No.12 11 March 2022
Easter Term
ST PETER’S 8-13 NEWSLETTER It has been a very busy two weeks since our half term break, with so many exciting opportunities for the children to take part in. A huge thank you to Miss Macdonald, our librarian, for putting on a fantastic Book Week last week. We were able to browse a wide selection of books at the Book Fair, and as a result of commission on sales we are able to buy another £600 worth of books for the library! We all stopped what we were doing for 20 minutes to just read for pleasure – I found a book in my office that is over 130 years old and was presented as a prize for French at St Olave’s in 1884, which I decided to read. Author L. D. Lapinski spent the day with us giving talks and running workshops – a real treat. The J3s went to the theatre last night to watch a production of “Treasure Island”, the production is a great way of introducing the pupils to the characters they will be studying in English in the summer term. The J5s went to see “Bone Sparrow” - the story about a boy born into an Australian detention centre, so belongs nowhere. The Pilot theatre production was incredibly moving, told through Subi (the boy)'s eyes, and how he makes sense of his world through stories and poems from the other side of the fence. My thanks to the staff for giving up an evening so the children could all experience live theatre.
We have also had plenty of exciting things happening in maths. We hosted a Maths Masterclass on Saturday morning for children from local primary schools, as well as some of our own pupils. I handed out lots of national Maths Challenge certificates in assembly this morning and on Monday it is Pi Day – an annual celebration of the mathematical concept that is Pi. We are going to run a competition to see who can remember the most digits of pi, so if you hear lots of muttering of numbers over the weekend, that might explain it! The J2s had a fascinating talk from the Environment Agency yesterday, all about the flood defences in York from both a historical and modern day perspective – something we’re acutely aware of here at school! In Englilsh, J5 are studying “Other Words for Home” by Jasmine Warga, which follows a Syrian girl, moving to America. They have been cooking Syrian flatbreads along with having a food demonstration from Mrs Herman on falafel and a dip, which they then tasted in the class.
Our Seven Key Values are Friendship, Trust, Wisdom, Compassion, Endurance, Humility, Hope Collaboration and Empathy... Our boarders went ice skating at the weekend with all of the boarders from the four senior boarding houses. They really do enjoy the interactions they get with the senior school boarders, as well as helping them to get to know them prior to moving up to the senior school. The wet weather last week didn’t stop Mr Ferguson’s Cross Country Club who carried on regardless and even seemed to enjoy running in the mud. This is the busiest half term for sport with lots of netball, hockey and rugby 7s tournaments all taking place on top of the usual extensive fixture list. We have hosted U11, U12 and U13 rugby 7s tournaments and our U13 netballers are playing in the York and District tournament tomorrow morning. I really am grateful for all that the staff do to ensure that the children get these sporting opportunities. Congratulations to Rohan K, Sam H and Alf H for being selected to play in the England Hockey North East hockey squad, a tremendous achievement. Our U13A boys’ hockey team played in the IAPS National Finals last week, along with the other 19 top teams in the country. The U13A rugby sevens team won both the Durham and Terrington tournaments and the U13s won the Spirit of Soccer tournament at Aysgarth School. The U11 boys won the Terrington Hall rugby sevens tournament and won the North Yorkshire round of the In2Hockey competition. The U11 and U13 girls’ hockey teams qualified for the North of England finals in the same tournament, with various netball tournaments coming up in the next couple of weeks. Have a lovely Exeat weekend. Andy Falconer Head Twitter: @andyfalconer Instagram: @andyfalconer_
Next week is British Science Week and Mrs Miller, our Head of Science, wowed us in assembly with some fascinating science as well as explaining what will be happening next week. This was the first assembly in two years where we were all of J1-5 were gathered together in the Shepherd Hall. It was a lovely surprise to open The Week magazine and see that we have been chosen as their “Great City Prep” school in their Independent Schools Guide!
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St Peter’s 8-13 Learning Habits Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Embracing Challenge, Empathy, Flexible Thinking, Initiative, Perseverance