Committed as ever to good causes, pupils at St Peter’s this week have shown their altruistic side.  Members of the School Council held a bake sale, raising £127 to fund the development of an eco-garden in school with the purchase of compost bins.  Meanwhile, Year 6 pupils set out on a sponsored walk from school to trek the paths of Purbrook, incredibly raising over £1000 for the homelessness support charity Two Saints.  This came out of a study unit the pupils had done based upon stewardship and commitment to those in need in the communities around us.

Meanwhile, a team of 5 pupils from Year 5 (Ellen, Max, Johan, Jack and Lola) went to Horndean Technology College this week for an inter-school competition involving English, Maths, Science and PE.  From the 9 competing schools, St Peter’s came out in first place.  Congratulations!

Well done to all of the pupils involved in these events, and a massive thank you to staff and volunteers for enabling these to happen.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

This week at St Peter’s we were lucky enough to be able to celebrate the Feats of Saints Peter and Paul with an outside Mass – followed of course by ice cream treats for all pupils and staff at lunchtime to mark our patronal feast day!

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

During the second half of the summer term, both classes from St Peter’s Year 6 will be experiencing lessons at Oaklands as a completion of their Philosophy for Children study.  Each fortnight, the pupils in Year 6 have a lesson with the Headteacher in which they explore and discussion different concepts and arguments.  For the final 3 lessons of this school year, under the guidance of RE teacher Miss Hogan in Oaklands’ chapel (pictured below), the children will undertake a programme of study in Philosophy and Ethics in which they explore the presence of God in our lives.

This is an excellent bridging opportunity between primary and secondary school, as well as challenging the pupils to put their reasoning and debating skills to the test at an extended level.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

Our brilliant PTA The Friends of St Peter’s organised a Fathers’ Day gift sale this week, enabling the pupils to buy a little something for dads, grandads, uncles or special adults in their lives.  This was ahead of their main fundraiser, which saw a welcomed return of St Peter’s Summerfest on the school field on Friday evening 17^th June.  Great fun was had by all at this circus-themed event, with music from a local band and lots of stalls for children and adults alike to enjoy.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher

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