December 14th Newsletter

Dear Parents

Since our last newsletter the Government has published its White Paper on the future of education. There is much in this and at present not a great deal of concrete information, but there are aspects which we applaud and St Peter’s is already well equipped to deliver.

• The English Baccalaureate is a new qualification for GCSE pupils which is going to be available. We will look forward to offering this to students who are able to achieve it and want to take the opportunity of gaining this new qualification. Our curriculum is such that it seems we will not need to make major changes to offer this new possibility and we will be talking in more detail to year 9 parents when things are clearer.

• It is suggested that new GCSE league tables will be compiled showing the ‘percentage of year 11 students achieving 5 or more A* to C passes to include English, maths and science’. The Government is stating it should be a minimum of 35%; last year at St Peter’s 60% of year 11 achieved this. A marvellous reflection of good comprehensive education.

• The Government has confirmed its commitment to Academies and we are still progressing our information gathering exercise on this issue. We are fully aware that there is a number of secondary schools in the county who will be progressing to academy status over the next 12 months. We, however, will not move until we are assured that the underlying ethos of St Peter’s can be fully protected. We are working with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton and our national Catholic Education Service to get agreement from the Government on this essential question related to the religious nature of our school. We are also talking with our Stroud and Gloucester Catholic primary schools as we do not want to be in a position where our primary schools are left with little support because of the dire financial situation of the Local Authority.

• The Government is moving teacher training at every level to be more school-based, by building on the training school designation which St Peter’s enjoys. It intends to set up centres of excellence in teaching and learning based in specific schools. St Peter’s is ideally placed to be one of these centres of excellence as our training school team is noted as being outstanding within Gloucestershire and beyond. We do of course at present assist many schools in their development.

HELP AVAILABLE

I cannot stress enough to parents how important it is in these difficult financial times that they maximise the potential for support that might be available for their sons or daughters to attend St Peter’s. You are all aware of the decision of the Local Authority concerning school transport from September 2012, but I want to stress that not only with transport but for other reasons related to the future funding of the school, claiming your entitlement will not only be beneficial to you but will assist us in providing the best possible education for your son or daughter.

• If you might be entitled to free school meals support and are not at present claiming, please contact the Education Department at Shire Hall, Gloucester, for information as to how you can be assessed.

• NB. If, at present, you are receiving a certain level of family tax benefit you may be entitled to free school transport beyond the present regulations. If you are in receipt of such benefit and live between 2 and 15 miles from the school, contact Mrs Ryder, our bus coordinator, on 01452 509208 and ask her for details as to how you can apply and also ascertain whether you qualify. I emphasise that this is a change from the normal limits which is between 3 and 10 miles from the school. The new agreement measures actual distance to school; in the past the key measure was distance to Gloucester cross. My apologies, as I have not highlighted to parents in the past this vital piece of information.

CONGRATULATIONS

• To Ben Rolfe (Year 10) who is a keen sailor racing in both Topper and Laser 4.7 dinghies. During the past 12 months Ben has been competing against over 200 other juniors at national events across the country as well as taking part in a week long National Championship event at Phwelli, Wales. As a result of his efforts he has been selected along with 24 other sailors to join the Topper National Development Squad. The pinnacle of his year will be to take part in the World Championships next summer in Ireland.

• To all our students, parents, friends and staff who contributed to such an excellent Children In Need day. We raised £3,000 and I am particularly indebted to the sixth form who led the activities by dressing up in the most bizarre costumes. How our number in the sixth form was not considerably reduced by hypothermia amazed me!! It did, however, once again show St Peter’s at its very best in coming together to support those who are less fortunate.

• To the brilliant cast of Bugsy Malone. I am sure those of you who saw the performance will agree that it was simply outstanding. It reflected maximum effort on the part of the students and also the incredible expertise we have in our school in the persons of Helen Haywood our Director of Performing Arts and Catherine Perfect our Director of Music. Together with their excellent departments they really do inspire our young people to achieve levels of excellence which would be the envy of any school in the country. In thanking all concerned I would also like to place on record my thanks to the many support and teaching staff who worked so hard behind the scenes to make sure our young people have the opportunity to exhibit their talents and abilities.

• To those of you who have already contributed presents for our Giving Tree. I am most grateful to those who have already sent in gifts. To those who have not, an opportunity will be available until Monday 20 December. These presents, as always, will be such essentials as: toiletries, hats, scarves, gloves and sweets. I remind you the gifts will be divided between GEAR and the Women’s Refuge. I am most grateful to Governor, Margaret Barnsley and Jan Gregory from our Student Support Services for organising the Giving Tree and giving us the opportunity to show support to those in need this Christmas.

As I put this newsletter together I am thinking, in advance, of the staff and students who will be providing the Carols By Candlelight this evening at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Stroud. Once again they have rehearsed immensely hard under the direction of Catherine Perfect to put on a meaningful celebration. If you have not yet obtained tickets simply turn up at the door for 7.00pm start and I assure you it will be an excellent start to Christmas celebrations.

HOLIDAY

The school will close for the Christmas Holiday at 2.00pm on Tuesday 21 December. Buses will all be away from the school no later than 2.15pm. As always, if for any reason you wish your child to remain at school until 3.30pm, please let your son or daughter’s form tutor know and we will make arrangements for him or her to remain in a safe environment.

It is a lovely long holiday for the students this year and so many of them richly deserve it as they are working very hard. The school will re-open for them at 9.00am on Monday 10 January. Once again I ask that you ensure your sons and daughters are in school on time each day for a 9.00am start.

Those students in the sixth form who are taking module exams in January must ensure that they undertake a sensible revision schedule over the Christmas holiday. My advice is that they begin revision after Boxing Day and with a break for New Year’s Day, endeavour to do some solid revision each day prior to school commencing.

NB. The period between 4.00pm Thursday 23 December and 9.00am Tuesday 4 January is the only time in the year when the school is completely closed and so there will be no access for parents. In the direst of emergencies and you need to make contact, your local Roman Catholic parish priest will be able to contact a member of the school leadership team, but I stress this should only be in the utmost emergency.

SNOW CLOSURES AND EXAMS – IMPORTANT KEY POINTS FOR STUDENTS WHO ARE TAKING EXAMS

• If the school is closed because of snow we will still open for students taking exams.
• Our Site Manager, Roger Smith, lives on site so will ensure that the exam rooms are open and he will work to ensure that access routes to the rooms are cleared and gritted.
• The buses may not be running so students will have to make their own arrangements for getting to and from school.
• You may wish to consider staying with friends or family who live closer to school on the night before exams if necessary.
• No one should take any unnecessary risks getting to school, and must take extra care when on the school site.
• The Exam Boards do allow Exams to be begun after the scheduled start time, so even if you are delayed in getting in to school you will still be able to take your exam providing you arrive within a reasonable time after the scheduled start time.

BEHAVIOUR

I am so grateful to the vast majority of parents who support us with our behaviour policies. I also stress that if, at any time, you have a concern, particularly if it is related by your child, please contact us immediately so that we can discuss it on an adult level before the problem becomes worse or, indeed, discover whether there is a problem at all. Where we have most difficulty is in a very small number of cases where parents believe 100% what is reported to them without having listened to the evidence we have accumulated. This does neither the student nor family any favours as if a student believes they simply have to complain to a parent to gain their support it will only be a matter of time before the discipline of the parent is also undermined.

Quite simply, our whole discipline is geared to every student being able to be happy, successful and safe. It is also geared to allowing staff to teach to the excellent level we have in St Peter’s with no student preventing this happening. Abuse, either to students or staff will not be tolerated and I hope, and indeed I know, that this is exactly what so many of you want from our school. I must also emphasise (and it saddens me to have to state it, but after one or two incidents recently it needs reaffirming) that I will treat every student in a fair way regardless of gender, race or relationships they may have with members of the school staff or governors. No youngster is above the discipline of the school. Our discipline follows our Mission statement in treating all people with dignity and respect. As St Paul says, pupils who misbehave are not our enemies but ‘brothers and sisters in need of correction’.

Cross Country

The Gloucester Schools Secondary Cross Country Championships took place at Plock Court on Tuesday 19th November 2010. Several St Peter’s girls and boys achieved a top 16 place and are going to represent Gloucester District on the 4th December at Pittville Park. Well done St Peter’s!

I have listed them below:
• Year 7 Girls Shya Pinnock 2nd, Lucy Morris 7th, Jessica Rolfe 9th, Alex Harvey 10th, Emily Hendzel 15th
• Year 7 Boys Jack Freeman 10th, Cameron Kerr 11th, Jamie Kirk 12th
• Year 8/9 Girls Emily Wyatt 3rd, Cerys Poole 7th, Katie Elkova 12th
• Year 8/9 Boys Pat Stuckey 11th, Finian James 16th
• Year 10/11 Girls Nadia Zimbalati 6th
• Year 10/11 Boys John Hunter 14th, Tom Lennox 15th

Rugby

Congratulations to Nico Woodward who has been picked as first choice in his position as hooker for the South-West U/18 Rugby team - ready for the England Regional Trials which take place over Christmas and into the New Year!

Also, congratulations to the 1st XV Rugby team who are making great progress in the Daily Mail Cup. We play our old rivals from Bristol, Colstons School in the next round, at home for a place in the last 16! Good luck Boys!

Football

Congratulations to our year 8 boys’ football team who have progressed beyond the county stages of the national schools competition. They are excellent soccer players.

Swimming

On Wednesday 10th November, our sixth form swimmers competed in the Secondary Schools Relay Championships held at Millfield School. Competing for the girls team were Aimee Carter and Francyne Hardy (year 12) and Emma Beamish and Soukaina Grina (year 13), and for the boys Dan Broady, Liam Lodge, Ben Nunn and Tom Howells (year 12). The teams were entered into both a medley relay and a freestyle relay. The medley is viewed as the trickier of the two as it requires swimmers to take on all the four strokes. However, if you have swimmers with strengths in each stroke (most importantly, the breaststroke) you’ll blast it, and we were pretty sure we had this advantage. PE teacher Mrs Porter, who had arranged for our school to take part in the gala, took the teams down in a minibus and offered great support and encouragement throughout the day as we were surprised that the standard was set very high for this event.

As we entered the building, it became evident that many of the swimmers taking part belonged to clubs or schools which have their own pool and are often competing in national events. We had been comforting ourselves with the thought of schools not having many elite swimmers to enter the competition, as the likes of Sir Thomas Rich’s found themselves. The warm up commenced at 12.30pm in which swimmers were given 10 minutes swim time – a stressful 10 minutes which brought to the teams’ attention that these schools were not here to play - and 5 minutes diving time.

After the warm up the team got prepared, changing into their sharkskins, to undertake their first event - the medley relay. With a little while to wait until the girls’ race, up first in event 5, heat 2, we watched the younger age groups thrashing out faster times than we were expecting from our own category, and guessed it must be the private schools and most probably Millfield. Although a little nervous from the results previously seen, the girls headed down eagerly for their event and were determined to achieve great results. With the help of a few energy drinks, pep talks and stretches before hand, the girls achieved 2nd place in their heat, behind Millfield School B, and 7th place overall. Francyne started the race on the backstroke, followed by Aimee on breaststroke, Soukaina on butterfly and Emma on the anchor leg with front crawl achieving a time of 2.19.78.

Soon after it was time for the boys’ medley in event 6, heat 3 with a little more pressure as their heat included some of the top schools. With all the confidence you’d expect from a team of year 12 boys who are regularly training, they headed down for their race and glided into 4th place. With Ben first up on the backstroke, Dan taking over on breaststroke, followed by Tom on butterfly and finally Liam on front crawl, they achieved a time of 1.56.20.

There was another long wait before the next and final event so the teams took the time to reload and hydrate in preparation to give it everything in the freestyle. Event 11 finally approached for the girls competing in heat 3 which included local schools Sir Thomas Rich’s and Balcarras. The girls, feeling more at ease and confident for this event, prepared as before and once again achieved an easy 2nd place within the heat and 7th place overall with the time of 2.04.67.

The boys closely followed in event 12, heat 1 and with as much confidence as in their medley event and great determination, they took 1st place within their heat and 6th place overall. They achieved a time of 1.45.14, a great 9.11 seconds faster than the rest of their heat. With the competition as tight as it was, the teams achieved great results. Everyone was certainly ready for bed by the end of the day, but not before a good calorie loaded meal.
Emma Beamish (Year 13)

Y9 PARIS VISIT

93 Year 9 students accompanied by 11 members of staff spent 5 days in Paris over the half term. Despite the recent press reports of heightened terrorist activity, combined with strikes, demonstrations, riots and a severe fuel shortage, the visit went remarkably well! The students visited the top sights, including the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Stade de France, a cruise on the River Seine, and no visit to Paris would be complete without going to Disneyland Paris - this year we had the option of visiting Disney Studios too, much to the delight of all the students. They were proud ambassadors for St Peter's, and got praised for their manners by both the hotel staff and the bus drivers, so parents should be very proud! All in all, a very successful trip, which will hopefully take place again in the future.
Mrs Beamish, Mr Freeman

Don’t forget to Wear Your Wellies for Wildlife on Tuesday 21st December!!!!

Pay 50p to wear your wellies to school on Tuesday 21st December and help support the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and their wildlife projects in the county.

ATTENDANCE

Last year our average attendance in the 11 – 16 years was 94.4%. This is extremely pleasing and I do not think it is any coincidence that the improvement in attendance corresponds with the excellence of our exam performance. It is very important that unless a student is really ill, every endeavour is made that he/she attends school each day. If a problem occurs during the day we will contact you or our first aid staff will offer assistance.

If your child is absent
Please call the school on the first day of absence. Once the student returns please send a letter in to school to explain the absence.

Where any absences are not explained they are assumed to be unauthorised. We are required to notify the Education Welfare Service of all unauthorised absences, and continual absence may result in a Penalty Notice being issued.

Should you wish to take your child out of school during term time please complete a Leave of Absence form (available from reception) and return it to the student’s Head of Year for consideration.

NEWS FROM OUR CAREERS DEPT

Congratulations Year 11
The culmination of months of planning, letter writing and telephone calls came to fruition when year 11 headed off to a wide variety of work placements across Gloucestershire and beyond. They went to primary schools, veterinary practices, solicitor’s offices, print companies, museums, building companies….the list is endless and the generosity, patience and kindness of the host employers was enormous.

As in previous years, Year 11 were a credit to St Peter’s.


Employers said:

Helpful and friendly
Quick to learn
Showed enthusiasm and a real interest
A pleasure to have working with us

Going on work experience is quite daunting and we don’t underestimate the challenge which almost every member of year11 overcame to have a successful week.

Well done year 11.

For the parents of year 10. We are just about to launch work experience 2011 and a booklet with details and notes should be coming home via your son/daughter in w/c 29/11/10.

Year 9 Bloodhound Design Engineering Challenge

No not the dog! Bloodhound SSC is a land rocket powered by a Eurojet EJ200 jet engine and hybrid rocket engine which is designed to reach speeds of over 1000mph and which is under construction to challenge the current land speed record (763mph).

On 10th November, 15 year 9 students participated alongside several other local schools in an EDT First Edition Event, held at Cheltenham Ladies College. Students were split into mixed teams with other schools and their challenge was to design their own version of the Bloodhound (powered by a pneumatic high pressure cylinder) and to demonstrate the design by firing it on the test track. Suddenly their understanding of force, friction, aerodynamics and finding solutions to real problems (how do we keep the car from taking off?) had a very practical application.

We are pleased that every team produced a functional design but some were definitely faster than others and three of our students contributed to the winning team.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EVENING COURSE

Thursday 16th December
5.00pm to 7.00pm in IT1
The IT Department is holding the above evening course for those of you who would like to gain a little more experience in using computers. This is a basic computer course + introduction to the internet and emails.

Extended School GCSE Art & Design Short Course (Photography)

Visit The London Road Photography
On October 14th, GCSE Art
& Design Short Course (Photography) students, visited The London Road Photography Studios in Gloucester. Photographer Tammy Kwan, showed the students a variety of different studio lights and then demonstrated how to use them. They then had the opportunity to experience taking photographs with broad, short, butterfly and Rembrandt lighting techniques.

Their homework task following this visit was to take photographs using any artificial light source that was available to them. Inventive results were produced – including the use of torches and even car headlights!

Teaching Assistant Taster Course

An insight into the role of the Teaching Assistant
in a Secondary School classroom


Monday 6th December 2010
Adfecto Conference Room, Ullenwood Court, Cheltenham
10.00 - 2.00 (buffet lunch at 12.30)

This workshop is designed for those interested in finding out more about the role of
Teaching Assistants in Gloucestershire Secondary Schools.

Tutors: Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTAs) from Dene Magna School, Mitcheldean

The course will explore:

• Introduction to the role of the Teaching Assistant

• Working in the Classroom

• Providing support for the Student

• Providing support for the Teacher

• Providing support for the Curriculum

• Providing support for the School

• Special Educational Needs

‘Learning Support Provision does not exist in isolation or run alongside mainstream provision – it is integral to the work of the School’

There is no charge for this event for those interested in working as Teaching Assistants in Gloucestershire Secondary Schools

Places are strictly limited and attendance is by prior booking only

SCHOOL MUSICAL PRODUCTION BUGSY MALONE

We would like to acknowledge the fantastic commitment shown by the cast, crew and band of Bugsy Malone. 5 performances, including 3 to primary schools last week! A BIG thank you to all staff, parents and students who supported us. It was a joy to be a part of!

Thanks
Helen Haywood & Catherine Perfect

HPV VACCINATIONS

The second of these vaccinations for Year 8 girls will take place immediately upon return to school on Monday, 10th January.

Conclusion

As is customary, all students have had the opportunity to attend reconciliation services. The theme of these services has been related to what is the true meaning of Christmas. It is often forgotten that amongst the glitz and the glamour the feast that we celebrate marks the entrance of Jesus into the world in a cold, smelly stable, with only hay for warmth. I am only too well aware that this Christmas and the forthcoming New Year will be a period of great concern for many of our families. There is a real fear about the future financial stability in terms of jobs, mortgages and, indeed, of the services we need from our Government in terms of health and education. It will, therefore, not be possible for many families to have the level of material goods they have enjoyed in previous years. In our Christmas services and assemblies we will be making the point very strongly that Christmas is not about materialism as material goods come and go very quickly. It is about ensuring that our young people understand that Jesus was born for all mankind and to promote a Christian way of life which will benefit mankind.

The Christmas message of peace and goodwill to all mankind might be considered redundant in our day and age when we look at the horrors caused by the conflict in Afghanistan, terrorism and, indeed, those few members of society who endeavour to take advantage of the most disadvantaged. However, in relation to our world community, evil people are still a very small number and if we all try to live to the Christian message of treating all people with the respect we wish to be treated with, then we really can influence our world for the better. My hope, therefore, for my family and yours, is that over the Christmas period we will have the opportunity to build bridges with our relationships that have been broken and that together with our young people, we will endeavour to offer support, friendliness and the true Christmas spirit to those members of our community who may be suffering in any way whatsoever.

I hope that you and your families will celebrate Christmas by attending your own churches and that the time you have together with your own family will, therefore, enhance your family life. I also hope and pray that 2011 brings you peace, health and happiness.

Yours sincerely




Lawrence Montagu
Headteacher