Whole School Events

New School Building Work Begins – October 2016 – September 2017

The construction of our two new classroom and sports hall has begun. Our Head Boy and Head Girl began the works by making the first dig. The children will keep you updated on how the project progresses by taking photographs at different stages of the build.

 

Winners our photography competition

Huge congratulations to Liam and Anna Harris who won our photography competition with fantastic photographs of our Seaham coastline.  The children received a special t-shirt with their winning image printed on them and framed picture.  Well done Liam and Anna from everyone at school.

 

Our new school cross is complete

The new school cross our children have been working on, with our local artist Helen Pickard, is now finished.  We hope to have it up and in place on our new school building over the half term holiday.

 

Mayor of Seaham Visits School

The Mayor of Seaham visited the children to talk about all the fabulous things that Seaham has to offer. Councillor Sonia Foster answered lots of pupil questions and even allowed some lucky children to wear the Mayor’s gold chains. It was a lovely afternoon and who knows – we might even have a future mayor in school!

Enjoying our ‘Books and Bakes’ sale

Thank you to all who joined us for our ‘Books and Bakes’ sale. It was lovely to see so many children and parents enjoying their time reading together. Thank you to all who baked cakes for the day and donated books- they were enjoyed by all! A big thank you to Mrs Jubb and the ‘Friends of the School’ group for their fantastic effort and hard work to make the day such a success. A total of £538 was raised – well done!

Design and Technology Week – ‘Cavalcade of Crash Helmets’

As part of our Design and Technology week the school held a ‘Cavalcade of Crash Helmets’ competition. The aim  was to promote bike and scooter safety to the children and to promote the wearing of cycle helmets when riding bikes or scooters. There was certainly a fantastic selection of helmets on show. Well done to all that took part and to the year group winners, selected by our very own school council.

Family Fun Day at our Summer Fayre – June 2017

Thank you to everyone who joined us at our St Mary Magdalen’s summer fayre. It was a fantastic day with children and parents having a fun filled afternoon! Thank you to all the volunteers and helpers who worked really hard to make sure the day was a success. Thank you also to all our community business sponsors who donated prizes for the fayre. Special thanks must go to Mrs Spence for all her time and hard work in ensuring the children had a day to remember. The current total raised was £1682 with further donations expected to come in this week. The money raised will go a long way in helping to provide further enrichment opportunities for our children.

Art Day 2017

Profession artist, Jane McCraken, visited school once again to deliver a number of work shops to the children during our Art Day. Following on from an inspiring art assembly, Jane worked with individual classes in helping the children to produce some fabulous pieces of contemporary art work. These art pieces will be displayed in the school in the coming weeks so please look out for them when you visit school. Thank you Jane for all your hard work!

Further information regarding the work of  Jane McCracken can be found on her website: http://www.janeleemccracken.co.uk

Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant Visits School

The Mayor and Mayoress of Durham visited school this week along with another very important visitor. The Queens’s Lord–Lieutenant (British monarch’s personal representative in each county of the United Kingdom) visited school to talk to the children and to share her experiences and to outline the role that she does. Lord -Lieutenant, Mrs Sue Snowden, had a tour of the school and called into each classroom to speak with the children and to answer a range of questions. We must say, both children and staff thoroughly enjoyed meeting and speaking with Lord -Lieutenant Snowden who was extremely friendly and full of fascinating facts.  We hope she enjoyed her visit into school and she is always welcome to visit again in the future.

School Spiritual Garden Open!

Councillor Bell visited school to officially open our new Spritual Garden. The garden will be the perfect place for children and parents to sit in a quiet and peaceful space, to have time for self reflection and prayer. The garden also remembers one of our past pupils, Megan Bell, who sadly passed away last year. Thank you to Councillor Bell who, on behalf of DCC, donated £1000 towards the cost of the garden. Thank you also to Mr Sinclair who did all the special wood carvings that make the garden so special.

 

A Day at the Beach

Our end of year trip was a school visit to our local Seaham beach. The weather was fabulous, the sand was lovely and the water was warmer than usual! The children had a fabulous day building sand castles, playing beach games, catching star fish, paddling in the water and eating delicious ice creams! Thank you to all the parent helpers on the day – what a fabulous school community we have!

A Piece of Africa Arrives in School

The school was filled with the sounds of African music, singing and drumming. The children enjoyed a day of learning how to play African drums and performing in front of a whole school audience! Thank you to Fanuel Kapumba for bringing a piece of Zimbabwean music into school and giving the children a memory they will certainly never forget!

Remember to stay E-Safe 

Our Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 children held fabulous E-Safety assemblies in school. The message to stay safe whilst online certainly hit home. Thank you to all the parents who attended and to Pauline Stewart from DCC who held separate talks with parents on E-safety issues. There will be further information sent out to parents on the issue of E-Safety. Feel free to pick up an E-safety leaflet from the school reception area. You can also update your E-safety knowledge by visiting the E-safety page on our school website.

Professional Artist helps our children to excel during Art Day in school

A profession artist, Jane McCraken, delivered a number of work shops to the children during our Art Day. Following on from an inspiring art assembly, Jane worked with individual classes in exploring different art mediums and helping the children to produce some fabulous pieces of art work. These art pieces will be displayed in the school hall in the coming weeks so please look out for them when you visit school. Jane will be putting together a collection of the children’s art work to create a school poster. Copies of this poster will be available to buy during our school ‘Books and Bakes’ sale later this term. Thank you Jane for all your hard work!

Happy 90th Birthday to our Queen!

On Friday 10th June our school celebrated the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. In the morning the children did lots of activities linked to the Royal Family and how they have influenced our British culture and values. The afternoon saw a fabulous ‘Royal Tea Party’ in our school yard, where children and staff came together to share food, song and some fun dancing. All in all it was a day to remember!

World Book Day

As part of our celebration of World Book Day, children and staff raided their dressing up boxes and came to school dressed up as their favourite book character.  As you can see, there was a fantastic variety of characters.  Children enjoyed the day sharing books with different classes and doing a range of  creative World Book Day activities!  They ended the day with a whole school parade in the hall. Even our Year 5 and 6 children, who were away at FORD Castle for their residential week, celebrated World Book Day by sharing their favourite books with each other.

Year 2 are Sooper-Dooper-Hoopers!

Well done to our Year 2 children who took part in the Hoopstarz Festival day at East Durham College on Tuesday 23rd February. It was a fabulous day with lots of fun activities and skills being carried out. Well done also to Mrs Bowie who showed that she still has all the moves when it comes to hoola-hooping! It was especially good to hear from the college that our children, as always, had impeccable attitude and behaviour throughout the day. If you are popping into school please take time to take a look at our ‘Wall of Fame’ and you will see a photo of all our children with their Hoopstarz certificates. Well done Year 2 – I’m really proud of you all! – Mr L J Duncan (Headteacher)

Fire safety – not a Flash in the Pan!

With Pancake Day fast approaching, Seaham Fire Brigade came into school to discuss ways to keep safe in the kitchen.  They reminded everyone about what to do with unattended pans, what to do in the case of an emergency and how to stop, drop and roll which was expertly demonstrated by one pupil. Some of our Year 6 children were then lucky enough to try flipping pancakes – and then sampling them!

St Mary Magdalen’s would like to say a big THANK YOU to the community safety team who did a great job in getting the message across to the children.
Front Page News!! – find out more about what our children got up to on the CDDFRS news web page.

Other Christmas Events

Christmas was an extremely busy time: Year 5 visited Beachcomber nursing home to sing Christmas carols, Year 3 and 4 entertained everyone with their Christmas play and of course, everyone had a fabulous time at their class party!

Christmas Lunch

We all wore our wackiest and wonderful Christmas jumpers to enjoy a delicious Christmas lunch!

Christmas Music Concert

Our talented woodwind and brass musicians performed alongside pupils from St Bede’s in a Christmas carol concert.  They entertained us with a selection of old and new Christmas songs which really helped everyone to get into the festive mood.

Christmas Fayre

The Friends of the School organised yet another spectacular Christmas Fayre which was very well supported.  The Year 6 children helped to run a variety of stalls which would suit all tastes including: face painting, cake stalls, a tombola, a fabulous raffle and not forgetting a visit to Santa Claus! An amazing £1782.15 was raised on the day!

Children in Need

Once again, everyone rallied together to raise money for this very worthwhile cause.  Organised with the help of the Year 6 class, Pudsey Bear’s face was covered with 2p and 1p coins.

Remembrance Day

This special day was marked by all classes.  Reception and KS1 marked the occasion by planting crosses around the Willow Sculpture outside the front entrance.

Both Year 3 classes went to the Cenotaph to observe two minute’s silence with other members of the Seaham community.   They also planted their own wreath as well as crosses along the line of reconciliation.  Other Key Stage 2 classes marked the day with a minute’s silence at 11:00am.

 

 

 

 

 

Spooky Writing Day

Everyone donned their scariest costumes and got into role to produce some really spooky writing.

Halloween Disco

To continue the scary theme, witches, monsters, ghouls and ghosts roamed the school for the annual school Halloween Disco.  a great time was had by all.

World Maths Day

World Maths Day was held on 15th October.

To celebrate, we all took part in lots of exciting Maths activities from measuring to tesselating patterns to an outdoor maths trail!