Half term news

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

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 150^th 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

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. 

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.