Our World

Our aim is to develop rounded young men and women, who value themselves, each other and the world around them. We encourage our pupils to take an active interest in the world beyond school, from the environment and climate change to global conflicts and diverse cultures.

Growing in Confidence

The Eco Club at St Peter’s 8-13 has gone from strength to strength, with the new raised beds a great success. The vegetable plots were skillfully built by our gardening team and kindly paid for by the Friends of St Peter’s 8-13. After the summer holidays, children returned to find giant 12-foot-tall sunflowers and a bountiful supply of marrows, carefully nurtured by Mr Sewill and our fabulous cleaners over the summer. The children also grew daffodils for Mother’s Day and created worm hotels for worms they found living in the eco beds.

Yorkits

St Peter’s School pupils teamed up with Rotary-run project Yorkits, to create washable, reusable, eco-friendly feminine hygiene kits for girls in developing countries. At the end of November, pupils from St Peter’s 13-18 welcomed Yorkits volunteers to their weekly after-school club, called Makerspace, in the Design and Technology Department. The visitors from Yorkits showed pupils how to use sewing machines and brightly coloured materials to make the hygiene kits as part of their Keeping Girls in Education campaign. These essential, low-cost, cleverly designed feminine hygiene kits are distributed to girls across the globe, and a kit can typically last each girl up to three years.

Respecting our World

The School Council at St Peter’s 2-8 taught their friends about the importance of recycling. They visited different classes throughout the school, and even led their own school assembly. Each member of the School Council explained how each one of us can play our part to help in this mission and showed their own short film on the topic of the environment.

Lord Mayor of York meets the School Council

In October, the children invited The Rt Hon the Lord Mayor of York and Lady Mayoress to visit St Peter’s 2-8 to take part in our School Council. The Lord Mayor answered questions from the children and explained his work in the City of York. We discovered that there are quite a few similarities between the roles and processes, for example how our pupils were elected by their class to help make positive changes in school, and how the Lord Mayor does this for the York community.

Appley Ever After

St Peter’s 8-13 was delighted to receive the delivery of 10 apple trees from the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers as part of the Treebilee project for the Queen’s Green Canopy. This unique tree-planting initiative was created to honour the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022, marking 70 years of service to the nation, and invited people from across the UK to Plant a Tree for the Jubilee. The 10 apple trees were kindly donated by Bea, Eliza and Thea’s grandparents and the girls, alongside the school Eco Club, planted the trees on the grounds of St Peter’s 8-13. Swithun Sewill, Head of St Peter’s 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. The planting of these new trees will be a great benefit to people, wildlife and the environment now and for future generations.

The Eco Club at St Peter’s 13-18 also enjoyed planting trees on the school campus in the Easter term. Thirteen pupils received a demonstration from the school’s gardeners, before planting 26 trees in the Paddock at the southern end of the St Peter’s School campus. They planted a diverse range of trees including wild cherry, rowan, and silver birch.

Eco Schools Green Flag

St Peter’s was delighted to be awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag this year. The award is internationally recognised and acknowledges the achievements of both the Eco Club and Eco Committee at St Peter’s 13-18. To achieve the flag, pupils carried out an audit of the school’s environmental footprint and targeted areas for improvement. Hardworking pupils set up a recycling scheme with Terracycle, encouraged a switch to refillable water bottles, built bird boxes, and took part in a beach clean. Mrs Hall, who co-ordinates the Eco Club at St Peter’s 13-18, said: “I am very proud of all the pupils who took part in achieving the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award. It’s exciting to see the enthusiasm our pupils have for creating a responsible and sustainable future.”

Holi Festival

Pupils at St Peter’s 2-8 had a wonderful time celebrating Holi in mid-March. Holi, an annual Hindu Festival, marks the arrival of Spring and is traditionally celebrated through colour and the throwing of brightly coloured paint. The children carefully painted their faces with powder paint before the paint throwing began! Teachers and children wore white t-shirts to showcase the rainbow of paint colurs, and children enjoyed chasing their friends around the cricket pitch with cups of powder paint. It was a fantastic way to celebrate Holi which symbolises love, joy, happiness, and new life.

Diversity Week 2022

The whole school celebrated Diversity Week in July. Pupils spent time in class and PSHE lessons discussing different aspects of diversity. There were also visiting speakers, displays, pupil-led activities and competitions. A huge thanks to all of the members of our pupil DEI groups who made this happen.

Celebrating Diwali

St Peter’s 2-8 heard all about Diwali in an assembly led by two of our parents, Dr Jagannath and Dr Airody. Dr Airody explained that Diwali is known as ‘The festival of Lights’ and although it originated in India, it is now widely celebrated across the world. The children were captivated as Dr Airody told the story of Rama and Sita and how Diwali marked their return. Celebrated over five days, the first three are Diwali, the fourth is a celebration of the New Year and the fifth and final day is Bhai Dooj, a celebration of love between siblings.

Yoga and Meditation

In May, St Peter’s 2-8 started the week with a relaxing and enjoyable meditation/yoga session. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and also had the opportunity to see some different Indian instruments and artefacts.

Bursting with Pride

At the end of June, the whole school celebrated diversity in Pride month. St Peter’s 2-8 talked about how everyone is important, wore multi-coloured clothes and decorated rainbows. In St Peter’s 8-13 there was a fundraising non-uniform day (wearing the vibrant colours of the Progress Flag) as part of School Diversity Week, and in St Peter’s 13-18 pupils created a celebratory display in the school reception area.

World Challenge – Discovering Belize World Challenge Expeditions focus on leadership, resilience, teamwork, conservation and sustainability. Our Easter expedition with the Lower Sixth took us to wonderful Belize, a nation on the eastern coast of Central America, with Caribbean Sea shorelines to the east and dense jungle to the west.

After a couple of days in San Ignacio we headed off as two teams to start our adventure. The Ya’axché Conservation Project was created so that communities can use their natural resources sustainably to continue to serve them and future generations. We visited an ecofarm to learn about the relationship between farming and conservation. We met community members and immersed ourselves in cultural activities, supporting our hosts in their tourism programmes. We learnt to cook traditional Mayan dishes and how chocolate is made from cacao beans, and made local handicrafts like jippi-jappa baskets. We worked in Ya’axche’s nursery to learn about their reforestation programme and the importance of trees in tackling climate change. Our time with Ya’axché gave us an insight and respect for how local communities address deforestation, food security and the impact of climate change.

The trek phase of our trip took place at Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary. This reserve was established to help protect the endangered Jaguar and other species native to Belize. We saw visible signs of recent Jaguar activity, but these fascinating animals are masters of stealth, and their existence is based on seeing but not being seen. We spent three days trekking on the eastern slopes of the Maya Mountains and river tubing along the South Stann Creek. Days and nights were hot and humid. Our teams cooked up various camp meals with porridge for breakfast and pasta and tomatoes for supper. We visited an Iguana sanctuary and Mayan ruins, before taking in the beauty of Belize away from the trek and the project. More tubing took place in St Herman’s Cave. We also had a swim in the Inland Blue Hole, a memorable sapphire-coloured sinkhole surrounded by jungle vegetation and limestone rock walls.

A couple of nights stay in Hopkins, a Garifuna fishing village located eight miles from Dangriga, on the Southern Highway, was a chance to relax, swim and snorkel on Belize’s Barrier Reef. The reef is rich in marine life and dotted with hundreds of low-lying islands called cayes.

Our Lower Sixth proved they were intrepid and willing to explore a country steeped in natural beauty, culture, history and wildlife. We met very few other travellers, which made the country feel somehow undiscovered, but we did meet some incredibly kind and generous local people. I would like to thank Miguel our Nursery Technician and Miss Linda, our Cook at Ya’axché, as well as many others who made our trip an incredible, unforgettable adventure.

Jon Whitehouse

World Challenge – Beautiful Borneo

Deep within the Tropics is a place where orangutans swing through ancient rainforests, and hornbills fly past the highest peak in Southeast Asia. The third-biggest island in the world, Borneo, is divided between Indonesia, Brunei and the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak – which is where our amazing adventures began.

We flew into Kota Kinabalu, the state capital of Sabah, Malaysia. After a couple of nights at the Toojou Social Hostel, meeting other World Challenge teams, we travelled the bumpy highways of Borneo to the Sukau Eco-Tourism Centre, on the Kinabatangan River, and settled into our lodge.

Our key focus for the three days of this summer expedition was the conservation of the natural environment around the river, to help protect its unique biodiversity as the home of many resident proboscis monkeys, hornbills and varied species of flora and fauna.

Littering is sadly still a widespread practice so we spent a good proportion of the three days on a river clean-up, catching plastic bottles and other rubbish in our nets. With help from Lee, our local guide, we felt confident our work had made the river that little bit cleaner.

Before our trek we visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and the Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre. These important facilities provide medical care for orphaned and confiscated orangutans, sun bears and dozens of other wildlife species. The creation of these centres minimises the impact of deforestation on orangutans and far fewer young apes become the victim of the illegal pet trade as a result.

From Sepilok we travelled to the Guas Nabalu homestay, our base for a night before setting off for our jungle trek. We had an afternoon in the community, visiting a bee farm and local coffee producer. Next morning, we set off on our trek, following farmers’ tracks through the jungle and climbing up a valley in the shadow of Mount Kinabalu.

Nuluh Limgion Camp was our first stop, made up of covered shelters, with platforms to lay out our sleeping gear. From there we moved on to Hayo-Hayo Camp. We were treated to tasty local food by our trek team and enjoyed the new experience of sleeping in hammocks. On our return to Guas Nabalu we enjoyed a delightful cultural dance and music performance by the local children and their elders.

Our return to Kota Kinabalu gave us time to enjoy a trip to Dinawan Island, including time on the beach and snorkelling. A few hours back in the city gave us a chance to see the City Mosque and Pu Tuo Si Buddhist Temple.

So, what have we learnt? A trip with World Challenge can open our eyes to the negative human impact on our environment and inspire us to make a change, person by person. Equally it can be an opportunity to absorb everything an adventure can teach us about the world and our place and responsibility within it.

Jon Whitehouse