News

• Tuesday 14 July 2026 Quad Kids Oxfordshire County Final Competing against the top 10 schools from 242 primary schools across the county, our team put in another fantastic performance and proudly finished as County Runners-Up, securing an impressive 2nd place.
• Tuesday 14 July 2026 Year 6 Production Our incredibly talented Year 6 children truly shone in their recent production of 'Shakespeare Rocks'. Telling the story of the life of William Shakespeare, the children brought forward the story of how this talented writer became the greatest bard of all time; their acting, singing and dancing were simply stunning! Thank you, too, to everyone who worked hard behind the scenes to help make this show a huge success. Congrats Team Year 6 2026!
• Tuesday 14 July 2026 School Travel Plan We have been awarded 'Good' for our school travel plan. Miss Timms has been working alongside Kathryn Horsepool from the local authority to promote active travel. Remember to keep those active journeys going to be awarded a badge at the end of each month!
• Tuesday 14 July 2026 Year 4 Ukulele Concert On Thursday last week, the Year 4 children got the opportunity to showcase everything they had learned during their ukulele lessons in a concert to parents and carers. Despite the heat, all the children and audience joined in with a rousing chorus of "Sweet Caroline" and the children ended the concert with their favourite tune "Sponge Bob Square Pants"! A big thank you to Phil from the music service for his excellent teaching all year.
• Tuesday 14 July 2026 Year 4 & 5 Screen Workshop Last week, on Monday, the children in Year 4 and Year 5 had a workshop called "Me and My Screen" which covered how to find a healthy balance with technology. The children considered questions such as: What are the advantages and disadvantages of the internet? And how much time does the average 15-year-old spend online in a day? (The answer is about 5 hours a day!) We also learned about how tech companies design phones, apps and games to be addictive and we discussed the top tips you can see here. For more information go to: Papaya Talks
• Tuesday 7 July 2026 Music Assembly Last week a handful of children took part in an amazing music assembly showcasing what they have been learning this year. All children did a fantastic job and should be very proud of them selves. Thank you to Mrs Aitken for organising and ensuring the children were all performance ready!
• Tuesday 7 July 2026 Jane Brooks Gym & Swim
• Tuesday 7 July 2026 Hawthorn visit Radley Farm Hawthorn had a great day at Radley Farm on Friday 3rd July. The children saw larger and smaller animals including fully grown Beagles and Beagle puppies, ferrets , Herdwick sheep, goats a rabbit and chickens . Hands-on activities included feeding goats with goat willow leaves and home -grown carrots, feeding a lamb some milk, finding chicken eggs, stroking the ferrets and carefully toasting some marshmallows. Radley Farm staff commented on how well behaved all the children were and all the children were very taken by the animals.
• Tuesday 30 June 2026 Poplar visit Radley Farm On Friday, Poplar Class had a wonderful time at Radley Farm. Due to the heat, they set off early at 8:30am and were back to school by 12. During their visit they handled guinea pigs and Bob the rabbit, bottle fed an 8 week old lamb and hand fed pigs, chickens and goats. To finish off the visit, they had an ice pop and toasted marshmallows. Thank you to Charlie at the farm for making adjustments to keep us safe and thank you to Mrs Lawson for driving the minibus and staying with us for the morning.
• Thursday 25 June 2026 Book Swap 2026 Another successful book swap! Thank you to everyone who donated books. It was great to see the children leaving with new books to enjoy at home. The event would not have been possible without a team of volunteers from the Oxford Children's Book Group (only a few of them shown in the picture!) - so a huge thank you to them too! See you again next year!
• Thursday 25 June 2026 Author Alison Weatherby visits St Swithun's
• Tuesday 23 June 2026 Sports Days June 2026 Thankfully the children we able to take part in the KS1 and KS2 sports days before the warmer weather arrived. All children did a fantastic job at participating in a range of activities such as long jump, javelin throwing, relay races and long distance running. Thank you to all parents and carers who came and cheered them on!
• Tuesday 23 June 2026 Lalya Moran MP visited St Swithun's
• Friday 5 June 2026 Year 5 Space Homework
• Thursday 4 June 2026 Kilvrough
• Tuesday 19 May 2026 Smartphone Free Childhood
• Friday 27 March 2026 Radley College Visits A group of children have been attending Radley Farm every Tuesday morning and have been enjoying getting to know the farm's furry residents as well as learning an array of transferable skills such as teamwork and perseverance. The children have grown in confidence and shown bravery and patience each week whilst working with the animals. They should be proud of the skills and experiences they have achieved so far. Our thanks to Radley College for enabling this to happen.
• Tuesday 24 March 2026 Children's Mental Health Week In our recent Children's Mental Health Week, we linked the overall national theme of 'This is my place' with learning about 'myHappymind Places'. During this week, the children deepened their recognition and understanding of their own and others' emotions. We also explored different self-regulation strategies that could help should we feel some big emotions and our 'Team HAP' is not working as well as we would like. In addition, we reflected on the power of belonging and feeling connected, and created some stunning 'belonging bunting' to represent our thoughts. The beautiful creative balloon homework certainly brought our learning together - there were lots of brilliant creations that also reflected some of the strategies we can use to help us on our way.
• Tuesday 24 March 2026 Eco Crew Litter Pick On Friday, the Eco Crew headed out into the streets around school for our community litter pick. The children were thanked by several passers-by and felt a great sense of satisfaction in playing a small part in keeping our community tidy! A huge thank you to our adult volunteers for helping us out.
• Tuesday 17 March 2026 Year 3 & 4 Girls Football Tournament Last Wednesday, some our year 3's and 4's represented our school in a girl's football tournament at King Alfred School. The girl's demonstrated great teamwork skills and were incredibly supportive of one another. They also showed amazing perseverance while playing back-to-back games. A massive well done to all.
• Tuesday 10 March 2026 Library celebration with Friends of Kennington Library
• Tuesday 10 March 2026 Mixed Netball Tournament Last Wednesday we took two teams, a Year 5 team and a Year 6 team, to Matthew Arnold to compete in a mixed Netball Tournament. They all did an amazing job and demonstrated excellent sportsman ship throughout all of their games. They also showed brilliant teamwork skills and executed some amazing passes and awesome goals! After 8 matches our Year 6's finished 3rd and our Year 5's came 6th, a huge congratulations to all! And a big thankyou to all the helpers that made this possible.
• Tuesday 10 March 2026 World Book Day 2026 Last week to celebrate World Book Day younger year groups were allocated a KS2 class to join and read together. The children loved reading with their buddy classes as part of our "Drop Everything and Read" afternoon. Poems and stories were shared together and the older children did an amazing job of reading to the younger children and talking about what their favourite parts of the books were. Well done to everyone!
• Tuesday 3 March 2026 Year 6 welcomes Science Oxford
• Tuesday 3 March 2026 Balance Bikes for Nursery & Reception There was great excitement in the playground at St Swithun's last month as our nursery and reception children proudly took delivery of a brand-new set of balance bikes. The colourful fleet arrived as part of the national Bikeability programme, giving our youngest learners the perfect opportunity to begin their cycling journey.
• Tuesday 3 March 2026 Singing and Drama Squad at Young Voices What a joy it was on Thursday to take 40 members of Singing and Drama Squad to the Young Voices concert in Birmingham. After months of rehearsing songs and dance moves (and working through the disappointment of the concert cancellation in January due to snow), we finally got the opportunity to join 5,600 other children to sing and dance our hearts out. Our children were simply outstanding - their enthusiasm, energy and engagement shone throughout the whole day, their singing and dancing were exceptional and it was a delight for them to be part of this brilliant event. They truly did themselves and us all proud!
• Tuesday 24 February 2026 International Day - 10th Feb
• Tuesday 10 February 2026 International Day!!!
• Tuesday 10 February 2026 Tag Rugby Tournament Last Thursday, a group of our Year 6 pupils proudly represented St Swithuns at a Tag Rugby tournament at Tilsley Park. They demonstrated fantastic teamwork and it was a real pleasure to see how supportive and encouraging they were of one another.
• Tuesday 10 February 2026 Dr Bike visits St Swithun's Dr Bike was in today to look over the bikes of the year 4s and upper juniors. The year 5s are doing their bikeability after half term, so their bikes needed checking over to ensure they're safe on the roads!

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