FROM THE HEADMASTER S DESK HARVEST FESTIVAL. fhgfdgdfgdg Friday 23rd September

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1 fhgfdgdfgdg 2016 Friday 23rd September FROM THE HEADMASTER S DESK As we reach the end of another busy week at Saint Nicholas, I have been particularly impressed to see the number of children involved in sporting activities. Whether it is pre-school, swimming, netball and football practices or rugby matches after school, sport at Saint Nicholas is moving from strength to strength. On Monday I very much enjoyed watching the Year 8 & 9 boys rugby and despite their loss, was very proud of the effort and commitment that the boys put in. I must also make particular mention of the under 12 boys rugby team who, on Wednesday, performed so well at Harlow Rugby Club. They went on to win the rugby festival and I suspect we may be hearing of further successes down the line. It is always a pleasure to meet parents at these events but I would ask, where photographs are taken of other people s children at school activities, that these images are not posted on any social media site. This has become a fairly standard policy within schools and is informed by best practice within the sector. I was delighted to welcome a number of prospective pupils for taster days this week, prior to making an application for a place in Year 7 next year. I have been very encouraged to see so much interest in the school and it is a real a pleasure to see how quickly new pupils find their feet and begin to feel at home. With regard to next year, I would invite Year 5 and 6 parents who may be interested in entering children in the January scholarship examinations to please contact Mrs Bradley for information. May I finally thank Edie Wilson who sang so beautifully 1 in assembly today, she certainly gave us the perfect start to the school day. HARVEST FESTIVAL Harvest Festival celebrations are fast approaching and we look forward to the lower school celebrating with their annual Harvest Festival taking place at St Mary's Church on Wednesday 5th October. In addition to the church service, the lower school will be taking part in a whole school harvest assembly on Friday 7th October and we would appreciate it if all children could donate some food which will be delivered to local people in need. The lower school children will be making donations to the Harlow Food Bank, whilst the middle and upper school pupils will be making donations to the local elderly community. Any offerings of tins, fruit, vegetables, dry goods and jars will be very gratefully received but all items must be in sale date as we can only distribute those that are fresh. All goods should be brought to the theatre foyer on the morning of 6 th October. Please also be mindful that the school has a no nut policy with regard to any food on the premises.

2 OPEN MORNING We have an Open Morning for all prospective pupils and their families on Saturday 8th October. All Year 1 to Year 11 pupils are invited to represent the school between the hours of 9.30am and 12.30pm. Our pupils are fantastic ambassadors so it would be great if as many pupils as possible could attend. BONFIRE NIGHT Our annual Bonfire Night celebrations will be held on Saturday 12th November, kicking off at the earlier time of 3pm. As well as the usual bonfire and spectacular firework display, the Friends have arranged lots of entertainment and Chef Craig and his team will be serving delicious food. Tickets on sale soon from the school office. CHEQUES Any parents making payments to the school by cheque for residential trips, school bus etc are asked to make them payable to "St Nicholas School (Harlow) Ltd". We have been informed by St Mary's Church in Churchgate Street that they will be holding a large funeral on Thursday 29th September at 2pm. The funeral will end at around the same time as school so the road will be much busier than usual. Please take care. 2

3 YEAR 11 GCSE DRAMA WORKSHOP Last week, Year 11 GCSE drama pupils were given a fantastic opportunity to participate in a bespoke workshop, specifically designed to support their studies. They were tutored by a professional actor for a morning, being helped to apply industry standard drama technique and stylised performance to their GCSE production of Chicken - written by the acclaimed playwright Mark Wheeler. Nick O Brien from The Stanislavski Experience came into school to deliver a practical workshop, the theme of which was Theatre in Education. The buzzing and exciting learning environment provided wonderful motivation for the pupils to develop and extend their drama skills. A number of Year 8 pupils were able to watch some of the workshop activities, which hopefully opened their minds to new ideas and drama techniques as well as giving them an exciting preview of what GCSE drama could look like. 3

4 SCHOOL PRODUCTION WORKSHOP Children in Years 6,7,8,9 and 10 who are interested in taking part in this year s annual school production, should attend an informal workshop in the theatre on Thursday 29th September 4pm - 5pm. This year the production will be an exciting play which we hope to see many of you involved in. From Mrs Bradford, Miss Agrotis and Mrs Chadwick. INTERNATIONAL DOT DAY Last Thursday was International Dot Day. This day is staged every year to encourage people of all ages to harness their creativity. The inspiration behind the event is the children's book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. Art Club celebrated this by looking at Australian Aboriginal painting and by creating our very own gecko and kangaroo dot pictures. 4

5 ECO CLUB ART CLUB The first two weeks of the middle school art club have been very busy. Pupils have been having a lot of fun creating their own paper marbling, using water and special inks. They plan to use their marbling paper to design and create other items such as cards, bookmarks, gift tags etc. Eco Club is back in full swing! Mrs Fearon was very impressed with the potato harvest in the allotment. Next week we will be blackberry picking and tidying up the eco garden. If any other pupils would like to join the middle school art club, it takes place on a Wednesday lunch time. 5

6 AN APPETITE FOR LEARNING... This week in science, Year 3HM enjoyed learning about the parts of the digestive system and its functions. The children even made a digestive system using household items. The children researched the digestive system of animals on the ipads too. BOOK FAIR There will be a book fair running from Wednesday 21st September until Wednesday 28th September. The children will visit the book fair with their class teacher during a literacy lesson that week and parents are invited to visit with their children from 3:30pm until 4:00pm on any of the above dates. 6

7 RECEPTION NEWS On Wednesday the children in Reception celebrated World Gratitude Day. The children read the story, The Thankful Book by Tony Parr and then wrote and drew pictures to say what they were thankful for. At the end of the day, the children each got a thank you note for something nice they had done during the day. ALL ABOARD THE NAUGHTY BUS! This week in Reception we have been sharing the story 'Naughty Bus'. On Tuesday the children boarded Mrs Shubrook's naughty bus and we all went to different exciting destinations such as the park, Asda and Tesco! 7

8 SPORTS REPORT YEAR 11 SPURS BALL BOYS Six Year 11 pupils were given a once in a lifetime opportunity to act as ball boys at last week s UEFA League Youth game between Tottenham Hotspur and Monaco U19 teams at Spurs training ground. James has written a report of his day below... TOTTENHAM DAY REPORT The day started with our extremely short and exciting drive to Hotspur Way (Spurs training ground). Our job for the day was to be ball boys for Tottenham s U19 UEFA Youth League game against Monaco U19. As we arrived at the immaculate training ground we were all stunned at how prestigious the facilities at Hotspur Way were. We were then greeted by the match officials who told us what our roles consisted of and we were quickly out onto the pitch. Kick off was near as we took our positions to complete our job. After the match had finished (3-2 to Monaco) we had to head back to school before our big night. I felt privileged to have been a ball boy at Tottenham and also to have seen their amazing facilities. The evening came and we were soon on the train heading to Wembley. You could feel the excitement as the chanting began on the train. After getting off at Wembley Park Station the atmosphere was electrifying as our walk up to Wembley stadium began and we were greeted with the famous Champions League anthem before the kick off. Half time came and Spurs were unfortunately trailing 2-1 to Monaco, but at least the cheesy nachos were very tasty! We then settled back down for the second half to begin. After watching Tottenham s disappointing second half, the game finished with the score line staying at 2-1. After the poor result it was fair to say the day was definitely much better than final score. The boys and I enjoyed the whole day very much. Hopefully next year s Year 11 are privileged with the same opportunity. James, Year 11 8

9 FUTURE BALL BOY/GIRL OPPORTUNITIES FOR YEAR 10 AND 11 Due to the recent success of the Saint Nicholas Ball Boys last week, Spurs have asked if we can provide further representatives for their next two Champions League youth games at the training ground on Wednesday 2 nd November (Bayer Leverkusen) Wednesday 6 th December (CSKA Moscow) Any pupils that are interested should see Mr Tucker asap. Pupils will be taken to and from the venue in the minibus and will be selected based on their sporting commitment to Saint Nicholas school. COMPLIMENTARY TICKETS The PE department has 50 complimentary tickets for the Spurs v Manchester City Under 23 fixture at White Hart Lane on Friday 14 th October (7pm). Please contact Mr Tucker asap if you and your family/friends are interested - p.tucker@saintnicholasschool.net RUGBY SUCCESS The Year 6/7 rugby team got off to an amazing start to the season, beating Passmores and St Mark s without conceding a try! Stand out performances from Matthew with 4 tries, Darcy, Oliver, Cameron and Ben. Well done boys! GIRLS FOOTBALL On Tuesday Anabelle, Polly and Mia from Year 3 and Angelica, Eleanora, Angel, Lucy and Katherine from Year 4 represented the school in the girls 6-aside football event at Mark Hall Academy. They worked really hard for each other and all the games were closely contested. It was an enjoyable sporting afternoon and Mrs Fitch was really proud of the way the girls conducted themselves. They were energetic, positive, well mannered and a credit to Saint Nicholas School. 9

10 YEAR 8/9 RUGBY CAPTAIN S MATCH REPORT BY JOSEPH QUELCH, 9T Last Tuesday the Year 8s and Year 9s played in our first rugby fixture of the new school year. We faced Burnt Mill in an exciting match where the game finished with a close loss of At half time we knew that as a team we could do better with our defensive play as a unit and with closing them down before they could get the ball. Mr Brown blew the whistle and we started the second half by closing down on them quickly and winning the ball back. We then passed it out of the ruck to our scrum half, Tomas, to score the first points for Saint Nicholas. He then successfully converted to make the score They kicked back to us and we passed it down the line for our outside centre William to score under the posts. Tom then successfully converted the try to make it Huge congratulations to the team for an excellent second half performance, not letting our heads go down in defeat and going out there with the biggest motivation to win. I d like to congratulate Tomas who we all agreed deserved man of the match with an outstanding performance. We have a match against Passmores on Monday which we will go into taking the positives from this match. I would like to say another huge congratulations to the team, Harry W, Cailan, Harry F, Jack, Noah, Myles, Tomas, William, Joseph, Max R, Max B, Johnny, Ashton, James, Jacob T, Milo, Jacob W, for an excellent match and I m looking forward to playing alongside you on Monday. YEAR 8/9 RUGBY MATCH Despite their enthusiasm and learnings from the previous match against Burnt Mill, Year 8/9 lost to a strong Passmores team on Monday. MESSAGE FROM THE PE DEPARTMENT There will be no extra-curricular clubs on Tuesday 4th October due to a PE Department CPD afternoon. The team started strong with good momentum going forward in attack. However, a few missed tackles in contact was the difference between the teams. There were times in the game when we did show good potential, which we must continue to build on during games lessons and after school rugby training. Stand out performances from Easton and William. 10

11 SPORTS AMBASSADORS If anyone would like to be considered for the Sports Ambassadors role for either the rugby or netball teams, pupils should have their application completed and handed to Miss Foley (netball) and Mr Tucker/Mr Brown (rugby) by Monday 26th September. Pupils need to outline how they will impact positively on the team and the PE department and how they will effectively work with the current Sports Captains. They also need to highlight their best qualities and state why we should pick them. Please note that applications for Football Ambassadors for both the boys and girls teams will need to be submitted to the PE department by the 12th December and the Athletics and Rounders Ambassadors applications should be in by the 27th March. WATER BOTTLES Please ensure that all pupils bring a water bottle to PE lessons to stay hydrated and on top form. GOOD LUCK! Best of luck to all sports teams competing in matches this coming week! 11