The whole school gathered in the hall this afternoon, to find out who stole our trophies. The suspects were marched in by our Community Police Officer, Abby, all loudly protesting their innocence. Voting had revealed Neve Maeditt to be the suspect most of us thought guilty, closely followed by Gloria Smansion.  After a recap of the evidence and a drum roll, helpfully provided by the waiting children, Abby finally revealed the culprit. It was…

NEVE MAEDITT!

The evidence against her was undeniable. The sister of Ryan Giggs, she has spent her whole life in his shadow, her sporting talents never acknowledged. As a child, instead of being allowed to develop her footballing skills, she was forced to take part in dressmaking and other such activities. The only trophy she has ever won was a tiny one for sewing and she carries it around with her constantly. The police believe that jealousy over her brother’s many awards  led to ‘trophy envy’ and a search of the huge black sports bag she constantly carries with her revealed many secrets.

She has now been arrested and taken away for questioning. Gloria Smansion is free to continue the search for her next victim husband; Arfur Job has left to carry on with his dodgy building practices (we suggest you shut the door quickly if he ever knocks,); Charity has gone home to relax with her family and animals after the stress of this week; Robin Holmes is hoping to have a quiet life at his grannie’s from now on, safely away from police attention and Tulina Twirlinov has left to search for a role as a backing dancer in pantomime.

We have all had a great time investigating the crime. Hopefully our trophies will be safely back in their cabinet on Monday morning!

We were visited on Thursday by reporters from The Northern Echo. They took photos of our suspects and asked us questions about our mystery week. They are helping us to be reporters, and write about this week’s events in school.

Read the report on The Northern Echo Website

The Scene of the Crime

This week (23rd Feb – 27th Feb)  the whole school are enjoying taking part in a Mystery Week!  We are basing our literacy lessons around the theme of solving a crime.  The children will be writing theories, crime reports, suspect profiles, newspaper articles, conducting interviews and much more! Our trophies have been stolen. We have a crime scene, evidence and some very suspicious looking suspects.  See our mug shots! As the week progresses, we will be enjoying visits from the police to help us with our detective skills, and the press will be visiting to report the crime in the local newspaper, and help the children with their own reporting skills. We are playing a game, very similar to Cluedo, and the children are all aware that this is a game, so that no one is worried about burglaries or criminals!

 On Wednesday our Community Police Officer, Abbey visited to assist with our enquiries. Read more…

On Thursday  a reporter and photographer from the Northern Echo came to school.  They took photos of our suspects and asked us questions about our mystery week. They are helping us to be reporters, and write about this week’s events in school.  Look out for us in The Northern Echo! Read the report on the Northern Echo website.

The culprit will be revealed in a special assembly on Friday!  Until then none of us know…..who dunnit?

Click on the photos of our suspects to find out more about them. Who do you think is the culprit?

Welcome back to school for the second half of Spring Term.  We have a busy week to start our new half term!

On Tuesday (24th February) the Junior Road Safety Officer will be in school talking to Years 5 and 6 about road safety.  On the same day, Year 4 will be praying the Stations of the Cross at 11am at St. Mary’s Church (everyone welcome) and Year 5 will be taking part in Bikability, learning to ride their bikes and scooters safely.

Wednesday  is CAFOD Family Fast Day 2015, which we are supporting as part of our ongoing observance of Lent.

On Thursday representatives from Years 3,4,5, and 6 will be taking part in Cross Country at Bishop Auckland College. They have been training hard and we wish them luck!

Finally, on Friday Year 6 will begin a course of ten sessions focusing on citizenship and personal safety. These will be delivered by various agencies and will culminate in a trip at the end of the course. For more details see Year 6’s class page.

Also on Friday Year 5 travel to Ford Castle in Berwick for a weekend of challenging outdoor and indoor  actitivities. They are all very excited and we are sure they will have a great time!

This year we are supporting CAFOD’s Cut it Out campaign, which focuses on climate change and the effects it is having on people across the world. We will be raising money in school for this and for St. Cuthbert’s Care. For more details download our Lent 2015 newsletter.

Year 5 have had a wonderful time working with a artist from Febfest to produce work based on ‘The Rebellious North.’ Their work can be viewed until 28th February at Bishop Auckland Town Hall.

To read more about the project, visit Year 5’s class page.

Two children from our school attended the Youth Friday Celebration at St. Mary’s Cathedral this week, where they had the chance to meet Bishop Seamus and celebrate Mass with young people from all over our Diocese.  They had an amazing time.

You can read Alisha’s recount of their day here.

Today we were visited by M&M Theatrical Productions, who performed the pantomime Dick Whittington for us. We had a brilliant morning, booing, cheering and singing along to some of our favourite songs. It was an excellent production – one of the best we have seen as a school.

Eleanor said, “I was flabbergasted – it was so good. I was on Captain Hawkeye’s team. Go Hawkeye!”

Olivia added, “Awesome, not nawesome!” and Alisha thought it was “Brilliant, awesome and amazing!”

We hope they come back to St. Wilfrid’s very soon!

Visit our Gallery to see some photos of the pantomime.

On Tuesday 27th January our athletics team took part in the Bishop Auckland Schools Sporthall Athletics event. The children had a great time and behaved like true sportsmen. We were very proud of them, especially as they took 1st place.

Read the full report here!

An incident of online grooming has recently occurred involving primary aged children in Co Durham. Children have been contacted over Skype by individuals claiming to be famous, in particular members of One Direction. The person/ people responsible have not yet been caught. Please read the letter below, sent out to all parents on 19th January.

online grooming