We are well into the external exam season and the staff have worked extremely hard with and for our students and I am sure they have too.The half term should not be a holiday for students in year 11 and 13 who need to use their time wisely to ensure they have the best chance of fulfilling their potential. Students in year 10 and 12 also have internal examinations shortly after the break so will need to balance their time next week.
Chaplaincy
News
John
Pridmore: Life Transformed through Prayer
As part of our Year of Prayer
celebrations our Chaplain, Miss Baker, arranged a visit from inspirational speaker and international
author John Pridmore. John shared his amazing story ‘From Gangland to Promised
Land’ with year 8 and 9 students, explaining how he had been involved in gangs in the east end of London
and how his life had been completely transformed through his experience of
prayer. John gave each student a Rosary and miraculous medal.
Students and staff were inspired
& touched by John’s amazing story, his sharing of faith and the power of
prayer. We will be inviting John again - for parents too.
Lent and Easter action
Miss Baker was very privileged to deliver
our Lenten Action offerings with some of the Chaplaincy Team & Mrs Donovan.
We delivered Easter Egg donations to The Marah Trust & St Rose's School, & our food donations to Gloucester Food bank. We received a great
reception at all the venues & learned a lot about the valuable work of the charities.
Thank you all for your donations.
CAFOD
News
Congratulations to the Year 10 CAFOD
Young Volunteers who completed their course and received certificates from
CAFOD. We thank them for the work they have done to raise funds and awareness for
global justice and poverty issues.
Lampedusa
Cross Partnership Service
Year 7 and 8 students joined pupils from St Peter’s Primary to welcome the replica Lampedusa cross. We
prayerfully reflected together on our journey and the journey of refugees. The
original Lampedusa cross was made by Sicilian carpenter Francesco Tuccio from
the wreckage of boats carrying refugees which sank off the island of Lampedusa.
The crosses were given to the refugees as a symbol of hope
Rucksack appeal
Are you planning to renew your rucksack? We would love to have your old one. Mary's Meals charity are requesting rucksacks that they can fill with food and school equipment for young people. Please bring your unwanted rucksacks to the Chaplaincy.
Maths news
Prior to the
Easter break year 8 pupils Ciara Mahon and Bethany Barnes, and year 9 pupils Chris
Thomas and Ivy Wang represented the school at the area final of the UKMT Maths
team challenge. They spent the day working together on a range of maths
problems including a relay race and a cross number where each pair only got
half the clues! They were up against stiff competition, acquitted themselves
well and represented the school admirably.
Over 100 students
from years 9 and 10 also took part in the UKMT intermediate challenge.
This is a competition for individuals who all complete a multiple choice test
of 1 hour. The questions are designed to challenge, fascinate and
intrigue students. All our students did well, with some excellent
individual performances, resulting in1 student achieving Gold, 8 students achieving
Silver and 15 students achieving Bronze. Particular congratulations go to
Chris Thomas, who, in addition to his Gold award and Best in school
certificate, also qualified for the Cayley test, the Intermediate Mathematical
Olympiad paper for his year group. Only 500 students nationally qualify
for this, so this is a stunning achievement. Chris did exceptionally well
in this additional task, achieving a Certificate of Merit. Well done,
Chris!
Congratulations also to
the ninety students in year 7 and 8 who took part in the UK Maths Challenge at
the end of April. This test is designed to intrigue and challenge able
mathematicians through a range of multiple choice problems. 21 students
achieved certificates for their performance. Particular congratulations
go to Liam Murphy, who achieved a gold certificate. Well done Liam!
ROCK award
Congratulations to
our year 11 mentors who all received their Community badges last week. The
mentor system pairs two year 11 students with each year 7 form at the start of
the academic year. The mentors act as a role model, guide, friend and helper to
all the new students in year 7 and it has been a very successful and useful
resource for many years at St. Peter’s. The current year 11 mentors have been
outstanding and are a real credit to themselves, their parents and the school.
They have acted with maturity and intelligence in helping the year 7 students
settle into school, they have helped resolve friendship issues and they have
regularly helped students with reading, current affairs and other tasks. Well
done year 11 mentors!
Ten students in 9E
received the Kindness badge for outstanding charity work this term. The form
ran a raffle with excellent prizes that they manage to secure. They were tireless
in selling tickets during their break times and in total raised £285 for
charity. This really is the ROCK award in action and it was great to see that
two students in the form were receiving their second Kindness badge in two
years.
Congratulations
again to our year 7 boys, year 8 girls and year 8 boys football teams for
getting to the national semi and quarter finals in the football competitions.
In recognition of such superb achievement, all players in the teams will receive
their Optimism badge which is well deserved for a hard-working set of students.
RE news
This
term KS3 students have been learning about other world faiths; this forms
an important part of Religious Education at St Peter's. As the Church says,
“The love for all men and women is necessarily also a love for their culture.
Catholic schools are, by their very vocation, intercultural.”
Years
7, 8 and 9 have spent homework time producing and then presenting an
outstanding array of creative, and thought provoking project work. We have seen
carefully crafted and detailed models, videos, paintings, posters, textile
work, powerpoint presentations and quite a number of delicious cakes and other
cultural foods, all of which were connected with the religions of Judaism,
Hinduism and Islam. It has been our pleasure to see the creativity of our
students and to see the fruits of their work. Below are some images of what has
been produced, but this is just a small sample of what our students created.
We
thank every pupil (and some parents!) for their dedication and effort in making
these research projects such a wonderful success.
Business Studies and Economics
We recently
welcomed five local businesswomen to participate in the Economics and Business
Studies’ “Women into Business” event. The guests moved between the groups of
students, explaining a bit about their lives and career so that the session worked
like speed networking. The event was aimed at year 9 but a team of sixth form
girls ran an activity and helped to organise the event. They were a credit to
the school and one of the guests mentioned Pippa Brogden in particular, commenting
on how impressive she was. We hope the event has given our year 9 students a lot
to think about in terms of future subject choices and careers in the business
sector. The department has developed some excellent links with local businesses
and we intend to use them for further events and as a focus for some of their
students’ vocational coursework assignments.
The feedback from
the year 9 girls was very encouraging and they were engaged by the guests had
to say.
Year 9 Geography visit to the Royal
Geographical Society, London
Prior to the
Easter break year nine geographers enjoyed a visit to the Royal Geographical
Society (RGS) in London. The day involved a series of sessions with geography
undergraduates and the team at the RGS based on a series of different topics within
the subject. Many of the topics frequently feature in the news currently such
as palm oil, deforestation and climate change. The students also had an
opportunity to ask two Cambridge students about their degree, undergraduate
application and life at Cambridge university as well as other undergraduates
about GCSE’s, A Levels and higher education in general. All the students were
fully involved in the activities during the day and represented the school well.
Thank you to Mrs Roberts and Miss Bates for organising the visit.
KS3 Languages and history visit to Normandy
during October half term 2019
Spaces are
available on the biennial KS3 trip to Normandy, a cross-curricular Languages
and History trip with a chance to speak French and visit important historical
sites. Details are available from Mrs Beamish: jbeamish@sphs.uk.com
Once again, the Jazz Band represented the school at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival on Sunday 5th May. This is always one of the highlights of our year, playing to a large and appreciative audience at such a high-profile venue.
Music Department News
The annual Choral
Society Concert took place in St Peter’s RC Church before Easter. It was entitled ‘Our Eternal Home’ and was
part of the 150th anniversary celebration of the church’s
consecration. The Choir was delighted to perform to a full house and are proud
to be able to donate £400 to Gloucester Foodbank as a result of the retiring
collection
Please
come and support our younger students at the forthcoming Junior Concert on
Tuesday 11 June at 7pm. This is a free,
informal concert in the Main Hall. It is always a lovely occasion listening to
the students in Year 7, 8 & 9, some of whom will be performing in public
for the first time.
Sporting news
Congratulations to Jessica Duncton in year 8 who has been
competing in athletics this year. She has done an amazing job and is the
fastest girl in the South West in the U15 in the 200 metres. She is also ranked
fifth in the country for the 100m indoor hurdles!
Staff vs Sixth Form charity football match
Members of the staff
and sixth form recently played in their
seventh annual charity football match, The Dench Cup in loving memory
of our student Kamil Ciemniewski. Over £550 was raised for the Superhero
foundation, supporting the courageous efforts of our own local ‘superhero’ and recent world record holder, former student, Jamie McDonald. The match was played with
an air of great community and competition. The match ended with a last minute
equaliser for the staff, courtesy of two goals from Mr Figliola, forcing
penalties. Mr Williams for the staff became the hero between the posts and
saved several penalties to give the staff the victory. The series now stands at
4-3 to the sixth form. Thanks to all who organised the event, played, spectated
and contributed to the collection.
I hope you have a good half term break and we look forward to seeing the students in school again on Monday 3rd June with week 1 books and equipment.
