St Teresa's Senior School weekly bulletin 8 February 2021

Autumn Term

8th FEBRUARY 2021 Issue 1 : 4th September 2020

Dear Parents,

You will recall my mentioning interviewing the Head Girl candidates in last week's edition. I am thrilled to announce our new team of crack Prefects, Captains of School, Senior Prefects and Head Girl Team:

Whole School Prefects: Holly H, Florence W, Imogen B, Rachel B, Louise H

School Captains: Music Captain: Ella M Games Captain: Charlotte W Drama Captain: Phoebe L Art Captain: Scarlett M

School Prefects (With Areas of Responsibility): Boarding: Adeayo L-D Sixth Form: Abigail D Upper School: Amberleigh G Lower School: Ashley S Prep: Abby H Mental Health and Wellbeing: Elena H Public Speaking and Debate: Tilly J-S Equestrian: Soraya R Chaplaincy: Pippa R and Leah H Senior Prefects: Senior Prefect School Values: Lucy- Kate C Senior Prefect Academic: Saskia C Senior Prefect Pastoral: Ruby D

Deputy Head Girls: Lara A and Imogen L Head Girl: Hannah K The standard was exceptionally high, and I assure you that the school is in exceptionally safe hands with these wonderful girls. My hearty congratulations to them all.

My thanks, as ever to you, the girls, the staff and whole community of St Teresa's for being so stoic and supportive. I wish you a very restful and screen-free half term. I look forward to being able to communicate our plans for reopening as soon as possible.

Dr Claire McShane

BOARDING NEWS Last weekend we decided to host a Cream Tea which the boarders cooked themselves. This taught them skills such as making quiche, brownies, and cupcakes. All the girls enjoyed cooking and decorating their cupcakes, I'm sure they were even more delicious having made them themselves!

We wish you a restful half term and so look forward to welcoming all our boarders back.

ART WORK OF THE WEEK COMPETITION Our winner of this week’s art competition is Amily Z in Year 10.

Please do send your entries to n.menzies@st-teresas.com

YEAR 8 CLASSICAL CIVILISATION This week in Year 8 Classical Civilisation, girls were challenged to produce authentic female Roman apparel or hairstyle. They have been studying Vestals, the rights of women in Roman Society and the rebellion of Boudicca.

PE Department To celebrate the end of half term, PE have been having a dance party in their last PE lessons this week!

HAPPY HALF TERM GIRLS & THANK YOU from the PE Department for joining in all our lessons!

DRAMA The year 8s over the past few weeks have been rehearsing and performing the opening scene of Macbeth.

They were encouraged to use make up and costume if they wanted and any lighting or sound.

YEAR 11-13 ACADEMIC SCHOLAR’S DINNER There was a good turnout as scholars listened to a Latin grace, went away to enjoy a meal with their families, and came back together to hear a speech given by Dr McShane, who spoke about Margaret Partridge, the first woman to wire an English village for light. We hope that next year, we will be able to meet in person once more.

House Quiz This afternoon Chris Lloyd took us on an incredible voyage through history with amazing facts on topics ranging from the Big Bang to Facebook, based on his new Children's Encyclopedia. If you would like to know more, see the attached article from the Telegraph, or to purchase any of his fantastic books go to www.whatonearthbooks.com/offer1 The winning house: St Benedict gained 60 house points, and there were 8 finalists: Rachel B St Benedict Chloe C St Francis Miss E St Ignatius Amy B St Dominic Kirsten L St Benedict Dr Poffley St Francis Rhiannon E St Ignatius Felicity H St Dominic With the overall winner being Dr Poffley All finalists won themselves a personal signed copy of one of Chris' books.

ENRICHMENT SOCIETY

This week we welcomed Miss Marsden, Head of History & Government and Politics to Enrichment Society. Miss Marsden presented a fantastic session entitled ‘What is the point of the queen?’, examining public perceptions of the Royal Family, powers of the monarchy, and whether the monarchy should play a part in political matters. Many thanks to Miss Marsden for leading such an insightful presentation.

Thank you to everyone for their support of Enrichment Society this past half term. EnSoc resumes on Thursday, 25 February at 4:30pm with a presentation from Ms Hobkinson, Head of Geography.

If any parents, guardians, or other family members, are interested in delivering a talk at Enrichment Society via TEAMS during the year, please email Mr O’Farrell on j.ofarrell@st-teresas.com. All areas of interest and expertise are welcome!

VIRTUAL CONCERT OPPORTUNITY This term we will be running a virtual concert and soiree!

Please see instructions for recording: If your piece needs piano accompaniment, please scan the music to Mr Caister ideally within the next week, and he will record this and send it to you.

Prior to your recording, you must change the efficiency of your camera phone to 720p HD at 30fps in settings (Settings>Camera>Record Video>720p HD at 30fps) Record yourself playing the piece, ideally with good lighting. The video needs to be in landscape. A phone will be perfectly sufficient.

Have fun playing your piece!

Once you are happy, please email the recording to Mr Caister and cc in Ella Machtynger and Lara Andrews as we will be putting this together.

Any questions feel free to email myself (Lara) and I will respond promptly.

Mr Caister will then be in touch as to whether you are in the concert or the soiree.

ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE SENT BY 13 FEBRUARY We will be in touch with the dates of the streams after half term.

Good luck!

INTER HOUSE MUSIC FESTIVAL Our Inter House Music festival will take place after half-term.

Please prepare to enter a musical submission for your house. We look forward to lots of entries from the girls.

Lots of prizes and merits to be won for each category.

Plus the coveted Inter-House Trophy, And, St Teresa’s Musician of The Year Trophy Full details to follow soon.

ART It has been wonderful to see the students across different year groups explore a variety of Art & Design techniques and processes from painting to drawing. In addition, Year 7 have thoroughly enjoyed generating a series of dynamic and energetic mark making experiments using natural materials, as well as Year 8 students having the opportunity to formulate their own collages, as well as digital designs.

YEAR 7 SCIENCE CLUB The girls had an excellent time baking and produced some of the yummiest looking space cakes and cookies! Every entry had something special; Olivia had some beautiful galaxy cupcakes, Layla made a wonderful black hole cake, Jessica made some excellent Milky Way cupcakes, Julia made very sweet little moon and star biscuits, and our top three were simply amazing!

In third place with her Solar System cake pops was Katy

In second place with her Galaxy cake, cakepops and Asteroid scones was Isabel.

And in first place was Eris with the most incredibly detailed solar system

The next task was introduced: paper spinners. The girls were shown how to make a simple paper spinner and then they will need to make some additions to make it stand out so that we can choose the best paper spinners next week. Entries should be filmed and uploaded to the Science Club Team.

E-mail equestrian@st-teresas.com

Visit our website www.st-teresas.com/ equestrian Or find us on Facebook “St Teresa’s

While we’re counting down the days until we can open again, we’ll do our best to keep you all updated with what the horses are up to!

We’ll also be updating our page on Firefly with information and activities for you to do at home.

Check out Resources —> Sport —> Equestrian to find us!

We only have two entries for our cross country jump competition! We’ve extended the deadline to Sunday 21st February, so send in your entries to win the chance to get a prize!

Hi Everyone,

It’s been very cold this week with lots of snow and ice, we are all bored now as the humans are keeping us in the barn to save the fields from getting too muddy. so we have to be turned out in the arena.

Fingers crossed everything will start to defrost and we can go out, roll and get muddy!

Lots of love Tango and Sky x

Lockdown Competition - Design your own cross country jump!

Along with our updates, we’re also including a small competition where you can design your own cross country jump. Be it a water complex, a brush, a log, or something you’ve made up entirely on your own!

The deadline has been extended to Sunday 21st February, email in your designs to equestrian@st-teresas.com and the winner will receive Mary King’s latest book ‘My Way: How I train for success’

Good luck to you all!

Next Week Next Wednesday it will be Ash Wednesday. As we will not be in school next week, we spent time in Chapel this week preparing for this important Feast Day.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, the forty day period of preparation for the great feast of Easter.

In Scripture, a period of forty days, or indeed, forty years, always refers to a time of testing, trial and preparation. For example, Noah waited forty days for the waters of the flood to recede, Moses waited forty days on the mountain before receiving the Ten Commandments, and the people of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years before entering the promised land. We mark these forty days as we recall Jesus spending this time in the wilderness preparing for his great sacrifice in Holy Week.

During the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert he spent his time in prayer, fasting and preparing to give his life for us. During Lent we are asked to do the same – to pray, to fast and to give to others.

Perhaps, if we don’t usually pray, we can set aside a specific time each day for prayer. First thing in the morning or just before bed are both good times. And if we already spend some time in prayer, we are encouraged to do more – perhaps commit to reading a passage from the Bible each day, or to pray the Rosary for the intentions of those in need. Lent is a great time to recommit to spend a regular period of time in prayer.

Traditionally, children give up sweets, chocolate or other treats and we are certainly encouraged still to do this as it builds a real experience of fasting. But Lent is also a time for us to consider what attitudes and behaviours we need to fast from – selfishness, thoughtlessness, bad language – the list could go on. We are encouraged to choose one of these and to fast from it during Lent.

Finally, we are called to think of others. Again, traditionally, people make an extra donation to a charity, and this is certainly to be encouraged. But this year, particularly because of COVID, perhaps we can recommit ourselves to acts of charity at home. Perhaps in quite ways we can take it upon ourselves to complete a selfless act of charity for our families – loading and unloading the dishwasher, tidying up without being asked, or zooming grandparents for a daily chat.

We have a week to decide what we will commit to do this Lent. We are encouraged to write our commitments down and to revisit them regularly. And in this we will be enter into the real meaning of Lent this year.