Welcome New Parents

As the parent of a future pupil at St Joseph’s, who is joining us in September, we are delighted to welcome you and your child to our community.

“Together We Can, with Christ By Our Side.”

St Joseph’s Federation Motto

As a strong community where leaders, pupils, parents, staff, governors and all stakeholders work together to achieve the best outcomes, our pupils are actively involved in their learning and contribute to school development, such as playing a vital role in shaping our curriculum.

Together we can, with Christ by our side’ is our motto, embodying our belief that every child can succeed and thrive when we work together. This collective spirit of unity has been exemplified in the way we’ve pulled together during the COVID crisis to support both our school family and the wider community. It’s simply an integral part of our ethos as a school.

Our school vision is based on Christ’s teachings of love, tolerance, respect and forgiveness. We live out these values in our daily lives, celebrate diversity, and value each person and their right to freedom of speech.

 

About this portal

This portal has been created to provide you with useful, practical information about school life – including what you and your child need to know about your first day with us.

Once your child starts with us officially in September 2022, you will be provided with your unique login to the St Joseph’s App. It will then be available to download on the apple app store or android google play store (search for “St Joseph’s Federation”) or if you do not have a smartphone, it is accessible on any computer or tablet, as a normal web page.

Our school app is a ‘one-stop shop’ where you can access all relevant information for your child and where we can share information with parents in a timely and cost-efficient way. It translates across 12 languages and works on any device.

Please read through all the materials carefully, enjoy watching the helpful videos as well as following the educational links that are signposted for you. We will update this page as soon as new content becomes available, so please remember to check in regularly.

Please also explore the rest of our informative website for other information including about our wrap-around care (breakfast and after-school clubs, lunchtime clubs), trips, outdoor learning, technology strategy as well as our weekly newsletters.

We are keen that your child settles in quickly and the Early Years team look forward to welcoming you soon.

We appreciate that this is a significant step for your child and for you as a family, so should you have any queries, please feel free to call the office on 020 8670 2385 or email us at [email protected] 


Important information for September

School will reopen to pupils on Wednesday, 6th September 2023 at 8:40 a.m. with registration being at 8:45 a.m.

  • Infants will now finish at 3:10 p.m.
  • Juniors will finish at 3:20 p.m.
  • Nursery will have the same 09:00 a.m. drop-off time and either a 12:00 p.m. (if doing 15 hours) or a 3:00 p.m. (if doing 30-hours) collection time.

Entry for all year groups will now be via the Woodend entrance. To go to the juniors, take the path on the right; to go to the infants, follow the path on the left.

Thank you to all parents who completed our traffic survey. Based on this and following a review by Croydon Council of the traffic situation around the area, and in particular, the health & safety of our community, the entrances (the big double gates and the pedestrian gate) on Crown Dale will no longer be open for entry or exit. If you have been called to collect your child from school, please go to the school office on Woodend (there is no longer an office on Crown Dale) where your child will meet you. This applies to both infant and junior pupils.

  • Infant parents are welcome to accompany their children to their classroom and children are to be collected from the classroom at 3.10 p.m.
  • Junior children may walk in unaccompanied
  • Year 3 will meet in the Junior playground on the first day and their teachers will lead them into class
  • All junior children will be collected from the junior playground

Woodend will continue to be a pedestrian-only road from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Please do not park or drive down during these times as the Council will issue you with a £130 fine.

 

In terms of future communication, our process from September will be as follows:

The school app (“St Joseph’s App”): The school app is now our main communication tool. It is used to share whole school and year group/class information. The calendar on the school app has all the current dates for events. Signing up for school trips, clubs, events etc is also done via the school app, as well as this is how you should report absences. Pictures of learning from across the schools are also shared on the school app so please check the school app regularly.

Google classroom: Google classroom is used to share information relating to your child’s homework and class learning. It will contain information such as year group reading lists, expectations for homework and termly curriculum overviews. Your child should check this regularly (under your supervision of course).

Year group email: The year group email is checked daily by the class teachers and monitored by SLT. The email address can be used to make appointments with your child’s class teacher, share information or ask any questions relating to your child.

Weekly newsletter: The whole school’s weekly newsletter contains information about events from the past week and shares the dates/times of upcoming events. All past newsletters are available on the website (under Existing Parents>Newsletters) but we do share a link via the app as well.

School website: Important statutory information is shared on the school website stjosephsfederation.co.uk and each year group has its own webpage (under Existing Parents > Classes). but please do check the school app first as it has information that is meant for parents of St Joseph’s whereas the website is available to everyone and is our external portal for visitors.

New parent document pack

During your welcome meeting, you should have collected a set of data collection and consent forms (blue-plastic binder). Please remember to complete all the applicable forms and return them (as one pack – DO NOT SEPARATE THE PAGES) to the main office on Woodend, London, SE19 3NU.

It is very important that we receive these forms as soon as possible: this information provides the basis for your school records (personal information, contact details, medical, food/allergies, free-school-meal status, etc) so we may not be able to admit you in September without this information.

If you have applied for a place in our nursery, we need the nursery consent forms signed, and if you are applying for a 30-hours funded place, we need your 11-digit code before 1 July 2022, or you may lose your place.

In case you have misplaced your copy, we will shortly have a pdf version of the data collections forms available for you to download, print, complete and email back to the office on [email protected].

Download the pdf version of the new parent data collection pack