St Catherine's RC Primary

Congratulations to our amazing Excel Netball Team, who won the Manchester Netball Finals! 🏆

Nine schools attended the final and St Catherine's came in 1st place! The team were awarded a well-deserved trophy and gold medals - what a fantastic achievement! We're so proud of you all!

Year 2 Safari! 🦅 🦁 🐅 🦭

On Thursday, our Year 2 children visited Knowsley Safari Park. To begin, the coach took the children on the safari drive, followed by seeing more animals up close and of course the sea lion show. A wonderful day for our wonderful Year 2’s!

🦙 🐑 🐐 🐓 🦆

One of our favourite days of the year! On Wednesday, our Early Years playground turned into a farm for the day, as we welcomed Farmer David and his animals from Bowland Farm! The children had opportunities to stroke and feed different animals and walk Molly the alpaca around our playground!

A fantastic day as always, we’re already looking forward to our visit next year!

A huge congratulations to The Barlow RC High School for their OUTSTANDING section 48 inspection! 🥳 🎉

🎉 We are thrilled to share with you our Section 48 Inspection press release. This milestone reflects the dedication, passion, and excellence of our entire school community.

Thank you to everyone who made this achievement possible 🙌

📄 Read the full press release here:https://www.thebarlowrchigh.co.uk/docs/Newsletters/Section_48_Newsletter.pdf

📄 Read the full inspection report, please click here:
https://www.thebarlowrchigh.co.uk/Ofsted-Report/CSI_Report_-_May_2025.pdf

🇪🇸 Bienvenidos! 🇪🇸

This morning the whole school welcomed our Spanish friends and their teachers. We were delighted that The Lord Mayor of Manchester, and one of our local councillors Andrew Simcock joined us for a special welcome assembly.

The sun was shining and Y5 and Y6 have spent the day in class carousel activities having lots of fun! We hope everyone has a fabulous week strengthening friendships and of course making lots of new ones too.

Pope Leo XIV ….. Robert Francis Prevost

Born in Chicago to a French mother and an Italian father, and known to many friends as “Father Bob”, the former Cardinal Prevost lived in Peru working with the poor for many years, rising to be head of the Augustinian Order and later to be Bishop of Chiclayo. He has both United States and Peruvian citizenship.

Fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese, and with a passing ability in German, our new Pope has chosen the name Leo, perhaps as a compliment to Pope Leo XIII, or to Brother Leo, who was a companion of St Francis of Assisi.

Leo XIII is best known for his Encyclical letter, “Rerum Novarum”, which translates as “of revolutionary change” which it certainly was when published in 1891. This encyclical described the social conditions of the working classes, referenced issues of poverty in the Bible, and was the precursor for what Catholic social teaching now calls the “preferential option for the poor”. Those of us educated in Catholic secondary schools in the 1950s and 1960s will (if our memories still work!) be familiar with the impact of Pope Leo XIII on Catholic social teaching.

Pope Leo XIV is seen as faithful to so much that Pope Francis achieved, and particularly to implementing the outcomes of the recent worldwide Synod.

We pray for God’s blessing on Pope Leo XIV and on his pontificate.

🇬🇧 We have had a wonderful VE Day celebration this afternoon, with the whole school enjoying a picnic and sing song, led by our wonderful Ms Dewnsap! Thought out the day, the children have been completing lots of activities relating to VE Day too! 🇬🇧

📖 📕 Come and take a book! 📖 📕

We are in the process of updating our school libraries and have lots of books available for our children to take home! Our book trolley will be outside school each morning and afternoon, so come and take a look!

Today is St. Catherine of Siena Day. We attended mass this morning and invited parishioners and our families back to school for a special morning of events.
This afternoon, we treated all of our wonderful school children to an ice-cream or lolly from our ice cream van! The perfect treat for a lovely sunny afternoon! ☀️ 🍦

Join us on Friday for our PTA coffee morning! ☕️ 🫖 🎂 🍰 🧁

Yesterday, Year 1 have had a 'royal day' launching our new Topic 'Kings and Queens'. We came in dress liked royalty and have shown off our amazing knowledge already. We made our very own fabulous crowns ready for our royal banquet in the afternoon where we ate like kings and queens and enjoyed some entertainment from our friends. We had an amazing day and we can't wait to start our new history topic!

Our Spanish exchange is in full swing! 🇪🇸
Children at Mallón have enjoyed a cultural walk to Ramallosa. They met the mayor and had a tour of the town hall. Afterwards, they visited a closed order convent and ordered a ‘Tarta de Santiago’ cake from one of the nuns. They then toured a life-size replica of the 15th Century Carabela A Pinta sailing ship which was fantastic!