Life Skills

We encourage our pupils to develop key skills for life, through the wide variety of co-curricular opportunities available and academic extension programmes which help to prepare our pupils for life after school. Many pupils also hone their skills and interests outside of school, and we are incredibly proud of everything they have achieved this year.

Ready, Steady, Cook! Cooking lessons start early at St Peter’s 2-8 and even our Nursery children learn basic cookery skills. This year, our Nursery children celebrated Pancake Day by making their own pancakes, although eating the pancakes was definitely the best part of the day! Children at St Peter’s 2-8 also put their cooking skills to the test with a Healthy Pizza competition, judged by the Development Chef and Director of New Product design at Morrisons’ Supermarket. The judges chose six finalists, who have all received an apron and chef’s hat, and two winners were selected following an official taste test. Their pizzas were created with bespoke packaging and delivered to school on Friday 26 February. Well done to the finalists Esmie, Lexie, Lottie and James and the winners Natalie and Edmund.

Life Skills Older pupils at St Peter’s learn essential life skills as part of our Wellbeing and Life Skills Programme at St Peter’s 8-13 and our St Peter’s Enrichment Programme at St Peter’s 13-18. Both programmes are designed to teach pupils important skills required for life after school.

Cooking is an essential part of both programmes, equipping pupils with favourite recipes to impress their family and friends at home. Our older pupils at St Peter’s 13-18 have learnt other valuable skills this year including First Aid Training and Self-Defence. Bushcraft Day Each year J3 enjoy a Bushcraft Day, which encourages our pupils to develop life skills outside the usual curriculum.

Bushcraft Day is an outdoor activity day designed for the pupils to work together in teams to try new challenges. The four tasks they attempted were: building and making fires in lots of different ways; shelter building and testing them for comfort and resistance to water; building and using a stretcher and purifying water.

When Monty was asked how the morning had been he said “It was brilliant. We made a really cool shelter and it was more like glamping as we put a TV in there to watch!” - the TV was in fact a piece of rope in a square, but imagination has no limits.

Heidi’s Eco Wax Melts Enterprising pupil Heidi (aged 11) created her own Eco Wax Melts business from her garage during lockdown.

After just two weeks she had received over 80 orders via Etsy and had made over £800 in sales. Heidi has paid back her original loan and has reinvested most of her profit into more stock and better equipment, so she can scale up her business more quickly. The starter pack is her best seller. The sales are coming in from far and wide and Heidi has even set up her own Facebook page to market her products.

Andy Falconer, Head of St Peter’s 8-13, said: “We’ve all heard stories of how people have developed new skills during lockdown but Heidi has taken this to a whole new level! I’m so proud of her entrepreneurial spirit and look forward to watching her on the Dragon’s Den, where she’ll probably be one of the investors.”

Katie’s Hearing Dog Over the past two years, Katie (Fourth Form) has helped to train, Alba, a golden Labrador, to be a hearing dog for deaf people. Alba has passed all her exams and is now an official Assistance Dog! Thanks to Katie’s hard work and dedication, Alba has passed her exams with flying colours and has been nominated to become a child’s dog, which has very stringent guidelines, so Katie and her family are doubly proud!

Alba will go to an 11-year-old boy who is profoundly deaf. Alba will be his constant companion, sleeping in his room, to ensure he feels safe, happy and confident. It is a bittersweet moment for Katie and her family who have trained Alba for the past two years - but also knowing Alba will be a “life changer “ for her new owner.

Ava’s Films Fourth Form pupil Ava has enjoyed a series of filmmaking successes over the last year. Ava created a short 3-minute film called ‘Players’ with local neighbours after the first lockdown, and the micro-film has earned Ava a global reputation. It has been screened at 17 Festivals in around 10 countries and has won numerous awards. The film also resulted in Ava being one of just five shortlisted for the IMDb new Filmmaker Award 2020. She is the youngest ever person to be shortlisted in the history of this global and very prestigious award.

Ava also made an epic film entitled Beth during summer 2020 which was premiered in Ilkley in January 2021. Beth was written, directed and edited by Ava with a large cast and crew. The period piece, set in in 1898, is based around true events at The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield, later renamed High Royd. Speaking of her film Beth, Ava said: “This is a film that dodged 2020 Covid restrictions every step of the way - it was clearly meant to be made. Coming out of lockdown, I was very lucky to find brilliant crew who were furloughed from the UK TV industry who were all delighted to be working again!”

We look forward to seeing Ava’s film-making skills develop as she progresses to Sixth Form at St Peter’s.