St Peter's School Assembly 24 June 2022

Assembly – Friday 23rd June Big Bang Competition – Young Engineer of the Year Congratulations to Freddie and Zoe who represented the school at this year's Big Bang Competition. The competition encourages to think big and invent solutions that will help to transform lives and their projects can be seen on display in the monkey cage.

Four finalists were selected from the school; with the pair being chosen to exhibit their work to industry specialists and visitors at the Big Bang Fair at the Birmingham NEC. Freddie's Clip-On Safety Light received invaluable feedback and insights from the judges: ''The project is an excellent idea, and I can see it being used on a large scale depending on some minor adjustments and improvements.''

Zoe's Assistive Dog Training Device really impressed by the ''thorough testing of the product taking into account all the relevant activities dogs do which works really well for your project''.

Freddie's design was also being shortlisted for an Intellectual Property Award along with Scarlett Ward's Laser Drowning Prevention Aid. At the Awards ceremony Zoe and Freddie were given runner's up prizes for the Engineering Award and each took home a £250 cash prize.

Rowing York Summer Regatta on Sunday saw the Boat Club on home water and out in force. From the 3rd Form to the Upper 6th the boats were flying of the start as they made their way down the 1000m course. For some it was their first ever regatta and thankfully the wind was light and the sun shone. Across all the year groups there were some great performances with many crews making it through to the semi-finals and finals. The closeness of the racing shows how hard all the crews have been working and how much they have improved. It was great to finally see all their efforts rewarded when the wins came in the Boys J14 and J15 single sculls.

Cricket The cricket teams have continued to play some excellent fixtures over the past couple of weeks.

The girls have recently played Worksop College and Archbishop Holgate's with some great results : • 14s V Worksop won • 15s/14s V AHS won • 15b V Worksop lost And yesterday, the U15s played a touring side from Bedstone College with the final score of 114-67. There was lots of good bowling from both sides and pointers to take back into training. Well played to all the teams and we look forward to playing Barnard Castle on Saturday.

Last Saturday the boys played a block cricket fixture against Pocklington 1st XI Won by 70 runs The 1st XI match was noteworthy. Looking back in the achieves this was a record beating total of 328 runs and achieved in only 40 overs.

Wills fell 2 short of a double hundred and would have been only the second Peterite to achieve a double ton.

2nd XI won by 3 wickets U15A won by 9 wickets U14A won by 7 wickets Our B teams played Scarborough College A’s with the U15’s losing by 7 runs and the U14’s winning by 6 wickets On Wednesday we played a block fixture against Worksop College, a dramatic finish saw the school needing two runs with two balls left and 9 wickets down, which we achieved to secure a close win.

Other results 2nd Won by 5 wickets U15A won by 100 runs U14A won by 48 runs Good luck to the 1st XI who play in the North of England T20 final on Monday evening against Myerscough or Sedbergh.

Good luck to the 15 squad at their Festival at Trent College next week, and good luck to the 2nd XI in their Festival at Durham School.

Rounders Another great rounders match v Bootham, thank you to all the girls who participated - for the final match of the season it was nice to secure a 24-15.5 win. Well done all.

Tennis Recently our Senior Boys tennis team qualified for the LTA Schools National Finals which means they will compete with the top 15 schools in the country between Wednesday 6th & Saturday 9th July.

In order to reach the National Finals the team have won their regional stage (4 knockout matches) which included teams from all over the North of England and Scotland. It is a fantastic achievement from all the players that have contributed in any of the knockout matches (Angus, Rob, Toby, Max, Carlos, Finlay).

The players will have an extremely busy final week of term as they will also travel with some of our other tennis players to Eton College for the ISTA Championships on Saturday 2nd July for four days of competition with schools from all over the country.

Public Lectures Tonight there’s a chance to hear some living history here in the Memorial Hall. Barbara Weatherill, who at 96 is nearly the same age as the Queen and like Her Majesty served in the Auxillary Territorial Service in WWII, will be talking about her wartime experiences.

Historian Dr Tessa Dunlop, who has written ‘Army Girls’ about the women who joined up – capturing the oral history from those still alive – will be here to talk to her. The event is at 7pm. Parents and friends are welcome too. Free tickets are available on our Eventbrite site or, to Peterites, on the door tonight.

CCF Please could all third form stay behind after assembly for a presentation about the school's Combined Cadet Force from Mr Norman.

And finally,

It has been very good to hear about various discussions, activities and guest speakers about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion this week. This is a major area in society and one which attracts a great deal of discussion. Discussion is good in this area, not least as concepts of identity and language have changed a great deal in recent years, such as the difference between sex and gender. At times the public debate becomes very heated and causes enormous tension and so it is good that this is an area covered in school where ideas and understanding can be explored. To some, it is an extremely complex area and one which needs to be engaged with as a significant aspect of modern society so good that opportunities exist during your time at school.

I was glad to see our involvement in York Pride last Saturday, and impressed that those involved then came back to sit in classrooms on a hot afternoon to complete their exams. It is sometimes asked why there is an event focussed on equality for LGBTQ+ in society but where there is not a comparable event for heterosexuality. Part of the answer is that, to achieve equality, you have to focus on areas where it does not yet exist. One sign of that might be if there came a time when Pride marches were no longer considered to be necessary. In a world where there is only one openly gay footballer in in the top four UK divisions, Jake Daniels of Blackpool FC, and a handful of openly gay Heads in independent schools it would seem clear that prejudice and fear of prejudice still exists.

Another is that it is good to celebrate the positivity of diversity and a third is that there is a misunderstanding between the concepts of equality and equity. Although both promote fairness, equality achieves this through treating everyone the same regardless of need, while equity achieves this through treating people differently dependent on need. This is sometimes explained with images such as two people picking apples from a tree which are the same height from the ground but needing different length ladders to ensure they can both reach the same place. Or illustrating that equality is giving everyone the same shoes while equity is giving people shoes which are the right size for their feet.

Finally, it is great to have particular times of the year when such areas receive particular attention but just as important that it becomes part of the ongoing conversation and culture as we continue to work on diversity, equity and inclusion in our community at St Peter’s. So well done on a good week and keep the discussion going.