On Tuesday last week, we said a fond farewell to Fr Bruce in school; celebrating 22 years of service to our school & parish, with a whole school Mass & staff, parents, children & governors, presented him with many cards & gifts. We sang many of Fr’s favourite hymns during the Mass and prayed for a very happy & truly well deserved, restful retirement. 

Then this morning the parishioners organised a lovely Mass in church for Fr Bruce retirement! It was wonderful to see so many past & present staff, governors, pupils & their families in church. Parishioners made their presentation to him before he gave us all his final blessings! 💕

 

Please keep Fr Bruce in your prayers as he begins the next chapter in his spiritual journey. 

Today we received a very generous gift from Ingestre Hall... a baby grand piano! We are extremely grateful and can’t wait to start using it with the children in choir practice, band, mass, musical theatre and all our other celebrations! 🎵🎶🎹

Calling all Superheroes!

 

On Thursday 16th January, we are having a Superhero day to raise money for Birmingham Children's Hospital. 

 

Please bring in £1 and come to school dressed as your favourite Superhero! 

 

As a special treat, our new kitchen has put together a Superhero menu!  Everyone can order a lunch from the Superhero Mega Menu and you might win a prize during lunchtime!

 

See menu below - order now so you don't miss out!

Today, all of the staff spent the INSET day at Mary Stevens Hospice. We learnt about Mental Health and Well-being, focusing on keeping ourselves mentally healthy. Then we had a tour of the hospice to see where the money from our fundraising initiatives went and how it was spent. It was very humbling to see what an amazing, calm and positive place the hospice is, full of lots of positive energy and smiles. We all went away thinking about the year ahead and how we can support the hospice further as a school community.

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!