18 February Newsletter

No.11 18 February 2022

Easter Term

ST PETER’S 8-13 NEWSLETTER We had a fantastic end to this half term with the St Peter’s Whole Foundation Concert last night. We will be sending you a link so you can watch the recording but it was just wonderful to listen to the whole school choir singing, as well as the different elements from each part of the school. A huge thank you to all the staff involved in preparing the children and looking after them beforehand.

Last Saturday all of our J5 pupils and their parents had an Open Morning at the senior school so they could have a look around and find out what life is going to be like there when they move across in September.

Some sad news (for us) is that Mrs Cathy Lees, our Academic Deputy Head, is leaving at the end of the summer term to take up the role of Head of Academic Development at Lambrook Prep School, near Ascot.

This an exciting move for her although we will miss her hugely. We are currently advertising for someone to take over the role.

Some small reminders: • Permission for planned absences of one day just need to go directly to the House Tutor and the school office, rather than to me.

• School bags should be the official school bag/book bag and not bright yellow ones brought in from home.

• Please use the unofficial one way system if driving down to school – down Queen Anne’s Road then up North Parade.

• Only use designated parking spaces when waiting to collect children from public streets around the school & turn off your engine to limit the emissions being pumped into residential areas.

There have been some interesting projects going on in IT this week with J2 doing prototyping using breadboards and J3 have been making their own games controllers. We have also seen some fantastic presentations in J3 as part of their studies of climate change and sustainable energy resources.

Our Seven Key Values are Friendship, Trust, Wisdom, Compassion, Endurance, Humility, Hope Collaboration and Empathy...

Mrs Craven, our Director of Music, has had an article published in Primary Music Magazine (page 10) looking at developing composition in Key Stage 2. Staying with music, Old Peterite and ex-Minster chorister Jack McCartney came back to school to do some workshops and talk about his work as a film and video game composer. It was so good for the pupils to see how a passion for music can lead to unexpected careers.

Congratulations to the U13 rugby 7s team who won the first tournament of the season up at Durham School yesterday. We also hosted a netball tournament yesterday for teams that don’t normally get the chance to compete in tournaments – not even Storm Dudley could stop these players from enjoying themselves!

It was lovely to see so many of you at Evensong at York Minster last week. You are all more than welcome to attend on any day, starting at 5.30pm, to listen to the choristers singing and don’t have to wait until our next official invite.

Thank you to everyone involved in last week’s Children’s Mental Health week, especially our Pupil Ambassadors led by Miss Shelley. They built a ‘Growing Together’ wall where we were all encouraged to write or draw something that we had learned, achieved or found out about ourselves or others. Friday’s Dress to Express was also a lot of fun!

In today’s assembly I was talking about how we are all role models & started by asking everyone to reflect on how they would feel if a tiny nano drone recorded everything they did over a day – everything they said, wrote, how they behaved. Would they be proud if the unedited version was sent home or to grandparents? We watched this video as a way of introducing the point – slightly sobering as a parent! There will be a concerted focus in school on all of us being good role models, adults or children, when we come back after the half term break.

Have a wonderful Half Term whatever you are doing.

Andy Falconer Head Twitter: @andyfalconer Instagram: @andyfalconer_

St Peter’s 8-13, York, YO30 7WA www.stpetersyork.org.uk Registered Charity Number: 1141329

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St Peter’s 8-13 Learning Habits Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Embracing Challenge, Empathy, Flexible Thinking, Initiative, Perseverance

Easter Term 2022 2 3

St Peter’s 8-13 Newsletter

J2 Mental Health Workshops Following on from Children’s mental health week last week, on Tuesday J2 participated in workshops run by Open View Education which focused on improving their mental health and wellbeing through steps to wellbeing wisdom.

The steps focused on understanding that everyone has mental health in the same way that we have physical health, strategies for taking care of wellbeing and where and how to access support, recognising and talking about emotions, understanding that talking about worries can help them feel better and how to support friends.

They enthusiastically joined in the drama elements and focused on easy steps to proactively improve their mental health.

LAMDA Exams Lovely to see the smiling faces of young people as they received their certificates for their December LAMDA exams. Of the 49 learners across J1 - J5 we had 46 Distinctions and 3 Merits so huge congratulations to all young people involved for their fantastic achievements and dedication to their work. We had a mixture of Introductory and Entry Verse and Prose exams as well as Acting Solo and Duo exams from Grades 1-5. It would have been a real military operation trying to get a picture of the entire cohort, but a picture was taken of one of the youngest in the school, Bella in J1,who was grinning from ear to ear as she received a Distinction and scored a whopping 100% for her Verse and Prose Entry exam. This year will be my 17th year of coaching and Bella will be my second student to achieve full marks on an exam in that time. She has done exceptionally well and is a fabulous communicator.

William was one of the eldest learners in J5 who received a Distinction for his Grade 5 Acting Solo exam. He played a fantastic Sherlock Holmes as one of his pieces.

Frances Simon, LAMDA Teacher

Easter Term 2022 3 3

St Peter’s 8-13 Newsletter

Jack McCartney Visit It was wonderful to welcome Jack McCartney to speak to J3 and J5 on Friday. Jack was a chorister at York Minster, before coming to St Peter’s 13-18. He went on to study at the University of Manchester and is now doing a Masters in composing at the National Film and Television School, and has been recorded for film and video games.

In the morning, J3 talked to Jack about soundtrack, backing up the work they are doing in their music lessons. Jack then talked about creating sound using non-instrumental sources; the children were encouraged to find new ways of creating sound. Some of these were recorded and then put through the computer to add various effects – the children found this really exciting!

In the afternoon, J5 also talked about motif, but this time in video games. The highlight must have been the Mario Kart tournaments at the end, with discussion about how the motif was changing.

Spelling Bee For several years now, St Peter’s 8-13 has taken part in the national Foreign Language Spelling Bee, a competition for students in Year 7 to practise and improve their vocabulary, spelling and memory skills in French, German and Spanish. Initially involving each pupil in J4 learning fifty of the most useful words in their two chosen languages, the second stage of the competition requires the six highest scorers in each language to learn one hundred more words and determines which pupils will represent the school in the regional finals.

Each year the MFL teachers at St Peter’s 8-13 are astounded by the speed and accuracy with which pupils are able to recall and spell their words and recognise the hard work and dedication required to achieve such a high level of performance. All of those who took part in the second stage can be proud of what they achieved, although particular praise goes to Elizabeth, Naomi and Tizzy who go forward to represent the school in the regional finals. We would like to congratulate everyone who took part in this year’s Spelling Bee and wish our school representatives the very best of luck as they prepare for the next round!