To mark the Platinum Jubilee, pupils at St Peter’s have decorated the doors to their classrooms ahead of the Red, White and Blue party afternoon on Friday 27 May.

Year 6 chose British sporting heroes over the decades.

Year 3 filmed their own coronations with a 3-D monarch.

Year 2 invited us all to take tea with the Queen.

The music room had disks for a dance through the decades.

The Pumpkin Room mounted its own Queen’s Guard.  Attention!

Well done to all of the pupils for their hard work on their decorations, and thank you to all
the staff who coordinated this colourful pageant.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Mrs Carter-Hall has been busy making patriotic pastries and
British buns for the children to enjoy during an afternoon of activities, games and celebrations.

Thank you to our fabulous catering team who provide for us all year round.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

For the first time in over 2 years we have been able to hold whole school worships in the hall again.  I have to admit that standing before over 430 children to lead worship for the first time in 26 months was really quite daunting until the point at which the pupils began to sing.  Then voices, hearts and spirits were lifted, and my nerves evaporated.

By happy fortune, the theme of the worship came from John’s Gospel (13:24) of Christ’s new commandment ‘Love one another as I have loved you’, with an emphasis on the solidarity that those words of scripture bring.  Despite the many and various ways that we have been dispersed over the past 2 years, we have never lost sight in our school community of the Christian and familial love that binds us together.

At the conclusion of our worship, we were able to announce following recent hustings and voting the names of our elected House Captains (Year 6), House Vice Captains (Year 5) and House Leaders (Years R to 4) as shown in the picture above.  These children will take on responsibilities in our 4 school houses of St Oscar Romero (yellow), St Mother Teresa (green), St John Paul II (blue) and St Mary Elizabeth (red).  Thanks go to Mrs Edge who has devised and launched our new house system for St Peter’s.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

Lots of my ‘next step in the journey back to normal’ messages over recent months have been about events and traditions for which the pupils, staff and community of St Peter’s have been longing. This week, though, the ‘next step in the journey back to normal’ has been the return of formal Statutory Assessment Tests for our Year 6 pupils, with our pupils in Year 2 also doing tests over the full month of May. I am delighted to be able to report that all of the pupils rose to this challenge with good spirit, hard work and thorough commitment. The pupils have lived through unprecedented times since March 2020, and for them to have prepared for their tests so thoroughly is a testament to their teachers and their families during this whole pandemic. I am sure that lots of hard work by them, their families, and many colleagues over several years, will be richly rewarded.  Well done to everyone, children and adults, involved.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

The summer term at St Peter’s started at full speed ahead, which as Year 2 found out in their visit to the Sea City museum in Southampton was the same rate as the Titanic when it struck the iceberg.  This year group led the first school trip of the term as part of their depth study into that fateful vessel.  Meanwhile, Year 5 pupils have hosted specialist visitors as part of their country depth study of India, and have taken part in Indian dance and drumming, as well as Indian art on pottery.  Not to be outdone, Year 4 pupils had a visit from a real-life Viking, Tyrson War-Bear, who brought to life their deep learning day into whether the Vikings were traders or raiders, before designing and making models of their own Viking longboats.  Now wonder we all needed a long weekend after just one week back at school!  Thank you to all the St Peter’s staff who have made these rich learning experiences possible.

On top of all of this, we were able to host in the usual way families from Year 1 to join in a collective worship Liturgy.  Fr Jeremy joined us and it really did feel like a big step on the road to Covid recovery for the school.  Let’s hope it’s the first step of many.

Please do look at individual class blogs and the RE blog to see in more details what is happening across our school community.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

Huge congratulations go to all entrants to the St Peter’s Foreign Language Writing Competition, all of whom just so happened to be from Year 5. The children all worked on their pieces of writing in their own time, which is a real credit to them. It was a very difficult decision to make, but the panel of teachers decided that the winner should be Grace (5SC) because of her immaculate presentation and the high level of independence that she showed when creating her piece.

The submitted pieces of work have been translated onto audio recording devices around school for other children to listen to and enjoy the talents of our multilingual pupils. The pieces of written work will later be moved to an album in the school foyer so that visitors and parents too can experience the joy!

Thank you to Mrs Atkins, the school lead on English as an Additional Language, for organising the competition.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

Over this last week of term, St Peter’s pupils have marked Jesus’ road to Calvary and Passion.  Staged over 3 days, pupils watched 3 Passion Plays depicting the Last Supper (pictured), Judas’ betrayal, and Christ’s Crucifixion.  Classes from Years 5 and 6 performed, and we were able to invite families in to watch each Passion Play over the course of the week.

This week the pupils at St Peter’s have been immersed in multi-cultural learning through our annual Diversity Week.  Children of different ages throughout the school have done deep learning on Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism, all of which was brought to live by rich artefact boxes of worship items related to each faith provided by Hampshire Resources.  In addition, this year we were lucky enough to have workshops delivered by Rabbi Zvi from the Jewish Community of Berkshire Education branch.  Rabbi Zvi did live video link workshops for Years 5 and 6 on Monday, and then on Tuesday visited the school in person to work with Years 2 to 4.  The workshops included the use of religious items central to the Jewish faith, and had a particular relevance in helping the pupils to understand Jesus’ lifestyle as we approach the time of Passover.  Art lessons included the creation of Rangoli, prayer mats and turbans to name but a few.  Great thanks go to Miss Honeywell, RE Lead, for making these wonderful learning opportunities available to our pupils.

Year 1 pupils exploring items from the Jewish tradition.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

When we collected items to help Ukrainian refugees, we channelled the items you gave to school through Stella’s Voice, a charity with a collection depot in Havant.

As you will see below, Stella’s Voice were one of a number of organizations that have been able to get assistance through to those fleeing the war, in this case to Ukrainians who have sought refuge in Moldova.

Thank you all once again for your generosity, and we will continue to be a conduit for donations if more arrive in school.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher