'Well done to all of the children who took part in the Easter Egg competition today. All of the entries are fantastic and we are blown away by the effort the children put in'. Congratulations to all our winners: Nursery: 3- Flynn 2-Lotanna 1-Harry Reception: 3-Chester 2-Marlia 1-Colin Year 1: 3-Bonnie 2-Mason 1-Nancy Year 2: 3-Nathaniel 2-Iga 1-Ruby Year 3: 3-Luna 2-Piper 1-Olivia Year 4: 3- Elliot B 2-Jasmine 1-Willow Year 5: 3-Grace 2-Harry B 1-Dene Year 6: 3-Mason Joint 2nd and 1st - Emma and Lena

Year 5 have been making an adapted recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese in DT. We made a vegetarian version and used fusilli instead of spaghetti. We added extra vegetables and used passata instead of tinned tomatoes.

In Year 3, we had the most exciting morning making homes for worms as part of our science topic, Rocks and Soils. We created small, cosy habitats for the worms using soil, paper, and small rocks, ensuring they had enough space to move around and burrow. The worms will stay in school for a week, and after that, we'll take them home for the Easter holidays. We're really excited because we'll be observing changes in the soil over the next three weeks, looking for any differences the worms make as they dig and move through the layers. It's going to be fascinating to see how the soil changes with the worms' activity!

Year 5 had a special visitor on Monday from Newcastle College. The children worked in groups to make working wind turbines and tested how many volts these produced. This workshop helped to embed their learning on renewable energy

We would like to give you an update on how we are getting on with our fundraising for CAFOD through our Big Lent Walk.  Here are some photos of our whole school walk today.  Everyone has been working very hard in school to get our steps in each day to add to our whole-school total distance for our virtual pilgrimage to the Vatican and back.   Lots of classes are almost at the halfway point for reaching their target which shows their commitment to trying hard to help our brothers and sisters around the world by supporting CAFOD.  If you would like to support us in our efforts, please donate to our Just Giving page: St Alban's Big Lent Walk 2025 is fundraising for CAFOD We hope to invite you in to walk alongside your child in the coming weeks.  Thank you for your support.

Congratulations to our year 5/6 boys football team who are the Northern  Pokémon Primary Schools champions. Teams from Durham, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, South Yorkshire, Cumbria and Merseyside came together to play in what was a fantastic day of football.  We now go to represent the North of England in the  National finals to be held at Stoke City’s ground in May.

On Friday we came together as a whole school to get more of our steps in for our Lenten walk. Our Children in year 5 and 6 helped our Reception and Nursery children walk round.

Exciting news—ALL 10 of our eggs have hatched! We received the eggs on Monday, and now we have 10 fluffy chicks in our classroom! It’s been amazing watching them grow stronger each day. To celebrate, we read and performed poems about our hatching experience. We’ve love taking care of our new feathered friends and can’t wait to watch them continue to grow next week. 🐣🐥

Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday. We read "Mr. Wolf's Pancakes," then made and decorated our own.

Our Year 4 class went to Mass today where they received their ashes alongside our parish community. We brought some blessed ashes back to school with us and our Year 4 Mini Vinnies were proud to help with distributing these to the other children and staff in school during a Celebration of the Word.

To start our charity fundraising in preparation for Lent, our Mini Vinnies decided that they would like to sell pancakes. We had a lovely time enjoying our delicious pancakes together out in the quad and our Mini Vinnies did a great job of serving us!

Father Jonathon came to celebrate Mass with us as a whole school yesterday. We were pleased to welcome some of the parishioners from St Anthony of Padua, who stayed after Mass to have some tea, coffee and pancakes, served by our Mini Vinnies. This also gave our Mini Vinnies a chance to tell our visitors all about our Lenten fundraising plans.