St Joseph's Parish, Tadcaster
Parish Pastoral Council
Following a discussion between the Bishop of Leeds, Bishop Markus and Fr. Sean Molloy, the PPC at St. Joseph’s has been dissolved. This happened at the last meeting of the PPC held on Sunday 3rd April, 2022. Any business regarding St. Joseph’s in Tadcaster should now be discussed directly with Fr. Sean Molloy.
ST JOSEPH’S CHURCH, TADCASTER
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING - MINUTES
WEDNESDAY 22nd May, 2019
The meeting began at 7.00 p.m. There were 16 parishioners present, including members of the PPC and Father John Newman, Parish Priest.
7.002019 / 150 YEAR CELEBRATION OF ST JOSEPH’S CHURCH UPDATE (Deborah Welch)
7.01Deborah reflected on the events held since last year which included Mini Vinnies’ afternoon teas(next one due to take place on 7 June), Tadcaster Gala, Armistice commemorations, a Race Night, and the Lenten Lunch. A Music Festival and other events are planned.
7.02The new stained glass window for our church created by Helen Wilkinson was approved by the Diocese in January and is to be installed at the end of July. There is approximately £6,000.00 remaining to be raised.
7.03 Regarding the Parish Conversation – one of the early suggestions was that some of our fund-raising should be directed towards others as well as ourselves and Father John’s suggestion to raise £2,200.00 to dig the St Joseph’s Tadcaster Parish Well to provide clean water for a Tanzania village was adopted. To date the amount raised is £1,560.00.
7.04The next fund raising event – a Flower Festival - will take place beginning with a Concert of harp music on Friday, 14 June starting at 7 p.m. (£10.00 including refreshments). Sponsorship of the flower displays – in the name of parish families and deceased relatives/ donations towards flowers is also being sought. Also for help with teas & coffees and in church on Saturday, 15 June.
7.05Tony Berry is also organising a Parish Pilgrimage and Founders’ Mass at Hazlewood Castle.
7.06Thanks were extended to Deborah and the team.
8.ST JOSEPH’S SCHOOL / PRE-SCHOOL REPORT (MARY YOUNG)
8.01“Thank you for inviting me to the Parish AGM. I feel privileged to be Headteacher of St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School as it is a thriving school which is very much of St Joseph’s Parish. This year has been another exciting year as we again grew – to 71 pupils – and have incorporated the Pre-school from 1st May 2019. We continue to have a very dedicated staff who work hard to raise attainment and offer our pupils the highest quality education, whilst nurturing their spiritual growth.
Pupil numbers
8.02There are currently 71 children in school organised into 3 classes:
Class 1 has 27 children, organised as EYFS (15) / Y1 (12)
Class 2 has 17 children, organised as Y2 (10) / Y3 (7)
Class 3 has 27 children, organised as Y4 (15), Y5 (7), Y6 (5)
Transitions
8.03Four of our Year 6 pupils are going to St John Fisher High School and one is going to All Saints’. All Y6 children are participating in transition activities at their new schools in July. All Saints’ and St John Fisher has invited our Y5 pupils to a taster day in June.
8.04We have excellent transition arrangements in place for children joining us in EYFS from St Joseph’s Pre-school and other settings and children/families are invited every week in June. We are holding a new parent’s evening and various transition visits.
8.05In September we will have 80 pupils as five Y6 children are leaving and 14 EYFS children joining us. Governors are committed to keeping the best possible staff pupil ratio whilst managing budgets in these challenging financial times and we have increased our intake from twelve to fifteen in Reception.
Pre-school
8.06We have incorporated the Pre-school as a ‘Governor run Pre-school’. This means that we are managing and developing provision but the Pre-school is not part of our school Census and not included in our school numbers. All Pre-school staff have transferred across to NYCC pay and conditions and we have a very positive relationship to build on. We consulted with Pre-school parents during the conversion process and have had positive feedback from parents. Ten out of the fourteen pupils joining Reception are from St Joseph’s Pre-school, which makes a vital contribution to the on-going development of our school.
8.07The Pre-school will now reflect the Catholic Ethos of our school and staff are committed to including prayer and collective worship into the daily life of the children. We are currently reviewing provision in the Pre-school and will include learning opportunities to reflect the Catholic nature of our school.
8.08The school paid for the Pre-school completion of accounts and now that all payments are complete and the bank account is closed, the Pre-school finances are run by the school. There is a small surplus from the bank account which will be passed on to the parish. The Pre-school would like to thank the parish for enabling them to run the business and allowing them to use the premises with support and understanding over the years.
Governors
8.09Our Governing body continues to provide a great deal of support to our school. During this academic year they have visited our school, attended academy meetings at other venues, helped us with the transition to governor-run Pre-school, provided financial advice and guidance and supported me as a teaching head.
8.10The Governors are a very positive force in our school as they present a professional and positive image of the school. As well as strategic oversight, they undertake many additional duties in school; they speak to parents in the playground and offer help in school to play music, hear readers, support at lunchtime and even gardening. The governing body includes the Chair of Governors, Mrs Mary-Jane Murray, myself and seven Foundation Governors, two Parent Governors, an Associate Governor and a Teacher Governor.
8.11The Local Authority Governor, who was our Safeguarding Governor, has resigned and we are sad to see her go but will now seek to replace this role. Our Associate Governor will gain a place as a Foundation Governor in the near future. Our governors are vital to the success of our school and we are very grateful for their commitment, challenge and support.
Staff
8.12We have an enthusiastic and committed team of teachers and support staff. Miss Fry continues to teach Class 1 full-time, supported by Mrs Vicky Galley. During this academic year, Miss Fry has developed her role as English leader and has continued to do moderations for NYCC as part of middle leadership training. Mrs Galley continues to run our After-school care, cover PPA and provide pastoral support to individuals and groups. Miss Fry will move to Class 3 in September to teach Y5 / Y6 and we are advertising for a new Early Years Teacher.
8.13In Class 2, Miss Lisa McMahon teaches Class 2 full-time, supported part-time by Mrs Rachel Ranby. Sadly Miss McMahon is leaving us to return to Ireland in the summer and we will all miss her enthusiasm and skilful teaching.
8.14Miss Laura Pitchers teaches Class 3, supported by Mrs Caroline Amor full-time and Mrs Clare Axtell part-time. Both Miss Amor and Mrs Axtell support children with SENd and provide additional general teaching support in class. Miss Pitchers is our Maths Leader and she has participated in a Maths Mastery Project this year, to continue to improve standards throughout the school. As a result of the Mastery Project, the school will implement a new maths scheme in September from Reception to Year 6 and we hope this will help us to manager teacher workload.
8.15Mrs Paula McLaughlin provides Admin Support as part of a job share with our newest member of staff, Mrs Claire Norman. They both work hard to provide a high level of support for parents and staff. Mrs Hilary Norman has worked as cook at St Joseph’s for many years and is now supported by a Kitchen Assistant, as we continue to have a growing number of children having a school lunch each day. Support from NYCC is provided by Mrs Jill Stubbs and we continue to work actively with the STAR Alliance to enhance outcomes for children in our school.
Religious Education
8.16The parish continue to fund our Youth Minister, Mrs Joy O’Brien, from St Robert’s Parish in Harrogate. Joy makes a huge difference to our pupils’ enjoyment and learning in RE and this year our Y6 pupils are participating in Faith in Action supported by Joy.
8.17We have one Catholic teacher and two other teachers who are committed to teaching and modelling our Faith. One of our Teaching assistants is Catholic and one is being Confirmed with three Y6 pupils in June.
8.18Our pupil community is currently 40% Catholic. During this academic year, three of our pupils and one Teaching Assistant have been welcomed into our Faith. Two of our pupils have been baptised and one child has been welcomed into the Faith. We ran Sacramental preparation classes for First Holy Communion which included parents in weekly preparation classes. Ten of our pupils, along with another child, enjoyed a beautiful celebration in church earlier this month. We are currently helping families prepare their children for the Sacrament of Confirmation on Pentecost Sunday.
8.19All staff, together with our Chair of Governors, participated in CPD to introduce ‘Character Education’ into our school. We have a focus on Gospel Virtues and helping pupils recognise, understand and develop virtues as part of their Faith development.
8.20David Barnes, Foundation Governor, continues to offer a great support to our school by coming in weekly to play piano, which has greatly enhanced our singing and increased our repertoire of hymns. This year, Alex O’Neil, stepped in to play guitar at our weekly Mass during Lent and we were very grateful for his support during that time.
8.21Our ‘Mini Vinnies’ group is now well established and meet regularly to plan charitable works in school and in the Parish. We raised £850.00 for Catholic Care during our Lenten Appeal, which is the most our school has ever raised. They are now thinking of ways to support the Parish Well Appeal to make a well in Tanzania.
8.22At Harvest Festival, the Mini Vinnies took food to the Salvation Army and at Christmas they sang at their Christmas lunch. We continue to develop their role within the Parish and they helped with an Afternoon Tea earlier this year and will be involved in another tea very soon.
8.23We also learn about other faiths and the children really enjoyed a ‘Diwali Day’ when we brought Sikh dancers into school to tell the story and do activities to help the children learn.
8.24At Christmas we held a Carol Service in church which was very well received by families and parishioners and we donated toys and funds to Catholic Care. At Easter we performed ‘Resurrection Rock’ in church, which was also very well received by parents and parishioners. Our Y6 children visited St Anne’s Cathedral for a tour and will attend on Friday to present our cheque to the Bishop at the Good Shepherd Mass at St Anne’s.
8.25Our families have been generous in supporting our fundraising activities this year and, as well as our donations to Catholic Care, we have raised £40.00 for the Poppy Appeal, £216.00 for Children in Need and £90.00 for Sports Relief.
8.26We are keen to be part of the local community and we participated in the annual Lantern Festival following craft activities with Tad Crafters. We also participate in liturgies, assemblies and services with the other local churches.
8.27In this academic year we have welcomes Rev Sue Sheriff and Major Michael Bainbridge to school assemblies and we will participate in the Leavers’ Service before the end of term. We have also enjoyed a visit from CAFOD this academic year.
8.28Father John continues to support our school and generally attends weekly Act of Worship on a Wednesday. During Lent we went to weekly Mass in church and we have been attending Mass regularly to celebrate Feast Days throughout the academic year. The children particularly enjoyed crowning Our Lady with flowers to celebrate the month of May.
8.29We have attended Sunday Mass monthly to offer a ‘Family Mass’ and this has been well attended by Catholic and non-Catholic families, who all enjoy seeing their children involved in the Mass.
Teaching and Learning
8.30Teachers are very established and observations indicate that teaching is at least good in our school. We continue to develop writing in school and our new writing scheme is embedded throughout the school. We have implemented our new comprehension scheme, spelling and grammar from Y1 to Y6. Maths has been a focus and we will continue to develop Mastery through our new maths scheme in September 2019.
8.31We are very grateful to Emma English, who comes in each week to help at lunchtime and hear readers and also Mr & Mrs Lodge, as well as Mr & Mrs Walford who continue to come and support readers. We would like to invite Parish members who would be interested in supporting reading or doing gardening, art or other activities to contact us.
8.32We are lucky to use St Aidan’s High School science resources, thanks to one of our parents, Mrs Louise Watson, a Parent Governor who works there. Our other Parent Governor, Mrs Jenny Pinder, has shown great commitment to teaching French and supporting our school with MFL commitments in the STAR Alliance. We continue to develop our curriculum and this will be a major focus for the next academic year. Three of our pupils are doing violin lessons in school and music is an area where we would like to do much more in school.
8.33We have utilised sports funding to invest in a new PE scheme and provided training for teachers and support staff to enable them to teach PE in school. We have employed coaches for football, basketball, rugby, cricket and circus skills. In the next academic year we will review PE to ensure that we utilise our funding and offer a broad PE curriculum. The whole school continues to enjoy weekly swimming lessons at Tadcaster Swimming Pool. However, in the next academic year we plan to finish swimming at Y4 as this will give more teaching time in Y5 /Y6 as the groups in swimming are very large.
8.34Our EYFS curriculum and provision continues to develop and the Early Years’ classroom continues to improve, to offer opportunities for children to achieve a good level of development. There are 15 children in this year’s cohort and an unusually high level of Pupil Premium children. These children have needed a high level of social and emotional support and this has resulted in a major focus on social and emotional interventions.
8.35In the next academic year we will include the Pre-school in our EYFS teaching and learning report.
Assessment
8.36Teacher assessment in Key stage 1 SATs indicates that 80% (8 out of 10) will meet age related expectations, with 30% above age related expectations in reading, writing and maths. We expect that 80% (4 out of 5) Y6 will achieve the standard at Key stage 2 SATs with 20% above ARE. Percentages in small cohorts must always be treated with caution as in KS1 SATs one child is 10% and in KS2 SATs one child is 20%.
8.37Although only 50% achieved age related expectations in Y6 last year, our progress score was much improved from previous years and our average overall score in tests improved.
8.38We expect 75% of Year 1 to achieve the standards in the phonics check (9 out of 12) and in Reception we expect 80% (12 out of 15) to achieve a good level of development and 24% to achieve above a good level of development (3 pupils).
After School Clubs / Sporting events
8.39‘The Playhub’ has been in place all year and is utilised by parents. The governors are committed to this service. Although it does not always pay for itself, it offers a vital service to working parents. ‘The Playhub’ has offered additional after school activities such as cookery and sports this year and in the new academic year we plan to run a homework club.
8.40We are committed to developing as a sporting school and last year we achieved the Gold Active Mark as we participated in many sporting activities throughout the year. We are part of a sporting cluster of schools and we have a football team, basketball team, and a netball team who participate in team games. As well as team games we participated in Cross Country racing and two of our pupils reached the final, which included all North Yorkshire schools.
8.41We had a karate taster session, cricket sessions and circus skills.
8.42Despite funding challenges we have run a wide range of clubs throughout the year:
Premises
8.43As a school we continue to buy into the North Yorkshire Maintenance Scheme which provides day to day repairs for the building and for capital projects we work with contractors recommended by the Diocese. Ground maintenance is provided by NYCC.
8.44In this academic year we have renovated Class 3 and put new flooring in Class 1, which were paid for with funds raised by our PTA.
8.45We are currently negotiating with NYCC to establish if we need to replace our electricity mains, as this represents a high capital cost to the school.
8.46The Pre-school central heating pipes must be boxed-in, due to Health & Safety concerns and the floor needs to be repaired.
8.47We will make a capital bid to replace the fence at the school entrance due to safeguarding concerns for Pre-school children.
8.48In the next academic year we will make a capital bid to renovate the resources room, as we will need an additional classroom within the next three academic years.
Educations Visits
8.49The whole school enjoyed a day at ‘Outdoor Ted’ where they learned forest school skills and we had great fun exploring woods and lighting fires. Class 3 have enjoyed a residential visit to Bewerley Park this year and we are very grateful to one of our parents who supported this visit.
8.50All of our pupils enjoyed visiting Harrogate Theatre at Christmas to watch the pantomime. This event was supported by funds from the PTA. We are very grateful to our PTA for their support over the year.
8.51Our younger pupils often use the local area to support their learning and have enjoyed exploring the town and visiting the Fire Station. Reception – Year 3 visited the Countryside Day at Ledston Hall today and Y4 – Y6 will visit Countryside Day at the Great Yorkshire Showground in June.
8.52We are very grateful for the Parish support of our school both financially and through contributions and participation in our school events and masses. We would like to thank parishioners for making our families feel welcome when they come to the Family Mass and our school is very much part of St Joseph’s Parish. We hope that we can continue to strengthen these links during the 150thAnniversary of the Parish.”
8.53Thanks were extended to Mrs Young.
9.PARISH PRIEST’S ADDRESS (Father John)
10. SVP MEETING; THURSDAY, 6 JUNE
10.01A meeting is to take place on Thursday, 6th June at 7 p.m. for all parishioners interested in hearing more about the St Vincent de Paul Society or have questions they wish to ask the representatives who will be with us from the Wetherby SVP.
11.ELECTION TO THE PPC – TONY BERRY
Wednesday, 17 July 2019 at 7.00 p.m.