Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is Coming

There are two school events planned to mark Advent and the Christmas season.  The drama department is presenting The Snow Queen on Tuesday 6^th, Thursday 8^th, Friday 9^th and Saturday 10^th December, at 6.30 pm, with an additional Saturday matinee at 1.30pm on the 10^th.  I am assured that Santa’s grotto will be open for visitors before each performance. (£6 and £4)

On Thursday 15^th December, at 7 pm, the school choir will celebrate Advent with what has become a traditional evening of Carols by Candlelight.  This is held at the church of the Immaculate Conception in Stroud and will feature special guest stars from the Rosary School.  You are all welcome;  please support us.  (£3 and £1)

League Tables

As we draw to the end of the longest term of the year, it may be time to reflect on how well the year is going.  It is going badly for West Ham Utd.  They have been inattentive in lessons, have lacked intensity and commitment in training and have wasted their time at home, preferring parties and Twitter to homework and reading.  As a result they are near the bottom of the table and falling.  Possibly, if they do their work over the holidays and catch up with their learning they can pull things round.  But as far as their GCSEs go, this is pretty well the last chance to change things.  If they haven’t got things in order by February, Easter will be too late, and no amount of last-minute revision will solve the problems.  They can look forward to a year at least in a lower league and having to retake their exams.

I am asking sixth-formers and year 11 students not to fall into the same trap.  Christmas is a time to collect our thoughts about exams and to begin a regime of learning and study which will see us through to the exams in May.  It is not all boring and it is not all work.  And hearing the crowd cheering is so much more fun than trooping off to an empty stadium and a few half-hearted boos.

Attendance

One of the key areas which we as a school need to address is that of attendance.  The government target for attendance is 95%, which sounds high and ambitious.  Actually, as we’ve said before, if you attend for 95% of the time, you miss a whole day’s work every four weeks.  If you miss school, you miss lessons, and you miss chances to improve and develop.  Recent figures reveal that at St Peter’s students with attendance of over 95% ‘overachieve’ and that students with less than 95% ‘underachieve’.  Even students with attendance between 90 and 95% seem to be quite significantly under-achieving.  Everyone needs to work together to improve attendance throughout the school.

Staffing

Several key staff are moving on to new posts at the end of the term.  Mrs Churchill is continuing her career elsewhere, and we are very grateful for her first-rate teaching and for what she has given the school and its maths department.  We will welcome Mr Upward in her place.    Mrs Endacott is leaving to take up an RE post in a school much nearer her home, and Mr Rumsey will be taking on more RE teaching to cover her classes.  I am very grateful to Mrs Endacott for her excellent contribution to the RE department, and to Mr Rumsey for returning (briefly) to his calling as a teacher of RE.  We also welcome back Mr Edwards who will be teaching in the business studies department following Mrs Richardson’s leaving us for family reasons.

In January, Mrs Layhe will take over as headteacher, and Mrs Gittins as senior deputy.  They will lead a hard-working team, ambitious for continued success at the school.

Masses

The school continues to be grateful to Miss Baker and Fr Kevin for their work on school liturgies and Masses.  Last week’s year 10 Mass for St Francis Xavier, one of our patron saints, was a true example of how our students can focus on the spiritual in their lives and can set high standards of behaviour and commitment.  We are holding Advent penitential services, and this week the sixth-form colleges are running retreats in Stroud.

We have raised a lot of money for charity this term, with nearly a thousand pounds collected, for example, for ‘Children in Need’.

Changes

We have amended our school’s behaviour policy – it will be on the website shortly.  I hope that it will need to apply to only a very few of you!

The key change is significant and concerns fixed-term exclusions.  The new system is firmly incremental.  For a ‘first offence’ a student receives a one-day exclusion, for a second two days, and so on.  Each exclusion is followed by a formal meeting with parents and carers.   A five-day exclusion constitutes a ‘final warning’.  There is no six-day exclusion:  this is a permanent exclusion.  (For serious offences, a permanent exclusion will be triggered as now.) 

The key thing, in this system, about an exclusion is not really the length of time away but the progress through the gradient.  This ‘progress’ – I am not sure in the present climate whether the word ‘progress’ is quite the right one here – is emphasised at each formal meeting.  Secondly, there is no dilly-dallying with students who do not change their behaviour.  It will be made absolutely clear at the ‘three-day’ mark that we are heading for a permanent exclusion, unless there is a change in behaviour, and the school will put in place at that point the kind of formal intervention programme we are familiar with now.  But if there is no change in behaviour, inevitably a permanent exclusion will follow.  We will want, let me stress, to see a change in behaviour.

Buses

There is no nice way of putting this:  I have failed to create a new route to school passing through Stonehouse, Eastington and Ebley.  We tried hard to promote the route, but there was insufficient interest, in the end, from the parents who would have to pay for it.  Mr John Dix has been extremely generous of his time and of his staff’s time, but our recruitment did not find the number of paying passengers we need for a route to be viable.  I apologise to the parents and families who did sign up but who are now disappointed.

I have expressed my concern about these bus problems to the Gloucestershire Association of Secondary Headteachers and they are all extremely concerned about the effect of reduced services and higher fares on all secondary schools in Gloucestershire.  Our local MPs are fully aware of my views.

Farewell

I joined St Peter’s High School in September 1983 after three years at Saintbridge and two at Churchdown.    In the thirty-three-and-a-third years following that appointment I have, I regret, made just about every mistake a teacher can make.  But as Oscar Wilde observes, ‘Experience is the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes.’  (You’ll have to read Lady Windermere’s Fan to find out exactly who Tuppy is, but right now I’m identifying with him.)

I have been lucky enough this year to be teaching RE to a lovely year 11 group.  After 60 years a Catholic, I have finally learned why it is called the ‘Apostles’ Creed’ – because it has twelve doctrines.  One of these is belief in ‘the holy catholic church and the communion of saints’.  That is what I have experienced at St Peter’s - a team of dedicated and caring professionals who work to educate the young and to build a better society.  I also remember, in thinking of ‘the communion of the saints’, of all those colleagues and students who have died.  Remarkably many.  I remember them fondly and I ask you to pray for them with me. 

Another doctrine in the Creed concerns the ‘forgiveness of sins’;  I ask you all to forgive me my shortcomings and failings.

Mrs Layhe, as I say, will take over in January, with Mrs Gittins at her side.  What I have done badly they will do well, and what I have done well they will do better.

 Philip Rush

Our First Half Term

October 2016

The school has ended the first half-term on rather a high.  The house week provides a wonderful opportunity for a wide range of students to take part in proper, competitive sport and I am delighted by the standard of the hockey and rugby played this week and by the enthusiasm of the students involved.  A huge thank-you is earned by the PE department, especially by Miss Hadley.

The PE department also took our top rugby players to important national festivals in Ipswich and Norwich.  They did not win all their matches – that is a hard ask – but they did beat Hampton School.  And speaking as a man whose brother-in-law attended Hampton School, this makes everything pretty worthwhile from where I’m standing.  Well done!

And the evenings of our final week have been filled by a marvellous performance of The Pirates of Penzance which has been not only a credit to the students involved – wonderful talents emerging here, there and everywhere – but also to the staff, led this time by Mrs Perfect and Mr Waring.  A huge thank you to all.

This last fortnight has been the modern languages ‘faculty fortnight’ with talks to year 9 students, lunchtime films and more.  Studying modern languages is essential for the future prosperity of the country and I would advise all key stage 3 students who are even the slightest bit interested in learning languages to give GCSE French or Spanish very serious consideration.

We also had a very successful even promoting STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths – to girls.  Caroline John STEM Manager, Gloucestershire - from Graphic Science, part of the training group who support public engagement in the research community - came to speak with girls in years 10 and 11 to inform them about the many aspirational career opportunities in STEM areas (science, technology, engineering and maths).

Our guests including Renishaw, Tata (IT), University of Bristol Research and CLG Engineering told us about their own career pathways and gave the students the opportunity to consider their own aptitudes and preferences for the workplace.

We are really grateful to Caroline John, STEM Manager, Graphic Science; Lucy Ackland, Design and Development Engineer, Renishaw; Alicia Gonzalez Buelga, Research Engineer, University of Bristol; Susie Jutsum, Geotechnical Engineer, Tony Gee; and Maggie Davis, IT Support Specialist, Tata Consultancy.

Students will follow up this event with a visit to the Skills Show at the NEC Birmingham in November.  Thanks to our careers adviser Mrs Sarah Beeton and to Head of Progress Mrs Haywood for organising this event.

The students returned to school dressed very smartly.  I have had numerous comments about this from staff, parents and members of the public and I am very grateful for all the work done by parents and carers to achieve this outcome.  Thank you.

Our dedicatory Masses for the start of the new school year went extremely well.  |Our chaplain, Mandy Baker, and Fr Kevin prepared and led the liturgy expertly, the music was splendid, and behaviour and focus were of the highest standard.

Our A-level results in the summer were good, and were very similar to last year’s.  Changes to GCSEs and to the way the school’s success is measured make  us look less good overall, though in each department pass rates and overall success rates remained high.   One of the issues which affected us was in science where, although most students take ‘double science’, quite a number of our students take a single science to ensure they move on from year 11 with a C grade or better in science – an important qualification – but this process has cost us in the final analysis.  We have remedied this for future years.

Mrs Layhe and I have planned a visit to St Paul’s RC School in Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, on the 19^th October.  This is a Catholic comprehensive which in theory should be similar to ours (admittedly in a different part of the country and without grammar schools) but which has achieved higher results (84% A*-C in GCSE).  We need to see what they are doing!

As you are all aware, our summer holidays were dominated by buses.  There were some teething problems, in September, with some routes and with the provision of adequate buses but these have largely been resolved.  There is I think one key route which has not been sweetly replaced and that is one that would run through Stonehouse, Eastington and Haresfield.  We are trying to put on an extra bus serving Stroud via those destinations. 

Please do not be shy in applying for free travel.  Families on low incomes (as well as families who live more than three miles away from the school but where we are their nearest school) are entitled to free transport.

We also installed new gates.  The electronic gates have made the school safer.  They have, it is true, created work for the receptionists, and infuriated sixth-formers who are not allowed out during the day.  The gates were introduced to make the school safer between 9 and 4.  I believe this is important.

I was getting increasingly concerned by the numbers of sixth-formers who were registering in the morning and then piling into one another’s cars to drive off.  The register said they were here but they were not;  they were expected in lessons, but they often came back too late.  I am concerned about the safety of cars filled with sixth-formers, I am concerned that parents may not have given formal permission for under-18s to drive off in this way.  It would be good to think that we can return to this privilege and allow sixth-formers to manage their time freely, but in order to achieve the level of confidence in their behaviour which that requires, we must draw a line firmly now and insist on a different work ethic in the sixth-form.  Study periods are periods for study whenever they fall and sixth-formers need, in order to compete for jobs and university places, to prioritise study during school hours, and beyond.  Some sixth-formers have definitely returned to St Peter’s looking forward to jaunts out in friends’ cars to fast-food restaurants.  I want that to stop.  It is dangerous and I do think that parents are not all fully aware of where their children are, nor what they are doing.    Some local schools allow free egress to sixth-formers and some do not; we need to draw a line firmly before we start deciding on privileges.

I note that attendance in my own sixthform classes has been about 98% with one absence due to illness.  This is a very marked difference from last year!

Our new head of sixth, Mrs Pearce, has made an excellent start to the year with tighter procedures and a clear vision for improving standards in the sixth-form.  Recruitment to the sixth-form was good, with over 450 students overall, and retention so far is high.

We welcomed a number of new staff to the school in September:  Mrs Farrelly in the business studies and economics department;  Mrs Frampton to teach on the health course, with Mrs Pearce; Mr Versaci the new teacher in charge of business and economics.  Mr Clayfield, Mr Fox-Smith, Mrs Garner, Dr Piercy, Mr Morrison and Mrs Stephen all joined the science department.  Miss Foley joined the modern foreign languages department, Miss Graves the design technology department (as maternity cover for Mrs Lawton),  Miss Ridout art, and Miss Gilbert RE.  Mrs Knapton is our new library assistant, Mr Bateman works as a TA in the drama department, and Mrs Szoke has joined the maths department.  Mrs Lee is our new head of maths.  She has already been working closely with Mr McAteer, Ms Lally and Mrs Melton to ensure that the department can continue its excellent progress.

Since September, we have appointed Jacinta Norton to teach RE for Mrs Eakin who has asked for unpaid leave while she fully regains her health and well-being; Mr James Dart to English as maternity cover for Emma Hilliam; Mr Liam Gittins and Mr Paul Donovan as TAs, all starting immediately.  Mrs Wendy Briggs will start work as in the maths department, from January.

At the beginning of the half-term Mrs Gittins and Mrs Layhe are joining the diocesan headteachers’ conference in Rome and are scheduled for an audience with Pope Francis first thing in the morning.  I hope his blessing of our school will remain with us for the years to come.

When we return after half-term, we come back on the Tuesday.  Please avoid the temptation to come back on the Monday! 

Tuesday is All Saints’ Day and a holyday of obligation, so there will be Masses in the morning, during period 2 for some pupils, and during period 3 for others.  Parents and carers are most welcome.  These Masses will take place in the Sports Barn, which is not the warmest place in early November.  Students (and all who come) are encouraged to wear warm coats.  I know that ‘All Saints’ is a popular clothes shop these days and I have seen some of their clothes.  They may not be suitable.

Philip Rush

Second Bus Update of the Day

Stagecoach have got back to me today about problems with the 63 service from school to Stroud.

A minibus will be scheduled for the same time as the 63A to Stroud, though this minibus will only go as far as Stroud Bus Station;  the 63A will then take the rest of the students.

Those students who need to catch the 69 from Stroud to Minchinhampton are better off getting on the minibus as it will leave first and will arrive early enough for them to get their connection.

Thank you

Philip Rush

Bus update

12th September 2016

In response to parental requests, I have written to three bus companies today formally asking them to run a route from school to Stroud via Haresfield and Stonehouse.  I am informing Shire Hall of this request having been made.

I have also written to Stagecoach asking for additional buses on the 63 towards Stroud between 3.30 and 4, and for additional buses on the number 9 route to Gloucester centre;  I have asked for these additional number 9 buses to call in to the school.  I am informing Shire Hall of this request having been made.

The changes in the bus routes have led to an increased number of students having to be collected by car.  May I please remind all parents that collection by car is so much easier after 4 pm when the bus bay is free, after the buses have left, for all cars to use.

Thank you

Philip Rush

School Buses and Free School Meals

Dear Parents

We are all concerned about the situation with school buses.  Our current bus companies including our newcomer John Dix Travel are doing an excellent job for us but costs have risen and routes have diminished.

I am writing today to our MPs – Mr Carmichael in Stroud, Mr Graham in Gloucester and Mr Harper in the Forest – about the effect of changes in the arrangements for school buses in Gloucestershire and about the rising cost of fares.  Please feel free to add to my letter by writing your own.

I have told you all before that families on low incomes can apply for support with transport to St Peter’s.   Today I have spoken to the Travel Assistance & Free School Meals Team about such applications.

All students in years 7 – 11 who qualify for free school meals (FSM) automatically qualify for an additional level of transport assistance if they attend St Peter’s  and if you live more than two miles away but less than fifteen.

Students in the sixth-form from low income families can apply for bursaries.  (Please contact the finance office at St Peter’s for advice about this.)

It would be extremely helpful to the school if all eligible families applied for grant aid.  Not only will the families receive financial support but the bus routes will become more firmly guaranteed.  The more applications Shire Hall receive the better they will understand our plight.

You may qualify for free school meals but have not applied.  Please apply for free school meals if you are eligible.    The cashless catering system means that students on free school meals are not identified at any point;  they simply have no money withdrawn from their account when they choose their meal.  Students on FSM bring extra funding into the school which has to be spent on ensuring that they get the best possible education.  And, of course, students on FSM who need to catch a bus will get help with that (if they live between two and fifteen miles away).

You can get Free School Meals for your child if you or your partner gets either:

Universal Credit; Income Support; Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance; Income-related Employment and Support Allowance; Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; The Guarantee element of State Pension Credit; Child Tax Credit, provided they are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual income of £16,190 or less, as assessed by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

Where a parent is entitled to Working Tax Credit during the four-week period immediately after their employment ceases, or after they start to work less than 16 hours per week, their children are entitled to free school lunches. Children who receive a qualifying benefit in their own right are also eligible to receive Free School Meals.

I have also learned that Shire Hall will provide transport assistance for ‘children unable to walk in safety to school because of the nature of the route’.  I have been told that it is worth applying for this even if St Peter’s is not your nearest school.  I think it is also worth applying if your children have to walk along difficult routes to get to bus stops.

Our job at St Peter’s is to make sure that the education we offer here is worth all this trouble.  I am delighted by the start we have made to the new term, by the attitudes of our students, by the enthusiasm of our new sixth-formers and by the excellence of our new staff.

Yours,

Philip Rush

A New School Year

Dear Parents and Carers,

New staff • Sixth-form changes • Exam results • Buses • Email contacts •

Uniform  • Home School Agreement • OfSTED • Show My Homework  •   ‘Open House’ Wednesdays

We shall shortly be welcoming everyone back to a new school year at St Peter’s and I am looking forward to another busy and successful year.

We are welcoming quite a number of new staff; several are replacing staff who left at the end of last year, but others are required by new courses and changes in the curriculum.

Mrs Pearce, as you will know, is our new head of sixth-form;  she has been working with Mr Barnard and the heads of colleges to ensure a smooth transition.

There have been some changes to the sixth-form.  We have amalgamated two colleges – St Luke and St Matthew – because we have found that the aims of these colleges are overlapping considerably.  The new, larger, college will be called St Lucy’s.  We will now have three complementary focuses in the sixth-form, an accelerated college, an academic college and a vocational college.  This reflects the different aims of the students in our sixth-form.

Mrs Farrelly is joining us in the business studies and economics department, and she will also teach on the new health and social care vocational course in the sixth-form.  Mrs Frampton will also teach on the health course, with Mrs Pearce, and Mr Versaci is the new teacher in charge of business and economics.

We welcome a number of new teachers to the science department:  Mr Clayfield, Mr Fox-Smith, Mrs Garner, Dr Piercy, Mr Morrison and Mrs Stephen.  We needed some full-time staff to replace leavers, and some part-time staff and maternity cover, so there’s quite a list!  We are delighted to have been able to appoint teachers of excellent calibre to these science posts.

Miss Foley will be joining the modern foreign languages department, Miss Graves the design technology department (as maternity cover for Mrs Lawton),  Miss Ridout will teach art, and Miss Gilbert will teach RE.

Mrs Knapton will be our new library assistant, Mr Bateman will work as a TA in the drama department, and Mrs Szoke is joining the maths department.

Mrs Lee is our new head of maths.  She has already been working closely with Mr McAteer, Ms Lally and Mrs Melton to ensure that the department can continue its excellent progress.

A-levels this year, 2016, are very similar to last year’s results, and I think that that is good.  In 2016, 138 students took A-levels.  The percentage pass rates remain strong:   44% gained A*- B passes;  71% A* - C, and there was an overall pass rate (A* - E) was 98%.  These are very similar percentages to last year’s.  Students succeeded across the board in gaining places at universities and colleges.  Universities this year have included Oxford, Manchester, Sheffield, and many others.  Mr Barnard and his team did an excellent job in managing all of this and in setting high standards for the students.

I regret to say that it has become increasingly difficult to compare GCSE results with previous years because of changes at the very top in the standards that are being applied;  this year the grades in several subjects I think have suffered from changes in grade boundaries.  The BBC is reporting a ‘significant decline’ in passes and top grades nationally;  we do not appear to have seen quite such a significant decline at St Peter’s.  Overall, our GCSE grades seem a little down this year although there are bright lights.  The measure of progress in English has increased to 82% which is outstanding.  A* to C pass rates in English, maths, double science, languages and RE remain very encouraging.

Particularly worthy of mention is the achievement of the most able in the maths department, which was an area we needed to improve.  As well as a very high number of A* and A grades in the GCSE, there were excellent passes in the ‘further mathematics’ paper which is a particularly demanding course.  Three students gained A* with distinction, a grade only available in a handful of exams at this level.

There is an issue with attendance in the sixth-form;  too many students are missing lessons, without good reason, and it seems clear from an initial survey of the results that this has had a negative impact on achievement.  Funding for sixth-forms is dependent on students being full-time.  We can no longer allow the privilege of sixth-formers going off site during the day.  We are improving the canteen options for sixth-formers and are to run a sixth-form only service from the pavilion, but it is really important to me that sixth-formers arrive at school in the frame of mind that they are going to study, read and learn for the day, and not drive off in friends’ cars to fast-food outlets.  I want sixth-formers to enjoy their time at St Peter’s, but I want that enjoyment to be founded, please, on study and friendship.

One big headache this summer has been managing the buses after Stagecoach’s rather sudden withdrawal of routes.  Mr Blackshaw has worked very hard to replace as much of this missing coverage as possible, and John Dix of John Dix travel has worked helpfully with us (and with The Crypt and Ribston Hall) to offer new routes.  However, all these changes are unsettling and inconvenient.  Forgive me, please, for stressing that these changes are not of our making.  The situation with school buses in Gloucestershire seems complicated and unhelpful.  However, we shall continue to work with Shire Hall and with the bus companies, including Stagecoach, to get the best service possible.  Updates and information are on the ‘buses’ pages of the ‘parents and community’ section of our website.

I apologise to parents if any of the bus information failed to get to them;  I emailed, and I provided printed letters in reception for students to collect.  However, there are flaws in such a system.  It is now very expensive to post letters to all parents.  We want to move whole-heartedly to email communication and make communication easier and cheaper.  The website is extremely helpful to us.

I should be extremely obliged to you if you can help with this communication issue.  Thank you.

If you have an email address, but have not received a link to this blog by email, would you please let us know so that we can add your details to the database.  There will a form sent home to all families this week, with your youngest child if you have more than one child at the school.  The form allows us to check our details about addresses and phone numbers.  We are also required this year – by the department for education – to collect information about nationality and place of birth. 

I am expecting an inspection from OfSTED this term;  the cycle of inspections suggests that such a visit is overdue.  I shall be working with the leadership team to prepare staff and students, but your co-operation is crucial.  Please maintain your contacts with the school and please let us know of any concerns you have about progress, behaviour and so on, so that we can address things as soon as possible.  We can’t always fix things immediately, and sometimes two people have two very different perceptions of the same thing, but we value highly your help in identifying issues.

We are updating the uniform pages on the website and you will be able to find their precise guidance about what students are allowed to wear.  It is really helpful to us if students come to school correctly dressed and saves our having to nag them right at the start of the day;  once again your co-operation is requested and recognised.  Thank you.

The full ‘home school agreement’ is also on the website (as part of the behaviour policy).  We ask all parents of students to sign a reply slip to say they have seen this document.  A copy of the document is enclosed, the signature is at the foot of the enclosed communications form.

This year we are using 'Show My Homework' software so that all students, parents and guardians can see the homework which has been set, any accompanying resources and the deadline for it.  Follow the link on the home page of the website .  You and all students will receive a letter with a unique PIN so that you can access all parts of 'Show My Homework'.

The ‘open house’ Wednesdays continue, from 4 till 6, at the bottom of the site by the car-park, in the training block.  Please feel free to contact reception and tell us that you are coming and then use this time to maintain links.

Finally,  you probably don’t need reminding that I am planning to retire at the end of this term;  Mrs Layhe, currently one of our two deputies, will be taking over the reins and Mrs Gittins will be working with her as senior vice-principal.  So this term will be important as a period of transition and hand-over.  However, St Peter’s will be in excellent hands and I am sure that Mrs Layhe’s intelligent energies and commitment will lead it to excellence.

Yours,

 Philip Rush

End of the year

We have come to the end of another school year;  please allow me to thank the whole school community of teachers, technicians, admin and site staff, canteen staff and all support staff and all of you, parents and families, for your support of the school.

At the St Peter’s Mass and presentation afternoon, we celebrated all sorts of achievement and it was lovely to see not only the attentiveness and prayerfulness of all students during the Mass, but also the genuine pleasure students took in applauding the success of others, maturely and genuinely.

We have been very pleased by this year’s ‘faculty fortnights’ which celebrated the breadth of the subjects taught at the school.  From talks by BBC Wildlife cameramen in the geography fortnight, to visiting lecturers and poets, to Bake-Off competitions and Sports Day, to Science Shows and mathematical puzzles, to music and drama performances of the highest standard, we have been encouraged to see that all subjects deserve and reward study and that every faculty has something distinctive to offer the school.  I am extremely grateful to staff and students for the work they have put into this venture.

This week I have also been very pleased by the excellence of the work of our key stage 3 historians whose presentation evening was such a success, by the extremely positive feedback from staff and students who went on the residential trip to the Ardeche and by the success of the school’s junior Duke of Edinburgh Award group.

I am delighted too with the number of students who were invited to go on ‘rewards trips’ such as the RE trip to Harvington Hall, trips which provide an opportunity to thank and reward students who are doing their best.

We have just said farewell to a number of staff who are moving on or retiring.  Mrs Russell-Smith, Mr Glover, Mrs McHale and Mr Richards are retiring;  Mr Martin, Miss Olney, Mr Mains, Mr and Mrs Roberts, Mrs Hopkins, Mr Barnard and Mrs Cameron are all moving on to new challenges and opportunities.  We have been able to thank them all this afternoon and wish them the best.

Buses have been an issue for me (and for you!) in the last month.  Please keep an eye on the webpage (stpetershigh.net > Parents and Community > Buses)   for updates and further information as the holidays progress.

IMPORTANT  If you wish to avail yourselves of any of the services offered by John Dix Travel, please reply by the end of July at the latest.  Mr Dix will have to make decisions about the precise services he will offer, after that date.

I have tried to provide families with end-of-year reports which give statements about students’ progress and a comment from form tutors.  What I am trying to do hear is balance the need to provide parents and carers with proper and good information about students without burdening teachers with toil.  (Even at 2 minutes per subjects report, which is probably far less than it really takes, my calculations are that we are using seven and half weeks’ work to write these reports, albeit spread over all the teachers.  I need to be sure, somehow, that this work is worthwhile.)  I have had some useful feedback emails about this year’s process and I should be grateful to read more.

There will be a letter to all families later in the summer, by way of beginning the new year.  This will be emailed to those whose emails we have and posted to those where we don’t have email addresses.  It would be good to have all your emails addresses!

Finally, I have been asked to pass on to you the services of a former pupil.  Simeon Whitter is a former pupil of St. Peter’s.

He is an Estate Planning Consultant for a national company called The Will Associates. His company specialises in protecting people through a range of services including Wills, Probate and Lasting Power of Attorneys etc. You can contact Simeon by telephone (t: 01452 203135
m: 07872 940315).

All being well, when we return in September the school will have a new electronic gate system to enhance safeguarding and the safety of the site.  It is odd that a school named after St Peter should take so long to get a set of gates which only the good can enter, but here we are.  Visitors will have to speak through an intercom to reception if they visit the school during school hours.  I am sure we shall quickly get used to the system!

I wish you all the best for the holidays.

Philip Rush

Half-Term Blog, May 2016

Let me begin by congratulating Mrs Layhe on her appointment as headteacher from January 2017.  Mrs Layhe has worked at St Peter’s for many years now, and has proved herself both as an outstanding English teacher and as a strong leader.  She knows, understands and supports the key Catholic values of St Peter’s and will be able to take it on to reach higher standards without compromising those values. 

We have other staffing changes from this September and I shall ensure that you get a full picture of those after half-term when things are clearer.  We have been able to appoint some excellent business studies teachers, and also specialist teachers of health and social care, to work alongside Mr Freeman.  Dr Starkey is leaving to take up a new challenge in another school, and they will benefit enormously from his skills and energy;  Mrs McHale is retiring after a long and successful career with us in the art department, in the training school and on the leadership team;  Mr Barnard has accepted a promotion at a local school, and we have had to replace him as head of sixth-form. 

This week we interviewed an extremely strong short-list of candidates for the post of head of sixth-form and appointed Mrs Sian Pearce who is currently an assistant head of sixth in a Bristol school.  We are very pleased to have been able to make this appointment - although it is always sad to disappoint other excellent candidates.  Mr Barnard will leave the sixth-form in a very strong position but we hope the sixth-form can go on and build on that to ensure that standards are as high as possible.

I was very pleased by the part our year 10 students - our future sixth-formers! - played in the interview process.  Every candidate was impressed by their questions and seriousness, and Mrs Pearce commented that they “care about the school and their education”.  A big thank you to them:  it is students like these who make St Peter’s what it is and who will help to continue the improvements in the sixth-form.

One of those improvements is the introduction of the ‘vocational pathways’ this coming September.  All year 11s were given a leaflet about the enrolment procedure and about the new pathways and I hope you have seen that.  The information is on the website now.

All sixth-formers would do well to consider the extra-curricular opportunities provided by the school’s commitment to the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.  Mr Peake and Mr McAteer have taken over the running of the scheme and are building up a new team of staff to manage and run it.  I was lucky enough to have been invited to Buckingham Palace, as headteacher, to attend the presentation at which our former student Leo May received his Gold Award.  A huge accolade for his hard work, and a lovely sunny afternoon in Buckingham Palace Gardens for him and his parents (and me!).

I was also invited, along with many other local headteachers, to the presentation ceremony at the Madrasah Al-Fateha which is held at Widden Primary School.  Excellent to see some of our students shining there, and once again showing hard work, commitment and charity in their work outside St Peter’s.  It was a privilege to be able to attend.

Everyone is looking forward to the half-term break, I think, except perhaps our older students who are deep now into their public exams:  for them the week off is a week of revision and exam practice.  We are planning internal exams for years 8 and 10 in the second half of the summer term and parents and carers of students in those years will receive a letter explaining those and giving dates.  (These letters are now sent by email, with hard copies to collect from Reception.  Please ensure that we have your correct email address;  an email to reception@sphs.co.uk will help us fix that.  The more homes we can reach by email, the better.  Thank you.)

Have a good half term!  But don’t forget we have an important final session ahead of us.  We all have to keep pressing on until mid July to make sure that the summer holidays refresh us rather than make us stale.

 Philip Rush

Mayday News

Mayday News

If any of you have visited the school in the last few weeks, you will have seen the finishing touches to the big building programme.  Mrs Layhe has organized some excellent canvases with Mr Peake's photographs of students, and these make the reception area very colourful and lively.  We have a new trophy cabinet – with some very old trophies amongst all the new ones! – and, of course, we have a portrait of Mr Montagu and a plaque recording the dedication to his memory of the new block.

We had a lovely Mass, concelebrated by half-a-dozen priests, all long-time friends of the school, including Mgr Liam, Fr Kevin, Fr Donal, Abbot Francis, and Mgr Michael English.  Many friends of the school from far and near arrived, to remember Mr Montagu, to meet his family and one another and to pray for him, for his family and for the school.  The refreshments were served by our kitchen staff in the new Design and Technology atrium and everything went very well indeed, thanks to the cooperation of all involved.  A very good day!

Despite such good occasions, sometimes as a headteacher I get a rather jaundiced view of what goes on at St Peter’s.  It’s true, I know about the success of the school jazz band who played at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival last weekend, about sport successes, and about individual successes which cover so many fields including ball-room dancing, acting and so on.  I am also delighted to have been invited to Buckingham Palace later this month to receive, on behalf of the school, a plaque celebrating our work in offering the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme to our students.  I was also deeply impressed by the seriousness with which our exam classes - years 11, 12 and 13 - took their special Mass at the end of last week.  It was a lovely atmosphere.

But I am afraid that, despite all this, some weeks are coloured by my having to speak to a very few students whose behaviour is unacceptable.  Neither I nor the governors will accept bad behaviour at St Peter’s.  I will not allow students to swear at teachers, to threaten others or to disrupt learning.  We have a very well managed system of sanctions here at the school, including short-term exclusions, and most students respond well to these, accept their punishments and learn the error of their ways.  In nearly all cases, students apologise for their actions and make a fresh start. 

Some do not.  Some - a very small handful - are not able, for whatever reason, to conform to our rules.  Rules which are there to help a large community work and play together.  As head, I have had to decide to permanently exclude students who will not work with us.  Each one of these exclusions upsets me.  But we cannot allow our principles and our pastoral care to be compromised.

It is not the best part of the job as headteacher to be responsible for permanently excluding pupils and, as I say, having to address such issues does give me a jaundiced view of St Peter’s.

However, last week, I was lucky enough to be asked to teach year 7 and sixth-form classes, and also a year 11 English lesson.  What a reassuring experience!  The students were polite, friendly, co-operative to a fault.  They were intelligent, articulate and confident.  (Of course they were!)  The year 11 class, who are preparing for their GCSEs of course, were creative and confident and - to be honest - amazingly talented.

So I want to begin by thanking all those students.  They are what St Peter’s is about.  We have something very special to offer our students and I am so grateful when I see that something special come alive in our young people.

Thank you to all parents of year 9 students for getting the ‘option choices’ in so promptly;  we are already at work creating a timetable from that information.

I am hoping that the good weather we glimpsed over the Bank Holiday weekend will become more reliable and that we can use the fields at lunchtimes quite soon.  We have some rules about that and I should appreciate it if you would ensure that your sons and daughters are fully aware of them, and of the fact that you know what they are!  It’s good to play ballgames on the field, but not to engage in rough play.  So rugby tackling is out.  The fields have to be used for PE in the afternoon, so students are not allowed to bring any food on to the field, nor to drop litter.  Finally, they must make a move off the fields in time to prepare for lessons and to start them promptly at 1.40. 

Finally, may I pass on a message I have received from Michelle Vaughan, the Group Scout Leader of 15^th Gloucester (St Peter’s) Sea Scouts:  “St Peter’s Beavers, Cubs and Scouts are looking for new members to start an exciting journey on land and sea. We are the only Sea scout group in Gloucester and currently have a small number of spaces in all sections for boys and girls aged 6-15. We enjoy many outdoor pursuits, Kayaking, hiking, cycling and survival skills but to name a few.  Beavers and Cubs meet on a Weds from 6-7.30pm in St Peter’s Primary school hall, Horton Road. Scouts meet on a Friday from 6.30-8.00pm at Gordon League Rugby Club, Hempsted Lane, Gloucester. Please ring Michelle Vaughan 07963 603725. We are also always grateful for more adult support in all sections for any amount of time, please ring to discuss.”

Let me close by returning to the lovely Mass last week for the exam years.  The exams are indeed fast approaching for GCSE and KS5 students and revision should be well under way.  Allow me to remind you of what Sister Eileen used to tell us when I was at school:  “Revise like you haven’t prayed, and pray like you haven’t revised!”  We wish them all the best with their work and their exams.   I ask them to do no more than to do their best!

Philip Rush

Happy Easter

Firstly, you are all warmly invited to a memorial Mass for Mr Montagu and the dedication to him of the new block.  The Mass will begin promptly at 10.30 in the main hall, on Tuesday 12^th April (that’s the Tuesday after we return to school).  Please be here by around 10.15.  The morning will end with a formal dedication of the newly refurbished ‘main block’ to Larry’s memory.  Parents, as well as former students and staff, are all welcome. 

There will be an opportunity, too, to see how much better the new buildings now are.  We’re catering for some light refreshments, at coffee time, and if you would like to stay for that, please email Mrs Cameron at school (rcameron@sphs.uk.com).  Thank you.

Once again, I am very pleased with the imagination and effort put into their ‘faculty fortnights’ by staff and students.  The science fortnight was particularly memorable – if I am allowed to say so – with Mr Rouffet and his team performing on the main stage a marvellous cross between the Royal Society Christmas Lectures and Crackerjack.  Maybe the Crackerjack bits were the best.  It was also genuinely exciting to hear from the students who went with Dr Taylor and her team of teachers to CERN in Geneva:  the hadron collider, the United Nations and the mountains and lakes of Switzerland all in one short, intense trip.  And the maths department found a young man who could solve the Rubik cube puzzle in 27 seconds.  Which boggles the mind.

During this Lent season and in this Year of Mercy, I am very proud of the efforts of Jude Dowdeswell. Jude had the idea of 'running the school day' for Sport Relief and the response from staff, students, family and friends who sponsored Jude to run throughout the school day (with a touch of the Eddie Izzards there) was fantastic, and, in the words of Jude’s parents “reminded us of the reason why St. Peters is so great - it enables all pupils to achieve their potential”  I am very pleased to report that Jude achieved her fundraising target of one thousand pounds.  A terrific effort!

This coming term students will be receiving their final reports of the year with breakdowns of their assessments and a comment from tutors.  I am referring to the single-sided A4 sheets with grades (eg ‘excellent’, ‘very good’) and comments on progress (eg ‘exceeding target’) as well as a short handwritten comment from each student’s tutor.  As the summer letter explained back in August last year, I am asking teachers to put their time and energy into the highest quality of individual assessment of students, and therefore I said that there would be no long, end-of-year written reports this year.  I am very happy with the standards of assessment which are being achieved and I hope you feel that the report forms you receive each term, along with the parents’ evenings, are informative and helpful.  If you have any comments about the system, especially after you have received next term’s final written report, I should very much like to hear from you.  (Remember, you can see even more detail by emailing in to access the Insight pages.)

When we get back to school all being well after Easter, it will be exams, exams, exams for our older students.  Easter is indeed a good time to set course for those summer weeks.  It is I think appropriate for headteachers to give advice about how to revise.  In fact this is the only thing I am really qualified to give advice about.  Not personal relationships, not fixing domestic electricity, not the best way to fly to Los Angeles:  I can offer no advice about any of that.  I can pass on some excellent tips about revising and passing exams.  (It’s all I’m good at.)  Having said that, I have stolen some of these, but that doesn’t alter their relevance and sharpness.

Start revising early.  And early means months, not days, before the exam. Make a timetable to plan your revision and stick to it.  Don’t pretend you’re revising when you’re not.  Who are you fooling?  Don’t revise the bits you know already.  (I used to write down on a clean sheet of paper the stuff I didn’t know or wasn’t sure about and next time I’d revise from that in the same way;  usually I ended up with only a few things I didn’t know.  Then I learned those.)  Don't spend ages making your notes look pretty, just for the sake of it.  Start early, take short breaks, after maybe an hour.  And it’s quality not quantity that counts. Pay attention to past papers and, of course, to your teachers’ advice.  Sit at a desk;  don’t fool yourself that the radio helps you work – how would you feel if the airline pilot turned on Radio 1 on that last descent because ‘it helped him concentrate’?  Don’t treat the TV like a friend who’s helping.  All that sort of thing.

And don’t overdo it.  All work and no play, etc. 

When we come back, it’s revision for the older students, but it’s summer for us all.  Eventually there will be one or two warm days, anyway.  But that notwithstanding, summer uniform is upon us.  Polo shirts not blazers is the order of the day.  School pullovers and hoodies may be needed on chilly days.

The fields will be made available as soon as the weather is reliably dry and warmer.  We do not allow food to be brought on to the fields – they’re used for PE lessons the rest of the time, remember – and we need behaviour to be excellent, with no rugby tackling or horseplay.   Things go so well when students help us with those simple guidelines.

But before all that, please enjoy a happy and fulfilling Easter.  I hope we can all, staff and students, return energised and enthusiastic and ready for a good term’s work.

Philip Rush

Notices, Friday 26^th February

 

I am very pleased to have received two letters this week from charities, to thank us for support.  We have had a nice letter and certificate from Save the Children thanking the school for the £380 raised from the Christmas Jumper Day in December (even though it wasn’t the coldest December and pullovers weren’t begging to be worn!) and a good letter from the Alzheimer’s Society thanking us for nearly £500 raised at the talent night.  I pass on that thanks to you and to all the students who contributed to these events.

I am also pleased that the ski trip returned happy and (largely) unscathed.  Mr Figliola suffered a broken collar bone:  never a good thing for a musician to break a bone!  We wish him a quick recovery.

I should like to focus on a couple of requests, please. 

We have monitored the number of times students ask to be excused from lessons to go to the toilet.  Our policy here is to allow this whenever asked, to avoid embarrassment, to avoid upsetting students, and to avoid isolating those students who need to be excused for medical reasons.  However, it is obvious that some students are abusing that policy.  Please would you ask your sons and daughters to manage their break and lunchtimes as well as possible so that they can benefit fully from uninterrupted lessons.  Toilets need to be kept clean and hygienic for all.

Secondly, can I remind you please about uniform and attendance.  We are concerned about girls’ skirts being too short.  Mrs Gittins and senior staff are looking at nominating a new style of uniform skirt, but this will take time;  please do your best to help us by checking that daughters are not going to school inappropriately dressed.  We have two or three uniform skirts available now for any girl who needs to change out of what she has chosen to wear to school.

We are working to refurnish the sixth-form centre so that we have a new study room at its heart.  There will be silent study facilities and computers available in the library and there will be new social study area next door, where students can talk quietly as they work.   The school’s network allows students to bring their own laptops if they wish.  We do not allow sixth-formers to stay away simply because they have no timetabled classes;  they need to be in school, studying, reading and learning.

Many thanks for your support of the school.  Without parental support we would not be the school we are.

Philip Rush