Herne Bay Junior School
"One chance, let's get it right"
  • Compassion

  • Courage

  • Hope

  • Integrity

  • Justice

  • Respect

  • Responsibility

  • Wisdom


Welcome to Herne Bay Junior School

We are a large junior school serving the centre of Herne Bay. Our website aims to give you a taster of the school, as well as providing regular updated information for both parents and pupils.

We hope that you enjoy your visit to our website, and that you find any information you are looking for. Please feel free to contact the school direct with any queries you may have.

Thank you for visiting!

Spring time in the Forest

We highly value the importance of being outside and the physical benefits that this has on well-being and mental health, particularly during the childhood years. Bi-weekly, the children enjoy an outdoor lesson, in our Forest Area. They also have other opportunities to explore and learn within this stimulating environment. 

Last week, Year 4 enjoyed a session outside hunting for signs of spring and were surprised with how many they found!

We have flowers blooming, frogspawn taking over the pond, bugs coming out of their hiding places and our resident guinea pigs have been moved back to their home within the forest after spending the winter months in a warmer and more secluded spot.

We are looking forward to more sunshine and springtime fun as we are outside in our learning!

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World Book Day at HBJS

 

World Book Day HBJS

 

 

Yesterday we celebrated World Book Day across the school. For one day only the school was filled with a wide range of book characters and the costumes were incredibly creative and resourceful. Throughout the day the children also took part in a range of book related activities. 

 

Why do we celebrate World Book Day? 

World Book Day provides us with an opportunity to promote reading for pleasure and to widen children’s knowledge of the range of choices available to them. I think we were all introduced to a new character or author over the course of the day! 

 

Here is a little taster of what each year group did during the day. 

 Year 3 stepped into the wonderful wizarding world on World Book Day by learning how to draw Hogwarts, participating in quizzes and virtual lessons and designing their own magical sweets! The Year 3 staff enjoyed seeing all the children’s outfits in the costume parade and the children had a great time making their own dragon's eye out of clay with Year 5. 

 

Year 4 pupils and staff enjoyed a parade to start World Book Day and the range of costumes was impressive. They took part in a live ‘Footy and Booky’ Quiz. They also became authors and illustrators, creating their own books titled ‘The Day the PE Equipment Quit’ based on Oliver Jeffers book ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’. 

 

 Year 5 children and staff enjoyed showing off their costumes as they walked the catwalk in their own year group parade. During a scavenger hunt, the children worked in teams to find the answers to clues given using their inference skills. They also enjoyed some paired reading and playing games linked to famous book characters. 

 

Year 6 also had an enjoyable day.  The costumes Year 6 displayed during the parade were amazing. During the day, they participated in a range of activities, such as sharing books with Year 4 children, entering the book token competition and making their own bookmarks.  

 

 The children all went home with a £1 book token. This can be exchanged for one of a selection of free World Book Day books. Don’t forget to use them! 

Network Rail Safety Campaign

Network Rail Safety Campaign

In January, Network Rail contacted us to raise awareness of the risks to children and youths related to negligence near trains.

Their campaign has been developed in relation to the tragic death of Harrison Ballantyne in 2017, when he was in Year 7 at Guilsborough Academy.

Over 20 million students, parents and teachers from across the UK have watched these videos which has led to a significant decrease in the number of fatalities and injuries in their area through watching the safety videos.

Below is the link to the videos we showed in school so you, as parents can watch them at home.

Y3 & Y4 pupils watched- NEW Primary school version: Suitable for KS1 https://learnliveuk.com/ks1-primary-school-safety-talk/  This video uses a railway safety story book to support their understanding of how to keep safe near the railway. The children participated with the Learn Live broadcast discussion/ question part of the video that Y5 & Y6 used below.

Y5 & Y6 pupils watched- NEW Primary school version: Suitable for KS2 https://learnliveuk.com/network-rail-primary-school-safety-talk  This video includes a re-enactment of how Harrison died followed by a Learn Live broadcast discussion/ question session.

 

We have just been informed that as a school we have achieved the achieved the Rail Safe Friendly Bronze Level.

 

 

We now would like to look towards achieving the Silver level.

For this we will be promoting the Switched On Rail Safety website on our social media channels.

The link for you to access this is: https://switchedonrailsafety.co.uk/  

 

 

 

Children's Mental Health Week ‘My Voice Matters'

 

This week, we have enjoyed celebrating Children's Mental Health Week. Using the theme 'My Voice Matters', each year group discussed different ways that children and young people can express themselves, explaining that when we feel empowered to express ourselves, there’s a positive impact on our wellbeing. Children who feel that their voices are heard and can make a difference, have a greater sense of community and self-esteem.

At the start of the week, Year 3 took a stroll to the beach, where they were reminded that nature and physical activity is good for our mental health. At the beach, they each selected a stone to decorate with a positive affirmation once they returned to school.

 

  

In Year 4, Arty Wednesday was inspired by the book ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’. The children created artwork using pencils and paints and different blending techniques to make their pictures come alive. 

 

 

Year 5 shared 'The Red Tree' by Shaun Tan and discussed changes from the beginning to the end of the story. They looked at being kindness superheroes and designed their own superhero outfits and quotes they might use. Year 5 also created leaves for a kindness tree, either about things that make them happy or things that they could do to show kindness in our local area.

 

Year 6 created a piece of artwork with swirls of colour to show the emotions they feel. Each emotion was given a colour and the one felt most powerfully, shone through in their painting.

 At Herne Bay Junior School, we want children of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to be empowered to work together to create a positive change for their mental health and wellbeing. We want every child to be able to say – and believe - “My Voice Matters”.

 

Christmas has arrived at HBJS!

 

Christmas has arrived at HBJS!

 
  

The final week of term has transformed HBJS into a magical environment of festive fun around the school and beyond.

We started off last week with our School Christmas Jumper & Dinner day, it was so lovely to see the hall filled with smiling faces and plenty of festive cheer. The children enjoyed eating Christmas dinner with their teachers, pulling crackers and listening to some Christmas hits!
We would like to say a huge thank you to the Kitchen Staff for putting on such a delicious spread for all to enjoy. 

 

Christmas cards are being posted by children and delivered by our Y6 helpers daily.

 

The children are also enjoying a number of Christmas themed activities in class. 

 

This week has seen each year group’s Christmas party take place where children have enjoyed music, games and quizzes with their friends.

 

Our amazing PTA gifted every child in school a chocolate lolly to enjoy during the party.

These were festively delivered by our 2 naughty office elves in full regalia! 

 

There have been a bumper number of entries for the Christmas colouring Competition this year.

Winners will be announced in celebration assembly this morning.

The PTA have also awarded prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each year group.

  

As a school community we have all thoroughly enjoyed our two Christmas services held at Christ Church.

Reverend Anthony and Reverend Simon welcomed us all and our Y3 pupils performed the Nativity spectacularly for each of the services.

The combination of confidence, joy and hard work from the narrators, actors and singers created a wonderful retelling of the birth of Jesus.

It was lovely to see so many parents, carers, family and friends attend at the church also. 

 

The PTA Christmas disco took place last night, the children enjoyed some Christmas classics as well as some more modern ‘tunes’ to show off our disco moves. 

 

HBJS would also like to thank all of you who contributed to our Gifting Tree. As always it has been incredibly well supported and we wanted to pass on our thanks to you for helping to make Christmas a special time for those who need a little help at this time of year.

 

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

 

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