Wow! What a fabulous surprise; just watching Jane McDonald, and our very own Niamh Crowley has just performed! What a little superstar 😊💕🙏 So proud! 💕

From all of the staff and governors at Our Lady and St Kenelm, we wish you a very happy, holy and peaceful Christmas. God bless. 🌟

We were very lucky this morning to have performance from the Musical Theatre group and the choir. WOW! What amazing performers we have at OLSK! With their selection of Christmas songs and skits they certainly got everyone into the holiday spirit! A HUGE thank-you to Mrs Simpson for leading Musical Theatre and Miss Harris for leading the choir so superbly! 🎅🏼🎄🎶

Bambinelli Sunday links children with Christ.

 

This morning, at our Christmas Mass, Fr Bruce blessed all our beautiful creations.

Grandparents & parents have taken inspiration from the Pope as they seek to ensure children celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

 

Each year on the third Sunday of Advent children and adults bring their Baby Jesus figures from their crib at home to St Peter’s Square where the Pope blesses the people and the figurines. 

 

Our children had designed some truly wonderful creations and were proud to lay them on the Altar, for Fr Bruce to bless them all. Well done to all the children who took part; it was wonderful to see so many.

UPDATE FROM DUDLEY SAFEGUARDING TEAM

 

UNICO LIVE is the latest app to come onto our radar, which poses significant risks to children and young people. We’ve put together the features, risks and what you can do to protect children and young people in your care.

 

Key features:

● Users can publicly live-stream themselves or share a screen with another person.
● Users can chat, share gifts (of monetary value) and subscribe to be notified of future live streams.
● Users can use stickers and filters to customise their stream.
● Viewers can send love, and share gifts of monetary value.

 

What Dudley Safeguarding Team found:

● Our team testing the app found high levels of engagement from adults instructing children to engage in sexualised activity.
● Each live stream has a message stating that streams are moderated 24hrs a day, but there was no evidence of moderation despite open and public requests for young people to remove their clothing.
● There did not appear to be any reporting function.

 

The issues/concerns:

●The gifting feature on this platform gives individuals with a deviant sexual interest in children, the tools to encourage, entice and exploit vulnerable young people on the platform via these gifts.
● In one sample live stream, a child younger than ten was being asked to remove her clothing by multiple adult users while simultaneously being gifted coins.
● It appears that this app has been removed from Apple’s UK store and has been brought to the attention of UK police and several safeguarding boards. At the time of publishing, it is still available on Android.

 

Advice from Dudley Safeguarding Team:

● Check young people’s devices for this app – and help them remove it.
● Remember even if the app is removed from app stores, it will still work on devices it’s been downloaded on.
● Engage young people in a conversation – about keeping safe online and who they would talk to if someone made them feel uncomfortable online.
● Check that they only engage with other people they know online.
● Check that they understand what they should do if they see something online that upsets or worries them.

You can also submit an online report to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP).

 

If you have concerns about the immediate safety of a young person, you should contact the emergency services on 999 (emergency number).

A huge congratulations to Annabelle who has just finished playing Tiny Tim in the Crescent Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol.  Mrs Finnegan, Mrs Turner, Mrs Sweeney, Mrs Foley and Mr Hyde went to see her in the performance and were so impressed with her professionalism and superb acting.  What a star!  It was a family affair with her Dad, Paul as Stage Manager, her Mom, Trish as costume team and big brother William playing young Scrooge and Turkey Boy! Well done to all of the family!  

Well done to our beautiful children from school & those in our Parish, who led such a reflective Mass this morning for Gaudete Sunday! The pink candle in the Advent Wreath was lit; waiting with Mary! Thank you to all our families & all our staff for joining us!
Love from Mrs F 💕

Look at the marvellous creations taking shape at our mums wreath making evening in school tonight! Very festive 🎄💕🎄 Thank you to Sarah, our HSA Chair, for organising the whole event! Nice mulled wine 🍷 too! 😉

 

Wow!! Look at the final pieces! What super talented moms we have; thank you for joining us this evening, we are really pleased you could join us! Love from Mrs F 💕🎄💕

Vinnie cannot come to see us this Christmas as he is awaiting another operation on his heart; do he sent us a message instead! 💕 Check out our Mini Vinnie page for his message! Please keep Vinnie & his family in your prayers this Christmas! 🙏💕🙏

Our very own little Mini Vinnie Mascot has sent us all a message. 💕Vinnie cannot visit us in school this Christmas as he is awaiting another operation on his heart; pleas keep Vinnie & his family in your prayers! 🙏💕🙏