Little Library Official Opening 

On Tuesday, we were privileged to have the Lord Mayor of Canterbury join us to officially open our Little Library. The School Council members, Ava (the winner of the design competition), staff and parents came together to enjoy a reception involving plenty of cake and lots of chatter! The School Council gave a speech after which we headed out to the courtyard for the Lord Mayor to officially open the Little Library through the cutting of the ribbon. We were then treated to an impressive performance from the choir. It was a wonderful event and we are very grateful that the Lord Mayor was able to join us to celebrate this. 

 

    

 

The Little Library has been an ongoing vision of the School Council which has been realised with the expertise of Mr Hewitt, who built the library from scratch. The library was exclusively created from recycled items...even down to the hinges which were used! We are delighted that it is now ready to be used by our school community. The Little Library will open daily from 3pm to enable siblings to access this alongside our pupils as they leave school (it may remain closed in extreme weather). In time, we also plan to enable it to be accessed before school. Please feel free to take or donate books. There is no pressure to return a book but we hope that there will always be books readily available so it does rely on donations to enable this to run successfully. Please just put any book donations straight into the library. Parents are responsible for checking the suitability of books which are both borrowed and donated. All books should be suitable for children under 11. Happy borrowing! 

    

 

Red Nose Day HBJS 2023

On Friday the children dressed in something red for a small donation of £1 to support the Charity Comic Relief which helps people in need in Africa and in the UK.  Red Nose Day is an annual fundraising campaign to end the cycle of child poverty and ensure a healthy future for all children.  This is a great charity and we thank you all for your donations and support.  

    

Last Friday we celebrated World Book Day, including dressing up as your favourite book character!

This was a great activity for everybody in the school to get involved with – even teachers!

Everyone looked amazing in their costumes and are we were so pleased to see the children making a huge effort to dress up as their favourite book character.  

The day was also about enjoyment of books and reading. There were lots of activities taking place across the school allowing the children to share their love of reading including the opportunity to share their favourite book with the class. 

 

World Book Day at HBJS 

    

     

Throughout Children’s Mental Health Week, the children’s learning has been focussed on how we can all take care of our mental health and improve our general wellbeing.

The charity, Place2Be, launched the first Children’s Mental Health Week in 2015 to raise awareness of children and young people’s mental health. The theme of the week this year is ‘Let’s Connect’. Let’s Connect is about making meaningful connections for all, during this week and beyond. People thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing.

This week at school, we have taken the opportunity to talk to the children about connections, as well as using the Disney film ‘Inside Out’ to open up discussions about emotions. Art Day on Wednesday was also an opportunity for the children to think about other ways they can express emotions.

 

 

Year 3 the children explored their range of emotions and how to express them through the use of colour. They also created mood mandalas and wheels of coping mechanisms to help them understand and regulate their emotions. 

Year 4 used the film 'Inside Out' to write a guide to anger and sadness to help the children understand what these emotions can look like and feel like. Their reading text and Art Day was focused on the book 'The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse'. The children used watercolours to create a scene from the book and wrote inspirational quotes to go alongside their artwork.  

Year 5 wrote a letter to Riley - the character from the film 'Inside Out'. The children offered their advice on how to feel more positive about her move to a new school. In art they also recreated images from 'The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse' and added positive affirmations to their images. The children designed their own personality islands too and emotion characters in Computing. On Thursday, the Emotional Wellbeing Team also delivered a workshop to Year 5 called ‘Understanding Worries’.

Year 6 discussed how different feelings can sometimes take control and affect their moods. They then looked at different ways of managing these feelings. As a result of watching ‘Inside Out’, the children created character profiles and reflected their feelings through art. Finally, they have made and played their own board games.

The children have engaged in thought-provoking conversations this week and have produced some fantastic pieces of work. If you would like to find out more about the week, please visit Children's Mental Health Week (childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk)