Our students and staff are more than ready for a break after an extremely busy half term.
Chaplaincy and Charity
The Mass and
awards ceremony for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul was an uplifting
occasion and one when the whole school joins together to give thanks and to
celebrate. A special thank you must go to Monsignor Liam Slattery for saying
Mass and to a host of people who contributed to making the day so special, in
particular Miss Baker, our chaplain, and the music department.
Year 9 students
have recently had retreat days. Thank you to Miss Baker, the RE team and year 9
tutors for their contribution to these.
A group of pupils
in Mr Chambers’ form (9E) raised over £200 and used this money to provide books
for the Born Sleeping Appeal at Hereford County Hospital to help support
families and children affected by baby loss. This money was raised through a
raffle where pupils showed great ambition by writing to local businesses asking
for support, collecting prizes and selling tickets at school. Mrs Williamson and
Mrs Skyrme took these items to Hereford Hospital along with a cheque from funds
raised by the staff throughout the year. After the sad loss of her newborn baby last year, Mrs Williamson would like to say a big
thank you to all pupils involved for the compassion and maturity they have
shown as well as to staff for their support throughout the year.
Students raise £1
a mile and walk to Paris!
A climate change sponsored walk was organised to raise awareness of the effects it is having on our
planet. Years 7-10 took part in the activity while also donating a small sum of
money to CAFOD in their efforts to save the environment. We counted
the distance everyone who took part in the activity walked and worked out that
together we walked further than Gloucester to Paris (421.5 miles) while raising
an approximately £420.
Students decided to do this because they saw that people were doing climate change protests and they wanted to join in
without missing school, leading them to think of this idea. They wanted to show the
other students how easy it is to walk to places without using transport that
relies on fossil fuels. Each student walked an average of 2 miles which is a
fantastic effort in highlighting such an important issue.
Mr Lax says, “the
girls came to me with this idea and have run every walking
session themselves. They have shown all the aspects of the ROCK award and are a
true credit to St. Peter’s. Well done girls!”
Congratulations to our new head students Ellie Brooks, Romana Protsyshyn, Jack Richardson and Fran Smith who have got stuck into their duties with zeal and gusto. We will all be seeing much more of these excellent role models next academic year. The Gold Duke of
Edinburgh award scheme
The Gold Duke of
Edinburgh award scheme
Congratulations to
Joe Wilson, Fran Smith, Romana Protsyshyn, Maddie Park, Hannah Osmanski, George
Kodankandath, Paul Kodankandath, Harry Holbrook, Ben Etheridge, Elena Davies,
Charlotte Cutting and Ellie Brooks on completing their qualifying expedition
for the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. They were four days self-sufficient
and still smiling at the end! The assessor was full of praise for the
group, telling them that it was a pleasure and a privilege to work with students
of such calibre. Thank you to Mel Moss, Anna McAteer and Mr McAteer for
leading the expedition. A special mention must go to Mr Edwards who
trained the group and came back to join them on the practice expedition.
Year 10 Careers Networking
Day
The
Year 10 Careers Networking Day on 27th
June was extremely successful. It was organised by Mrs Sarah Beeton, our careers
adviser with lots of support from Mrs Ryder, Mrs Haywood and many other members
of staff and sixth form students.
The day got off to a fantastic start with a
motivational speaker encouraging students to aim high and to take advantage of
the wide range of career and educational
opportunities available to them. Students then had the opportunity to
“speed network” with the employers to gain an insight into these local
businesses and the wide range of career opportunties available within them.
Leading up to the event, students researched the organisations and preprepared
questions to ask the employers.
Students
continued to “speed network” with
education and apprenticeship providers,
including our own sixth form as well as local colleges and universities. The
aim of this session was to ensure students were aware of all of their post 16
and post 18 options so that they can make an informed choice after year 11 and
year 13.
During
the afternoon students attended “Employability Workshops” learning about the local labour market, where to look
for vacancies, how to compile a CV and
application form and how to perform well at interview. The day concluded
with students registering on our new “unifrog” Career Platform, to keep a log
of the employers and providers they had met and to reflect on what they had
learnt from the day.
Some of the organisations who took part in the day, four of which are
amongst the Top 10 Employers in the county.
Superdry Head
Office have opened their doors today to several of our Year 12 students to
participate in their Superdry School Days Programme. The events are fun,
interactive and informative and are a great opportunity for our students to
find out more about how a global retail business operates. Students have the
opportunity to learn about a wide range of careers by speaking to staff from a
range of different departments such as Legal, Human Resources, Finance,
Marketing and Design. Some of the Apprentices currently working at Superdry
started their career journey by attending one of these events.
Osbourne Clarke
Solicitors, Bristol, welcomed a group of Year 12 students to enable them to
find out more about careers in the legal profession and the various routes
available to train as a Solicitor. Students were able to speak to experienced
solicitors about their work and to find out about the qualifications, skills
and attributes required for this career. The exciting development of
Apprenticeships in Law enables student to decide whether they would prefer to
take the work-based learning route or the more traditional route of going to
university full time.
Gloucestershire
NHS Foundation Trust organised a full week of work experience for our Year 12
students interested in a career in healthcare.
Students work shadowed health professionals from a range of different
healthcare careers enabling them to find out more about the wide range of
healthcare roles available in the NHS.
EES Contribution to
Business award won by year 12 St Peter’s Physics Students
On Monday the 17th
of June 2019, 5 of St Peters RC High School Year 12 students finished a six month Engineering Education Scheme working alongside engineers from L3 TRL
Technologies based in Tewkesbury by going to the graduation day at Bath
University and coming back with the “Contribution to Business” Award. The
5 students: David Charzewski, Paul Kodankandath, Josie Poole-Jones
Dominic Thomas,
Joshua Jensley with the support from Mr Jones-Parry (Head of Physics) and
Engineers Alice Roizer and Aaron Townsend worked on building, from concept, a
device to count the number of people or objects passing a place. The team
decided to focus on the counting of people through a doorway so it can be used
to measure footfall in a shop, or refined to be used to count the number of
people within a building during an evacuation. The team moved from concept, to
research and then testing at Bath University on the 28th and 29th
of January. This gave time for the students and engineers to build and revise
their device to work more smoothly. The team then moved onto writing a report
and creating a presentation for the recent graduation day. These two
tasks, with the report breaking the 50 page barrier, where no easy tasks, but
with their hard efforts it is these two things, along with their displays to
the public and question from the judges which gave them the Award. Each student
also achieved the Gold Standard Industrial Cadet award for their completion of
the project.
EAL Department Strawberry Tea Party
The EAL department
held their sixteenth Strawberry Tea Party on July 12th after school. Students who learn English as an Additional Language
did some fabulous cooking to prepare a sumptuous spread of delicious
chocolate cakes to go with the traditional English Scones with cream and strawberries.
Members of staff,
parents and other guests enjoyed the tea party to celebrate the successful
completion of ESOL English as a second language exams and the student
achievements during the year. It also gave us
great pleasure to welcome past students and teachers who helped to make the EAL
department at St Peter's school such a success.
Drama department
This term saw the Year 7
Drama production of ‘Arabian Nights’ on 6th June involving twenty
year 7 students with support from year 10 student, Olivia Cutting. The Year 8
Drama production of ‘Our Day Out’ on 12th July involved fifteen year
8 students. Both performances were well attended and the department are
impressed by the dedication and passion shown by all students involved. We are
also excited about the future with such talented students. Thank you to Mrs
Skyrme and Mr Watkins for your work with our students.
· Music news
The
annual G15 Celebration of Success event was held in Gloucester Cathedral on 25th
June. All fifteen Gloucester schools
took part with year 12 student Avygayle Smith being the St Peter’s music representative. She performed one of her own compositions
‘Keep Faith in Me’ to an extremely appreciative audience. The evening was a
hugely uplifting event and all fifteen schools had designed a flag as part of a
project on Remembrance run in partnership with the Royal British Legion.
Two
weeks later, Avygayle was invited to perform at the Cheltenham Festival. She
delivered a 40-minute set of original songs on the Free Stage in Imperial
Gardens and was very well received by the large crowd. Well done Avygale!
Year 10 Band,
‘Point Naught’ has been hugely committed to the extra-curricular life of the
school this year and has also contributed regularly to the wider community,
recently performing sets at the Tuffley
Festival and at St Mary’s School, Churchdown Fundraiser.
On Saturday 3
August, six of our Key Stage 3 students (Bethan Brito, Grace Clarke, Emma
Foran, Liv Whitehead, Helena Molyneaux & Ivy Wang) will be performing as
part of a larger choir in the prestigious Three Choirs Festival. They will be singing Carl Davis’ Last
Train to Tomorrow, a performance which marks the 80th anniversary of the
last Kindertransport to leave Prague. Tickets are available from: www.3choirs.org
We are delighted
to report that former student, Laurence Padfield has graduated with a First
Class Honours Degree in Music from Royal Holloway, University of London. He has secured a Graduate Music Assistant job
in a North London school in addition to being awarded a place on the National
Youth Choir of Great Britain Fellowship scheme.
Art department
This
year the Art Department are working with the support of Gloucester Rotary Club
to run a “Fab 5 Competition”. One hardworking pupil from each class in
KS3 will took part in the competition entitled “Under the Sea”, this Wednesday 17th July. This theme was been chosen to raise
awareness of the need to protect our oceans. The pupils spent the
day investigating and taking inspiration from artists who use their artwork to
promote ocean conservation. In teams pupils used a variety
of materials, from traditional pencils and paint to clay and various textural
materials. They created work that shows either the beauty of animals and vegetation within the ocean or highlights the effects of human
impact, such as the high level of plastic waste. At the end of the
competition each team’s work was judged by members of the Rotary Club and
the Art Department with a prize to the winning team. In order to judge
the competition, we looked at pupils' artwork but also
incorporated the St Peter’s ROCK Award Values of Respect, Optimism, Community
and Kindness.
Many thanks to the
Gloucester Rotary Club who commented: “Thanks to the pupils who worked so hard
and show dedication to the Arts. The event, sponsored by
rotary@kingsholm, was organised and supported by Clare Robinson, Bob Coles and
Brian Collier, from rotary, and by Jude Williams, Head of Art, and Sue
Williams, Art Technician, from St Peter’s. The arts competition at St
Peter’s High School was seen as a great success by all concerned. The eight
mixed-age teams were drawn from different classes across Years 7, 8 and 9 so
most pupils didn’t know each other and had to work in teams. In one team it was
the youngest member who emerged as the leader. Pupils came up with some
brilliant ideas and a number of teams were ambitious in their vision, creative
in its realisation and produced work of outstanding quality. Equally impressive
was the focus and concentration pupils maintained for the whole day, including
some who apparently had difficulties in doing so in other contexts. We Rotarians
were struck by the support offered by many other school staff and pupils who
popped in to see how things were going. While words can never capture
experience, we ended the day with the sense of having taken part in something
very worthwhile and look forward to repeating the experience next year.”
The winning team
was made up of Chloe Bevan (yr 7), Ronan Hirons (yr 8) and Niamh Hannis (Yr 9).
Isobel Kinsella won a special prize for being so enthusiastic and really
putting her all into the day’s activities! The winners all received an Art Pack
(sketchbook, brushes, pencils and watercolour paints) presented by Glos Rotary
Club.
Keep an eye out for photos from the day
on our Instagram @Fab5Art
Sports Day
Sports day yesterday was a great success. Thank you to students, staff and parents for your support. There was a lovely atmosphere and it was lovely to see so many young people participating, whatever their ability. A big thank you to the PE staff for all their work.
Results
First S 655
Second M 600
Third E 589
Fourth R 560
Fifth A 542
Sixth I 526
Seventh L 518
Eighth C 411
School Shop
The
Business Studies and Economics department plans to set up a school shop to
sell equipment and items of second hand uniform. They would be delighted if any
parents or friends of the school have a business which would be interested in
sponsoring the shop. If you think you can help, please contact Mr Jamie
Versaci: jversaci@sphs.uk.com
Staffing news
Mr Staynings and Ms Bennett are leaving us at the end of their fixed term contracts. Mrs Aldridge has chosen not to return after her second maternity leave.
The following teaching assistants are retiring
Mrs Arkwright
Mrs Lange
Mrs Wolowiec
Mr Moran
Other members of staff have secured new posts, many of which are promotions, or are retiring (often early) or are pursuing new ventures:
Mr Upward
Mrs Pearce
Mr Jones-Parry
Mrs Willerton
Mrs Eakin
Mr Hudson
Mrs Brindley
Mrs Garcia
Mrs Baker
Dr Taylor
Ms Vertannes
Ms Struggles
Mrs Bateman
Mrs Demetriou
Mrs Davis
Mrs Roche
Mrs Lowson
Mrs Marment
Uniform and hair styles
Please check the school website before allowing your sons or daughters to dye their hair, have tramlines cut in or extremely short hair and before purchasing new items of uniform. In particular, trousers must be full length and not be skinny or clingy, socks should be black and at least ankle length (not trainer socks) and we have a specific school skirt which can be purchased at the uniform shops.
FOSPA (the Friends of St Peter's Association) would welcome further donations of uniform which can be sold on. They would also welcome more members and more help! A big thank you to them for all their hard work this year.
Parking
May I remind you not to try to enter the bus bay at the end of school until 3.50 -4pm after which there is no problem at all. We have again experienced problems with some parents blocking driveways of local residents so I ask all parents and guardians to be sensitive to our neighbours.
Thank you as always for your commitment and support. It is greatly appreciated. We hope you and your sons and daughters enjoy the summer break and we look forward to seeing them in September.
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