church and listened very carefully to the Year 6 children leading the mass.
Friday 3rd May 2024
In Reception class today we were having a discussion about what reminds us of Jesus, we then went for a walk around school to look for signs of Jesus. The children did a fantastic job of identifying lots of things around school that remind us of Jesus.
‘Mary is Jesus mother’ Shaney
‘This is a crucifix, Jesus died on a cross’ Thomas
‘We followed the stations of the cross during Lent’ Zara
‘This is when we went to church’ Joseph
‘We read stories from the bible’ David
Wednesday 1st May 2024
This morning Year 2 lead us all in a May Procession as part of their class assembly. The children all brought in some flowers from home for us to use in the procession to crown Mary our Mother.
Tuesday 30th April 2024
Today while playing outside Wiktoria shouted over to Miss Marshall to come see what she had found, Wiktoria showed Miss Marshall two ladybirds happily sat in the palm of her hand.
“We have to look after them Miss Marshall, I need to find a leaf” Wiktoria told me.
The ladybirds then flew out of Wiktoria’s hand. “Let’s make them a bug house so they are safe if they come back” Joseph said to Wiktoria.
Miss Marshall found a tub for the children to use and we took a walk to the sensory garden to see if there was anything on the floor we would be able to use for the house. The children picked up some leaves, stones, wooden bark and some sticks. They placed them into the tub and sat waiting to see if the ladybirds returned.
Monday 29th April 2024
Early Years are all very excited to share with you all that we now have 3 little frogs in our tank and lots of the other tadpoles are growing and changing quickly. We have named our frogs ‘Colin, Cuthbert and Kermit’ We love to watch the tadpoles and frogs everyday to see how they are growing. We are continuing to help look after them and have been feeding them different foods but their favourite food at the minute is cucumber.
Friday 26th April 2024
This year Earth day fell on the 22nd April but we decided to spend the week exploring Earth Day. In Reception class we talked about how our world is amazing and beautiful, we then had a discussion about the things we could do to help keep our world stay clean.
We talked about picking up rubbish off the floor and keeping Gods world clean and tidy. The children in class were super eager to go for a walk around the school grounds and help to pick up any litter we could find to help keep the world clean.
We then took the rubbish back to Foundation and had a discussion about the rubbish we had found and the different ways to get rid of the rubbish called recycling. The children knew that we had a different bin for putting in used paper to be recycled so we sorted through our rubbish and any paper we had found we placed into our paper bin.
During free time the children were able to take part in different activities all about Earth Day and keeping the world clean and tidy.
Thursday 25th April 2024
Today in Reception class we held our ‘He is Risen’ party for Jesus!! The children wrote party invitations to the party and decorated party hats. We then discussed what food you have at parties and the games they should play to celebrate. We had a fantastic time celebrating
Friday 12th April 2024
This week we have returned to school after our Easter Break and have changed our prayer table cloths in Foundation stage to white or yellow to represent the Easter Season.
The children in Nursery and Reception love to help dress our alters and some children will sit looking through the bible or say their daily prayers.
“We have a candle because Jesus is the light of the world” Esmae
“We share stories about Jesus from the bible” Reggie
“We have a cross because Jesus died on a cross for us” Joseph
Wednesday 27th March 2024
This morning Miss Marshall arrived at school with some tiny tadpoles. The children were very excited, we talked about how God had chosen us to help look after these tadpoles and help them to grow by keeping them clean and feeding them.
In our RE lessons we have been learning all about New Life so we talked to the children about the lifecycle of the frog and explained that frogs start their life as little frogspawn before transforming into tadpoles and eventually growing into frogs. We can help this process by providing love and care by looking after them.
Tuesday 26th March 2024
Today in Foundation stage we held our Easter stay and play session where we invited our families in to play with their children through a range of different activities. Before our stay and play finished we had a special visitor come to see us, we were all very excited to have a picture with the Easter Bunny and enjoyed a yummy chocolate egg.
Friday 8th March 2024
This term in Reception we have been looking at mini beasts, we have had lots of fun in our bug investigation role play area and have talked lots about how mini beasts are Gods creatures and that we must help look after them.
While playing in the garden Theo found a woodlouse and came over to me and said he wanted to find somewhere safe he could place the woodlouse so that it didn’t get hurt by the children running around, He found a safe place in the mud to put the woodlouse.
Miss Marshall brought in some giant land snails for us to look at and we discussed how much bigger they were compared to a snail we would find in the garden. We were very excited when Miss Marshall said we could hold the snails and we talked about how we still had to be careful and gentle with the snails to keep them safe and look after Gods creation.
Thursday 7th March 2024
Today we celebrated World Book Day, we had a day full of sharing stories and doing lots of different activities, The best part of our day was when our Year 6 buddies came down to Reception and we had lots of bonding time together. Before home time we did a teacher swap and Mrs Flanagan came to read us a story it was lovely to listen to different stories read by another adult.
Wednesday 28th February 2024
Today Reception class joined up with their buddies from Year 6 and took a walk down to church to celebrate mass with Fr Neil.
Thursday 22nd February 2024
Our mystery reader this afternoon was Delina’s mum. The children sat and listened so beautifully as she read them a story all about kindness.
Thursday 22nd February 2024
This afternoon Reception class sat in a circle, we began by making the sign of the cross and dressing the alter. As we began dressing our alter the children noticed that our cloth was a different colour.
“Why is the cloth purple?” Asked Mrs Gibbons
“Because we are not in ordinary time” Elijah
“Because we are now in Lent” Layton
The children continued dressing the alter symbolising what each item represents as they place it down.
“The candle shows us that Jesus is the light of the world” Kosi
“We share lots of stories about Jesus from the bible” Thomas.T
“We have the cross to represent that Jesus died on the cross” Arlo
We spent some time together as a class talking and thinking about our class virtue kindness and what it means to be kind and unkind.
“If someone is kind to you, how does it make you feel?”
“Happy” Replied Zara
“I can be kind by playing with my friend Zara” Delina
“I can be kind by sharing the football outside” Yoab
“How would you feel if someone was unkind?”
“It would make me feel sad” Alexander
We then went around the circle and took turns to say one nice thing about someone else in our class.
The children then had the opportunity to get busy in the classroom, we observed lots of children showing kindness to others by;
- colouring in a kindness cup and giving it to a friend
- helping each other fasten up coats to go outside
- giving our friends/teachers a smile or hug
- playing nicely with each other
Some children chose to redress the alter and sat with their friends saying a prayer or reading from the bible.
Wednesday 21st February 2024
This morning Reception class had their very first class assembly all about Valentine’s Day. They shared the story of who Saint Valentine’s was before sharing with everyone what love is and who they loved.
WC 19th February 2024
This week in Foundation Stage we have been fundraising for Lent by selling toast to children and staff at break times. We have had a very successful week and raised £112 for charity. We are super grateful for everyone who bought toast and helped us to raise such an amazing amount of money.
Friday 9th February 2024
This week in Foundation we have been learning all about Shrove Tuesday also known as Pancake Day which will be celebrated on the 13th of February this year.
Pancake Day is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent where people would use up all of their ingredients to make pancakes before the 40 day fasting season began.
As we are on half term on the 13th we celebrated this week by offering the children the ingredients of a pancake in a tuff tray to explore; the children loved cracking the eggs into the bowls, pouring in milk and flour and using spoons or whisks to mix and make a batter. The child talked about how the ingredients had changed when mixed together.
We then provided the children with pancakes and frying pans for them to model flipping pancakes before we then had a special treat of trying some pancakes and choosing which topping we would like.
Thursday 8th February 2024
Our special guest reader this afternoon was Alexander’s mum who came to read the children one of Alexander’s favourite stories. The anticipation and excitement that the children build up while waiting to see who the mystery reader may be is immense.
Thursday 8th February 2024
This morning in Early Years we invited in the children’s parents for our Valentines stay and play session.
This was a perfect opportunity for the parents to play with their children in the school environment which helps us to build those stronger parent partnerships.
We had lots of different activities available for the children to explore and investigate.
Thursday 25th January 2024
This afternoon we welcomed another family member to come and read a story for the children. Inviting parents/relatives into school to read to the children helps to strengthen the home-school connection that is so important in helping the children grow as readers.
January 2024
Our children in Reception class have returned to school after the Christmas holidays with lots of love and kindness for their friends. During free time the children have been showing our virtue of kindness in many ways;
Helping out friends fasten their coats
Playing together to build castles
Building towers together
Helping each other during play by painting pictures and in the water tray
Tuesday 16th January 2024
This afternoon in Reception class we were very lucky to have another mystery reader come into class to read us a story. The children get very excited to see who the mystery reader is related to and sit guessing who it might be.
Monday 17th December 2023
This week Foundation Stage have enjoyed inviting our parents into school to watch our Nativity performance where we retold the story of Jesus’ Birth.
Thursday 7th December 2023
This afternoon we enjoyed another visit from one of our mystery reader parents. Today we had Joseph’s mum who came to read us the story ‘The tiger who came to tea’
Our mystery readers love coming to surprise the children and it’s a lovely way to promote engagement and a love for reading for the children.
Thursday 7th December 2023
Today we were visited by our Year 6 buddies and participated in worship together. It was all about forgiveness and how we can be more forgiving - just like Jesus - during the advent period.
Tuesday 5th December 2023
This afternoon in Foundation Stage we held our Christmas stay and play session where we invite our families in to come and play with their children. The children had a fantastic time joining in with lots of different activities we had available.
Friday 1st December 2023
Today in Reception class we spoke about how our Altar cloth has now changed colour from green to purple as we are now in Advent season.
We then sat together to prepare our class Advent wreath for our Altar. The children took turns adding to our Advent wreath with greenery that was foraged outside. We talked about how the Advent wreath helps us to countdown to the birth of Jesus and that we will light one candle each week until Christmas eve. We talked about the different meanings of the candles;
Candle one is purple and symbolises Hope
Candle two is purple and symbolises Peace
Candle three is pink and symbolises Joy
Candle four is purple and symbolises Love
The last candle is white which is lit on Christmas Day to represent the birth of Jesus.
Thursday 23rd November 2023
This term in Reception class we have introduced mystery reader which is where we invite in our family members to come and read the children a story at the end of the day. The children get really excited waiting for our mystery reader to see who they are and what story they will read.
Mysteries challenge our perception, pushing us to view the world through a lens of curiosity.
Thursday 26th October 2023
Today in Reception class we have spent the afternoon with our Year 6 buddies. We have been playing together in the classroom sharing our toys and sitting in the library reading stories together.
Tuesday 24th October 2023
This morning in Early Years we held our Halloween Stay and Play. Our parents were invited into school for the opportunity to play and socialise together with their children through a range of different activities set out within the areas.
Our children and parents had a fantastic time exploring all the activities available and it was great to see so many parents attending our stay and play session.
Monday 9th October 2023
Here are just some of our Reception children who have kindly donated food to be sent to the Leeds homeless street Aid.
Friday 29th September 2023
This week at Holy Family our Live Simply children have been coming around school selling paper lightbulbs to help raise funds for new lighting at Holy Family Church. We are hopefully going to sell enough lightbulbs to enable us to do a paper chain around the full school hall.
Thursday 21st September 2023
Today in RE we talked about how we can keep God’s world clean and tidy by picking up rubbish off the floor and putting it into the bin. We also talked about the different rubbish and which materials are recyclable and non-recyclable.
Reception class then went for a walk around school and helped keep God’s world clean by picking up any rubbish we found. As we went around school we sang a song to help us
“We are litter picking, we are litter picking, keep God’s world clean, keep God’s world clean”
Thursday 14th September 2023
Today in Reception class we learnt all about the Creation Story, we talked about how God created the world-Darkness, light, the land, the sea, animals and Adam.
The children then explored the tuff tray during free flow play recreating the Creation Story with their friends.
“The lion lives on the grass at the zoo” Elijah
“The whale lives in the water” Daniel
Monday 11th September 2023
Today while the children were playing they found a spider crawling across the floor, we carefully placed the spider into a box and talked about how we must be careful and kind to the spider as it is one of Gods creatures.
We discussed how we must look after all the creatures we find as they are all a part of Gods world.
Friday 8th September 2023
This week we have been settling into our new class and making lots of new friends. We have been helping The Worry Monster learn all about our class virtue ‘Kindness’
We have talked about what kindness means and how we can show kindness.
”To share with our friends” Zara
“Be kind” Joseph
”Kind hands” Elijah
The children then each coloured in a heart full of kindness to add to our ‘tree of kindness’ which helps us to remember to be kind to all those around us.
Thursday 7th September 2023
This week in RE we have been learning and talking about our class altar. We have talked about what the altar is for and the different things we place on the alter.
”The green cloth because we are in ordinary time” Zara
”A cross because Jesus died on the cross.” Alan
”A candle because Jesus is the light of the world” Alexander
“The bible tells us stories about Jesus” Joseph
The children decided to take turns to dress the altar during free flow play and were able to talk about the different items they were placing on it.
Alexander was playing in the play dough area when he came over to Mrs Abrahams “Look I’ve made a candle for Jesus because he’s the light of the world”.
Monday 18th July 2023
This afternoon Reception and Year 6 celebrated their Graduation together,We went into the hall and sat with our buddies before getting up together and receiving a certificate.
We then listened to them tell us about what they have enjoyed about being our buddies and we gave them a picture we had drawn for them.
The children then sat together and enjoyed a slice of cake and a cup of juice.
Tuesday 10th July 2023
Today at Holy Family we celebrated Mission Day! We did lots of different activities throughout the day relating to our school mission:
‘To Work, To Pray, To Play in the Light of the Lord’
We started our morning by joining the rest of the school for worship assembly to introduce mission day and what our mission means and talk about the different ways we follow our mission.
Reception class then partnered up with Year 5 children to work together on solving different clues to find letters which then spelt out the phrase ‘Persevere with God’
The children then made pictures showing what they thought love meant.
After snack time we joined Year 5 on the Muga pitch to play some games, working together and showing kindness to our friends.
After lunch we joined the carpet to pray together remembering how Jesus carried his cross to take away our sins and hurt. The cross symbolises love, hope, joy, peace and strength.
Reception then spent some time decorating our own crosses and talked about how our crosses can remind us that we can always turn to God if things get hard and how he is always here for us.
‘God is the light of the world’ Simer
’Jesus died on the cross’ Martha
We then rejoined the school in the hall where we held our crosses up high and had a procession around school showing our love for Jesus, when we got back into the hall we placed our crosses on to the alter to be blessed by Father Neil.
Our school mission day finished by taking home one of the love pictures created during the day by our friends to remind us we are all loved and we are all apart of one big family.
Wednesday 24th May 2023
Today while playing outside some children found a ladybird in the grass, The children took turns to let the ladybird crawl on their hands.
”Why are you being gentle with the ladybird?” Miss Marshall
“Because we have to be gentle” Alfie.S
“Because it is only little and we don’t want to hurt it.” Amara
“We have to look after Gods creatures” Matthias
We then talked about how we have to all help look after God’s creatures and help them to stay safe.
Friday 12th May 2023
This week in RE we have been learning all about The Ascension.
”What is the Ascension?” Miss Marshall
”Jesus went into the clouds to Heaven” Alfie.S
”Jesus went to Heaven to see his father, the disciples were sad.” Matthias
”He got up in the sky to see his dad” Anna
”He floated up to Heaven” Martha
Some children enjoyed retelling the story to their dollies using the alter as a stage.
Thursday 20th April 2023
Today in Reception class we are learning all about Earth Day. The children sat on the carpet and talked about the different ways we can look after Gods World:
- picking up rubbish
- recycling-putting paper in the recycle bin
- using reusable items such as shopping bags and water bottles
- riding a bike to school
As a class we then went for a walk outside in the playgrounds to look for any rubbish we could pick up to keep our world clean and tidy.
When we got back to class we then got busy with lots of activities thinking about how to look after Gods World.
Thursday 6th April 2023
This afternoon Nursery and Reception class visited the stations of the cross which retell the story of Jesus’ passion through images, prayers and reflection.
After visiting the stations of the cross Nathaniel found a palm leaf in the outdoor area and came to show me he was waving the palm leaf for Jesus.
Wednesday 5th April 2023
Today in Early Years we hosted our Easter Stay and Play. We invited our parents in to play with their children and explore the different activities available.
During Stay and Play the children had a very special visit from the Easter Bunny who brought lots of chocolate eggs with him.
Tuesday 28th March 2023
Last week in Reception class we were learning all about the Easter Story in our RE lesson. This weekend Martha visited soft play with her dad and as she was playing she asked him to take a picture of her.
‘Martha as Jesus laid in the tomb’
’Martha in the tomb with the boulder as the door of the cave’
Week Commencing
Monday 6th March 2023
This week in Foundation Stage we have been selling toast to the rest of the school to help raise funds for different charities.
In total we have raised an amazing £66.20!
Friday 3rd March 2023
During Lent this year Holy Family are taking part in ‘The Big Lent Walk’ raising funds for CAFOD. Each class will go out for a walk in the community visiting different locations to help contribute to our total of 200km in 40days.
Today children in Reception class partnered up with their buddies from Year 6 and went for a walk at Pugneys Country Park. The children had a fantastic morning and had a lovely walk around the lake.
Friday 24th February 2023
During lunchtime today we took the children over to play on the Muga Pitch, Some children noticed all the rubbish blowing around in the wind so Miss Marshall went and got a bin bag to put all the rubbish in. Together we all helped to pick up the rubbish and we talked about how we were helping to keep God’s World clean and tidy by doing so.
Thursday 23rd February 2023
Reception class have been talking about different ways we can show kindness to our friends. Some children gave a thank you card to their friends, some filled a cup with happiness and some children were seen helping their friends who needed a little bit of help.
Matthias gave Nathaniel a thank you card because..“Nathaniel plays football with me”
Emily gave Anna a cup filled with happiness because..”She is my best friend and I love her”
Wednesday 22nd February 2023
This morning we walked down to church with our buddies to celebrate Ash Wednesday Mass which marks the first day of Lent.
“What did you do at church this morning?” Miss Marshall
”We celebrated Ash Wednesday” Anna
”We said some prayers” Eduard
”Father Neil put the sign of the cross on my head” Alfie
When we got back to school after Mass our Prayer table monitors changed our cloth to purple to reflect the start of Lent.
Tuesday 21st February 2023
Today in Reception class we have been celebrating Shrove Tuesday also known as Pancake Day which is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent.
The children listened to Miss Brown tell the story ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’ they then talked about the ingredients needed before working together to write a recipe. In the afternoon the children enjoyed tasting some pancakes and chose their own topping.
Wednesday 8th February 2023
This morning in Early Years we held our Valentines Stay and Play session. Our parents were invited into school for the opportunity to play and socialise together with their children through a range of different activities set out within the areas.
On arrival into school the parents were invited into the library where they had a group session with the lovely Joey from MindMate who gave a discussion on emotional well-being and mental health and the support that is available.
The children had a fantastic time playing and exploring all the different activities we had on offer and it was lovely to see so many of our parents join us for this morning’s stay and play session.
Friday 3rd February 2023
Today is Virtues Day and in Reception we have being looking at kindness and what it means to be kind.
”How can we show kindness?” Miss Marshall
“Sharing toys” Eliana
”Being nice to each other” Anna
”Playing together” Gabriel
”Sharing books” Aros
Wednesday 1st February 2023
Today in Reception we have spent some time together with our buddies from Year 6. We have been sharing our toys and learning new games.
”What have you enjoyed doing today with your buddy?” Miss Marshall
”Building towers with the bricks” Dayan
”She makes me happy” Samuel
”Playing in the sand area” Eliana
”He helped me play on the bikes” Amara
Wednesday 1st February 2023
In Reception Class we have chosen 2 children to be our Prayer Table Monitors. These children will help look after our class prayer table.
“The green cloth is to show ordinary time” Matthias
”The candle shows that Jesus is the light of the world” Anna
Wednesday 16th November 2022
This morning, we headed down to Church with our buddies for Mass with Fr Neil. The Year 6 children read beautifully and Reception were so well behaved : )
