After last week’s “snowmageddon” as it has been inventively called, came “fun in the sun” week. It has been glorious for all the trips and events planned this week and from Jersey we have been glad to receive photographs of our pupils enjoying all of the outside sporting and cultural treats that have been arranged for them, following their Common Entrance mocks week.
All our visiting parents and pupils this week have found Saint Michael’s in the midst of a creative burst. The presentations on Wednesday morning of this term’s challenge project had staff excitedly meeting in corridors to share what they had seen and heard.
Videos, PowerPoints, artefacts and performances are some of the many responses to this term’s challenge project and I have received some nominations already for Headteacher’s stars that lift the standards to yet another level.
Year 6 were quite stunned to meet Frances Osei, who visited on Wednesday morning and came to talk to them about making the right choices in life following his stint in prison for being involved in and not reporting gang crime. Some of the Year 6 were moved to think how changed Francis’s life was by this terrible experience.
Meanwhile the drama room was taken over by a bevy of beautiful Roman ladies (aka Year 4 parents), who came to support Year 4’s Roman Day and join in the hands-on learning in our History Off the Page workshop. Mosaics, wax tablets, oil lamps, jewellery and charms were created and, of course, the physicians learned how to mix their potions, all under the strict supervision of the mistresses in charge of their stalls. The children thoroughly enjoyed their day – overheard in the corridors “I LOVED it!” and from one of our parents “Super learning experience!” Thank you to all the parents who joined us to make this day possible and to Mr Morgan for organising it.
The members of the orchestra who travelled to King’s Rochester enjoyed their rehearsals and performances of “In Dreams / The Black Rider” from Lord of the Rings by Howard Shore and “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter by John Williams. Sophie said afterwards “We played really great pieces and it sounded cool with all the different orchestral instruments. I really liked the harp glissandi which added a special touch of magic!”
Year 7 were lucky enough to listen to Professor Winston, Professor of Science and Society at Imperial College London, speaking at New Beacon and found his talk on studying science or medicine as a future career “inspiring”, other comments from the children included “success doesn’t come overnight” and “try and try again until you succeed”.
I’m sure many of you in your workplace are now overfamiliar with the letters GDPR; The General Data Protection Regulation. For those of you who have missed the imminent forthcoming change in data compliance arrangements, the new regulation gives everybody more control over data that organisations have about them. We are asking the very few remaining parents to complete our data check launched last September as a matter of urgency now as our responsibility to hold accurate data about our families is matched by your responsibility to give it to us.
There are still six families in the school who have not returned amended sheets to us. They are yellow to make them easier to spot in that very important pile that you have somewhere in your house.
These families have already received two reminders from the school. Please help our fantastic administration team to close this file.
The proposed new curriculum for next year’s Year 7 met with general excitement from the parents who kindly attended our launch meeting on Wednesday evening and it has been good to get such positive feedback about our plans from both Tonbridge and Sevenoaks. Mrs Shield is organising a small working party from among this year’s Year 6 parents and anyone interested in joining that should be in contact with her directly at lshield@stmichaels.kent.sch.uk
I look forward to seeing some of you at the Pre-Prep Mother’s Day assembly next week and at the performance of Lord of the Flies which is coming soon.
Here’s hoping for a more spring-like weekend for you to enjoy.
Jill Aisher