No.16 13 May 2022
SummerTerm
ST PETER’S 8-13 NEWSLETTER It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of the third week of term already. Please remember that tomorrow is an Exeat so no Saturday School. The sports teams have been making the most of the good weather with mixed, girls and boys cricket teams all playing in fixtures against other teams. The U13 and U12 boys have both made it through to the next round of their respective national cricket tournaments. The rescheduled HMC swimming championships saw our U9 girls crowned as overall champions! The U9 boys were 2nd, the U10 girls 3rd, U10 - boys 4th, U11 girls 2nd and U11 boys 7th. A fantastic day and thank you to Mr Maycock and his team for organising, and to all the children who competed. Congratulations also to Charles, Raya, Alice, Clara, Clara and Phoebe in J5 who have all qualified for the World Schools Swimming Championships to be held in London at the Olympic Aquatic Centre. To celebrate Cincode Mayo day we had a Mexican feast for lunch. A delicious chipotle chicken and sweet potato soup to start, then shredded chicken Tinga with arroz Rojo and for dessert, Mexican rice pudding! Some of the Pupil Ambassadors have been writing welcome postcards for children coming to York through the York City of Sanctuary programme. We are also supporting the charity by collecting stationery & books to donate to these children when they arrive. Our J1s have been cooking as part of their Lifeskills programme, with J4 starting after the exams. The inter-house chess competition starts at the beginning of May. We had a visit from one of the reviewers of The Good Schools Guide this week, where he met with children and staff and has already had telephone conversations with some parents. It is always good to be able to explain to someone how we integrate our one school set of four pillars (qualifications, skill, interests and values) into the middle section of the child’s journey through St Peter’s, building on the thematic curriculum at 2-8 and exposing the children to an increasing number of specialist teachers. This also allows us to make the most of our specialist facilities, giving the children opportunities to grow in independence and confidence as they move around the school for lessons and are taught by a variety of teachers, in our preparations for them to move to the senior school. The curriculum in J4 and J5 has been devised in consultation with the senior school Heads of Department to ensure there is a seamless transition and that the children have the skills and knowledge that each senior school department is looking for in their subject. There is also a comprehensive transfer process between Year 3 and J1, and J5 into 3rd Form, which takes place this half term. This helps to ensure that the children hit the ground running in September as they move into a new section of the school. St Peter’s 8-13, York, YO30 7WA www.stpetersyork.org.uk Registered Charity Number: 1141329
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Our Seven Key Values are Friendship, Trust, Wisdom, Compassion, Endurance, Humility, Hope Collaboration and Empathy...
In the past when drawing up the class lists we have asked the children to list the names of up to five other children who they would like to be in a class with the following year. We then used this as the basis for putting together the classes. This often causes angst for some of the children, as they find it hard to put down a list of names for a number of reasons. It also means that some classes can be dominated by a large group of children who are already close friends, making it difficult for others to feel included and the dynamics for learning are not always ideal. We have decided that we will adopt the same process as used at St Peter’s 2-8 and 13-18, thus having a one school approach, and use staff professional judgement to put together the class lists to ensure that each class has a mix of gender balance and interests. This will enable the pupils to be placed in their best learning environment and will also allow them to embrace new friendships as they move through school. The class lists will be sent out towards the end of the summer term. We started our end of year exams yesterday – the same week that Year 6s across the country are doing their SATS exams. The purpose of these is to give the children the chance to ty out different ways to revise to find out what works best for them, along with familiarity with sitting a timed exam in a formal way. This is done in age specific ways with the J5s in the Shepherd Hall in a similar fashion to when they will sit GCSEs. The pupils at the senior school who are sitting their GCSE exams just now last sat formal exams in J5, due to the Covid restrictions, and it will be that experience which is helping them at the moment. In J1 and J2 it is much more low-key and just done in their classroom during a normal lesson. I’ve been really proud of the way the children have gone about preparing for the exams. We will then give them their feedback before Half term so that they can enjoy the mid-term break without having to revise or worry about exams. In case you ever wondered what exam invigilators get up to when you’re busy scribbling your answers, you can find out here! As we start planning for the end of term, it is worth reminding you that Speech Day and Prize Giving will be back to our usual format – held in the sports hall with all children, staff and parents. It is on Thursday 7th July, 10.45-12.00 but you will need to be seated by 10.30. J5 parents can also attend the J5 Leavers’ Service in the Chapel which is 8.45-9.15. There will then be refreshments in the Shepherd Hall for any J5 parents who are intending to go to Speech Day. Our guest speaker will be Jackson Ogunyemi, better known as “Action Jackson”! Andy Falconer Head
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St Peter’s 8-13 Learning Habits Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Embracing Challenge, Empathy, Flexible Thinking, Initiative, Perseverance
St Peter’s 8-13 Newsletter
Summer Term 2022
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Sports Day Information for Parents You are warmly invited to join us for Sports Day on Saturday 25 June, hopefully the weather will be kind to us. All children are frantically practising events in their PE lessons and are all expected to participate in at least two events during the morning. All events will commence at 8.45am. The day finishes for all after the presentations at approximately 12:15pm. The Friends of St Peter’s 8-13 will be selling bacon sandwiches, Danish pastries and tea and coffee, 8.00am–9.00am, in the Queen Anne dining hall. A letter with more information will be sent nearer the event.
Plant a Tree for the Jubilee Over the Easter holidays, the School was delighted to receive the delivery of ten apple trees from the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers as part of the ‘Treebilee’ project for the Queen’s Green Canopy. This is a unique tree-planting initiative created to honour the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this year in 2022, marking 70 years of service to the nation, and invites people from across the UK to ‘Plant a Tree for the Jubilee’. The planting of these new trees will be a great benefit to people, wildlife and the environment for now and for future generations. The ten apple trees were kindly donated by Bea, Eliza and Thea's grandparents and last Thursday afternoon the girls, along with the school Eco Club planted the trees on the grounds of St Peter's 8-13. Their mother, Olivia Haddow, commented that 'the spring blossom will be beautiful, especially for all those playing on the tennis courts in the years to come'. Swithun Sewill, Head of St Peters 8-13 Eco Club, said that planting trees is an act of hope for the future and he is looking forward to picking apples with the children. He thanked the gardeners for all their time in preparing the site and helping the children plant the trees. The tree varieties are Wellant, Rubinette Rosso, Collina, Cox Le Vera and Deljonca, and the apples will be ideal for eating or cooking.
Thanks to the Ukraine minibus drivers Over the last few weeks, St Peter’s has been raising money and provisions to support the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Reverend Daniel Jones, who coordinated the appeal, has the following message: 'Can I first express my deepest thanks to those who took the time to drive out to Ukraine on our behalf: it was fantastic to see that the three minibuses that we bought made it safely to the border and are now being used to save lives. I also want to thank all of you who contributed to our collections and made St Peter’s part of something so important. The convoy is now safely back in Britain, minus the minibuses of course which have been left out in Ukraine to continue their work. When the team from Canoe for Ukraine arrived in Przemyśl they were met by volunteers of the wider extraction team. The minibuses were needed immediately and so after a rapid load-out, they disappeared. The team then shared the following story with me that I thought I’d share with you too: “We witnessed the desperate need for food aid and clothes in the small town of Czeladź where we have built on relationships established during the first trip to Poland back in February by Stevie and his team. Having literally just finished unloading, it was an immense privilege to be able to help the family that came to the centre to fill her bags with simple life saving foods for her baby and others. Watching and helping the young lady go through the boxes of clothes to find specific items was heartbreaking yet at the same time inspiring as she showed such strength of character. There were simple smiles and glimpses of joy, on otherwise void and vacant faces, when she found brand new underwear and socks. It broke us and we stood back silently and helped where we could.” It just goes to show how important our fundraising campaign has been here at St Peter’s and a humbling reminder that sometimes you can do much to help if you act quickly. So thank you once again for all of your support with what has been a genuinely life-changing project and every blessing to all those who are still out in Ukraine working for the safety of the people there.
St Peter’s 8-13 Newsletter St Peter’s 8-13 Newsletter
SummerTerm 2022 Summer Term 2022 3 33 3
UKMT Junior Maths competition Congratulation to all the pupils who took part in the UKMT Junior Maths competition earlier this term. This national competition encourages mathematical reasoning, precision of thought, and fluency in using basic mathematical techniques to solve interesting problems. The problems on the Challenge are designed to make pupils think. Most are accessible, yet still challenge those with more experience. There are two follow on rounds: Junior Maths Olympiad is a two-hour Challenge consisting of 16 problems: 10 in Section A and six in Section B. Only answers are required to the problems in Section A whereas full written solutions are required for problems in Section B. Only around 1,200 students nationally qualify for this from the Junior Mathematical Challenge. Alex A (J3) has qualified for this. Junior Maths Kangaroo which is another hour-long paper similar to the JMC but even more challenging. Entry to the Challenge is by invitation only and is based on a qualifying score, which is variable from year to year. The following have qualified: Edward B (J5). William G (J5), Sophie N (J5), William X (J5), Ansh J (J4) and Naomi K (J4).
da Vinci competition at Ampleforth College Eight pupils from J4 and J5 took part this week in the da Vinci competition at Ampleforth College. It involved solving challenges in 10 different subject areas. This year, the theme was space. Our team made a prototype for an elevator to the space station, solved complex chess problems, created poetry and art, wrote and performed a play in 13 minutes and completed papers in English, maths, science, cartography, code breaking and legacy (general knowledge). They were completely mentally exhausted by the end of the day but had a brilliant time and were delightful company all day. They won the science and legacy challenges and overall were awarded 3rd place, which was a lovely way to end the day.
Campus and Sports Facilities St Peter’s 13-18 School 1. Main Entrance from the A19 2. Visitor parking 3. St Peter’s Sports Centre St Peter’s 8-13 School 4. Main Entrance 5. St Peter’s 8-13 Sports Hall 6. Changing Rooms
PADDOCK
GRASS TENNIS
Other shared facilities 7. Swimming Pool 8. The Boat House 9. Access to Wightman from Westminster Rd
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ASTRO
Pedestrian gates
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QUEEN ANNE’S RIVERSIDE
1ST CRICKET
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COLTS RUGBY 1ST RUGBY WIGHTMAN
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