With Ash Wednesday falling during the half-term holiday, our usual whole school worship on Monday 19 February also marked for us at St Peter’s the start of the season of Lent. Having re-dressed the altar in purple in keeping with the Liturgical Calendar, the school community then began one of the three tenants of Lent with prayer led by the pupils. I then combined the other two Lenten features of fasting and almsgiving with a chocolate charity challenge. Ask you children about the open tub of 30 Roses chocolates that have been left in full public view on the school prayer table, and give them your encouragement to resist temptation for the benefit of £30 going to CAFOD at the end of Lent.

Year 1 pupils hosted a beautiful Liturgy on Tuesday, where they displayed their learning of parables and how we can take Jesus’ messages from his stories into our everyday lives. Fr Jeremy helped the children to appreciate the value of a good story by conducting a ‘What films did you watch during half-term?’ survey. It was wonderful to see many family members of all ages there, and as ever I stressed that even those people not there in body were there in spirit and were remembered in the children’s prayers.

The week ended with a whole school assembly launching CAFOD’s Lenten campaign. I look forward to hearing of the fund-raising ideas the children will have during this half term to generate a charitable donation. During Lent the children will continue to pray for those less fortunate themselves in all parts of the globe, remembering that poverty is not always simply financial, but can also be spiritual, cultural or ethical.

Mr R Cunningham

Headteacher

This week I spent part of Thursday morning at the swimming pool in Waterlooville. Although I looked a bit odd sitting poolside in a shirt, tie and jacket, I was there to watch the Year 5E class in their swimming lesson. Swimming is one of those essential life skills that, though we hope never to be in such a situation, can save a person’s life. It was great to see the pupils all getting so engaged in the sport, and clearly loving the opportunity to learn and improve their swimming skills. I have no doubt that every child, from whatever their level at the start of the term, has improved their water confidence and swimming ability. As ever, thanks must go to the St Peter’s staff who organise the programme and coach in conjunction with the resident swimming teachers, and also to the parents who volunteer to help with supervision and transport.

Thanks also go to Mrs Domblides in the library who organised for a group of our pupils to visit the library at Oaklands on Thursday. The visit gave them the opportunity to see how the librarian at Oaklands, Mrs Berogna, promotes a love of reading throughout the secondary school phase.

Finally, I hope your children have come home today full of tales of what they have learnt during our second STEM day. This deep learning day to cover Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths gives the pupils the chance to really investigate and experiment over a good period of learning time, and allows them to bring in many skills from elsewhere in the curriculum to complete a big learning project.

Mr R Cunningham

Headteacher