Happy Christmas!
A big thank you first and foremost for all your support of the school.
The building work is nearing completion and everything will be working
fully in January. The builders have been
absolutely terrific, working with great skill dedication, but also doing so in
a way which has allowed the school to continue its work safely and
sensibly. Lots of staff have had to make
sacrifices, of course, including teachers and, especially, the site staff, but
the result rather speaks for itself.
The cross on the front of the school has been made and installed for us
by an artist from Stroud, Paul Grellier.
The four parts are reclaimed steel from Gloucester canal barges and Paul
wanted that fact to link Gloucester with St Peter’s own familiarity with
boats. What’s more, these components,
which strength the join between the sides of the boat and the bottom, are
called the ‘knees’ and you can see why when you look at their shape; there’s a pleasant echo there of kneeling to
pray. The final effect is clear and
welcoming and – I think – dignified, and I hope you get used to seeing it as
you come into the school.
We have said some farewells today to staff. Miss Brown is leaving her post in the
extended school to take up a new kind of career at St Rose’s in Stroud; Mr Villeneuve
is leaving the ICT Technicians team to take up new opportunities in
Surrey. Miss Osman is leaving the modern
languages department where she has done sterling and excellent work for us; she
is moving abroad. And Miss Halliday is
leaving the English department after many years of excellent teaching to begin
work as a primary school class teacher in Worcestershire. We wish them all the very best.
Mrs O’Donnell will be joining the
English department. Miss Main, who has
been teaching RE for us, will be able to join the languages department
full-time as we are welcoming back Mrs Doust who has been away on maternity
leave.
Recently we have enjoyed some
important successes. The ‘Carols by Candlelight’ in Stroud was
a lovely evening with beautiful singing and readings and with an important
contribution by singers from The Rosary School.
All the music department earned enormous gratitude. I have rarely enjoyed a play as much as I enjoyed
the senior drama production of John Godber’s ‘Teechers’. Not a hint of a fluffed line and complete
commitment from start to finish. Couldn’t
stop laughing!
The PE department continues to
excel in competitive sport. This term, in all sports, they have played 182
competitive fixtures – an extraordinarily high number – and have won 70% of
them.
The boys’ U-15 and U-18 rugby
teams are now in the last 16s of the national NatWest Cup; the year 7 boys are still in the national
football cup, and the U-13 and U-15 girls’ football teams were knocked out
having reached the last 32 of their national cups.
The tennis squad, under the
direction of Mr Keiran Montagu, has won the Tennis Education Establishment of
the Year award for Gloucestershire and has enjoyed its best year of success in
the history of the school. To single out
one key achievement is hard, but perhaps the best is that the U-18 boys are in
the Top 5 in the UK. Quite an achievement
indeed.
I am also
very grateful to heads of faculty for committing themselves energetically to
the idea of ‘faculty fortnights’
where extra activities are organised to help promote the work of each
subject. I do not want any of our
students to look forward to ‘dropping’ a subject!
We will
continue to rely on parental support.
And there are a few things I should like quickly to mention, please.
Firstly,
please can I remind you that we must insist on proper school uniform and on the best behaviour both
in school and when travelling to and from school. Skirts which are too short, trainers,
ear-rings, nail varnish, all those things create work for tutors and staff, and
inevitably in a school of this size there will be inconsistencies and children
feeling hard done by. None of that ‘unfairness’
would exist if students did their best to present themselves at school in the
way we’d like them to do (details of uniform requirements are on the
website). I know parents do a lot – and spend
a lot – to help with all of this, and I thank you for that, but it is
important. St Peter’s needs to have a
good reputation: everyone here now will
have to say on application forms in the future that they came to St Peter’s!
Similarly,
we need to improve our attendance
rate. Please do all you can to ensure
that students attend all sessions. Our
target is 95% attendance.
Please
discourage your children from phoning (or texting) home during the school day without
our permission. Sometimes, small
misunderstandings are escalated because of this and problems which can be
quickly solved become bigger.
We are
working gradually to make the canteen
menu offer as healthy as possible.
Please support the canteen. We
are working to persuade students and to educate them about the importance to
teenagers of good nutrition but, as you will understand, there is some
resistance to the winding-down of fried chicken options. If you can help us to promote vegetables,
fruit, and a more varied and balanced diet, everyone will benefit, I am sure. The food the canteen staff cook is excellent,
and we need our customers to be both happy and understanding, please. The spring menu is on the website under the
Parents and Community menu.
We allow
students to go out to the toilet during lessons. We do not want this to be abused, and we
suspect that it sometimes is. In the new
year, there will be a new system for the use of the toilets, which will involve
collecting a key from an office nearby.
Students who need the facilities will not be stopped from using them.
Two final
things. Please help us to get all library books returned as this
saves us money and helps all children to benefit from the library
facility. Needless to say it’s the popular books that
go missing!
And can you
help us with Apple watches? I am of the age where I think that an apple
watch is something to do with orchards and cider-making but we are concerned
that if students are accessing smart-phones by ‘looking at their watches’ we
may have all sorts of problems. I don’t
want to ban Apple watches – or similar – because I don’t really know the impact
they will have and I don’t want to look silly; but if you are lucky enough to
be able to give a son or a daughter an Apple watch for Christmas, would you be
so kind as to agree with them that their phones need to be switched off at
school except when they have received express permission.
I preferred
the first half of this newsletter to the second half, but I do believe that
without addressing the issues in that second half we will not continue to celebrate
the successes and achievements of St Peter’s High School.
Thank you
for everything; have a lovely Christmas.
God bless you and all your families.
Philip
