Chaplaincy news
All year groups
have participated in a Christmas liturgy led by our chaplain, Mandy Baker. It
was lovely to see so many students participating by reading. The theme this year was a reflection on the Christmas story and God's call to trust him as trapeze flyers must trust the catcher. God invites us to place our trust in Him: do not be afraid. This year we collected 86 Christmas shoeboxes which were delivered to children in Romania.
Thank you to everyone who contributed.
Chaplaincy Team Commissioning The ten students on our Chaplaincy team were commissioned at Clifton Cathedral on Friday 30th November. Each member of the Chaplaincy team is also a member of another Chaplaincy group such as the year 10 and 12 CAFOD teams, altar servers, Eucharistic ministers, year 7 and 8 teams and the Christian Union group.
During this season of Advent, form 12CMD organised a ‘Festive Friday’ raising £107 for CAFOD World Gifts by selling hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. All money raised went towards buying an emergency shelter that could make a life-saving difference to a family in urgent need. They also bought water for a family. This will provide families with a supply of safe water in their homes for drinking and cooking. Finally, they raised enough money to buy a goat to provide a family with milk which they can drink or sell; it will also produce free fertiliser that can be used to help grow crops. Many thanks to all who supported this event!
Music department news
On 28th November Year 10 GCSE Music students Josh (drums) and David (bass guitar), accompanied 200 primary school children in the Junior Voices Project held in Gloucester Cathedral.
Llanthony Priory
A-level Music students
performed a lunchtime concert on 7 December at the newly restored Llanthony Secunda
Priory. This included both a choral and
instrumental re-working of the 13th century Llanthony Carol, Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene. We then sang the carol at various points
around the city, including the Quays, Eastgate Shopping Centre, the Cross and
the Cathedral.
The day after
Llanthony Priory saw the Chamber Choir performing with former St Peter’s student
and Chinese X Factor winner, Mary-Jess Leaverland on her winter tour.
Carols by Candlelight
Our main event of
the term, Carols by Candlelight, took
place at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Stroud on Friday 14 December. Students from all year groups took part and
we were delighted once again to sing to a large and enthusiastic audience. Through their generosity, we were able to
support the church and make a significant donation to this year’s chosen
charity, Young Minds.
To finish the term
in festive style, the music department have been bringing Christmas cheer to
one and all by busking around the site with carol singers on Thursday and Jazz
Band on Friday!
A huge thank you
to members of the music department and especially to Mrs Perfect for all their
excellent extra-curricular work.
Oxbridge applications
Well done to the following students who applied for and have been
interviewed for places at the following Oxford colleges:
Megan Cameron to study History at Christ Church College
Paul Pellissery
to study History at St Benet’s Hall
Sam Harte to study Philosophy & Theology at Regent’s Park College
George Greaves to study PPE at Brasenose College
Finlay Stephens
to study Engineering Science at St Edmund Hall
Maths news
Congratulations to
the KS5 students who participated in the UK Senior Maths Challenge in
November. This national competition consists of challenging questions
that encourage mathematical reasoning and precision of thought in addition to
sound mathematical knowledge. The following students were amongst the
highest scoring nationally and so achieved awards as follows:
Silver: Fran
Smith
Bronze: Max
Stephenson, Ted Reece, Joshua Hensley and Lily Magri.
Well done to them
all.
Recently thirty students from a
range of year groups attended a presentation on Careers in Medicine as part
of our Futures Programme. The speaker, Dr Giovanna Sheiybani, a Gastroenterology
Registrar at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, talked to students about her
medical training and career pathway which has included a variety of
teaching roles as well as being the Junior Doctor Forum Chair and the
Local Negotiating Committee Junior Doctor rep for her Trust.
Giovanna, who is also
a mentor to medical students also conducted mock Interviews for those
sixth form students who have applied to study medicine at university. We hope
Giovanna’s presentation has helped to inspire our students to become the
doctors of the future.
Sporting news
Basketball success
Last week St
Peter’s participated in the Gloucester Schools District basketball tournaments
and hosted three of the events (Year 8, 10 and 11). The St Peter’s played brilliantly
throughout the week and the work the pupils put into attending Monday morning
sessions, lunch-time and after-school practices since the first week of term
one really paid off with some excellent team performances. The overall results
were as follows:
Year 7 - 3rd
Place
Year 8 - 1st Place
Year 9 – 1st Place (the year 9 team have qualified for the county finals in January when the winner progresses to the national rounds).
Year 10 – 1st Place
Year 11 – 2nd Place (lost final by 1 point)
Year 8 - 1st Place
Year 9 – 1st Place (the year 9 team have qualified for the county finals in January when the winner progresses to the national rounds).
Year 10 – 1st Place
Year 11 – 2nd Place (lost final by 1 point)
Congratulations to
the teams and thank you to the P.E. staff and, in particular, Mr Staynings for
his work with them.
Football success
The year 7 boys progressed to the 6th round (last 32 in
the country) and have an away tie in Plymouth during the first week of the new term. The boys have been excellent, beating Gordano school
5-4 in the last round in a very exciting game.
The y ear 8 boys have progressed to the 6th round (last 32 in
the country) after a comprehensive 6-0 home victory against Bradley Stoke and
they now await another home game against Sandwell academy in the next game.
The year 7 and 8 girls team have progressed to the 6th
round (last 16 in the country) after a fabulous 4-1 away win in the 5th round.
This is an amazing achievement for the girls as they have progressed further
than any other team in the school’s history. They await the draw for the next
round on January 14th.
Visit to Normandy, half term
2019
The Modern Languages
department has launched their cross-curricular KS3 trip to Normandy in October
half term 2019. Any year 7 or 8 students who are interested should speak to
their MFL teacher for further details. This is a great opportunity to
visit the Normandy Landing Beaches and the Bayeux Tapestry, as to well as to
sample local French delicacies.
Staffing news
Two members of
staff are leaving us at the end of term:
Mr Dan Edwards is
leaving us to take up a post as head of economics and business studies. We thank
him for all his hard work in maths, economics & business and, in
particular, for the enormous amount of his own time he has devoted to our
students participating in the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme.
Mrs Barker (modern foreign languages) is taking
up a post producing training materials in an aeronautical company. She has
contributed greatly to the languages department as well as to the progress team
where she has organised the Scholar’s programme for several cohorts of our
students.
Mrs Deborah
Harrisson has been appointed to the maths and business & economics
department.
Mrs Suzanne Lord
has been appointed to the languages department.
A reminder that
term starts on Monday 7th January 2019 which is week 2.
We wish everyone a
peaceful and a happy Christmas.
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