The junior and intermediate girls’ athletics teams triumphed at the English Schools Athletics competition held a Palmer Park in Reading on 8 May. Both teams won first place, beating other Berkshire schools. The girls each took part in a track and a field event plus a relay. They are now waiting to see if they will be going through to the regional finals.
Pedigree, adjacent, buccaneer and ghoulish were among some of the words spelled successfully by a Year 7 team which led them to clinch second place in the regional semi final of The Times Spelling Bee Competition held in Southampton on 14 May. The four students had reached this stage of the competition after gaining a high score in the online heat in April in which 1200 schools participated. Emily, Chloe, Max and Anna will each be presented with a certificate and dictionary.
A five day football tour to Italy saw 50 boys from Years 8, 9 and 10 take to the pitch with professional AC Milan coaches at their youth team training ground. Each year group also played fixtures against AC Milan Youth Academy sides with the Year 10 side achieving an incredible feat by beating their opponents 2-0. As well as the training and matches, the boys participated in a number of activities which included visiting the famous San Siro Stadium for a tour and to watch Inter Milan versus Genoa.
The artist who has designed and made a public sculpture for the new Willows Sovereign Housing development on Andover Road, Joseph Hillier, visited St Bart’s to spend a day with a Year 10 group of art students. The workshop involved the students in masking and guilding stone using metal leaf to guild tesselating patterns. The students’ designs were inspired by the architecture of the school buildings and nature.
A Sixth Form student has been awarded third prize in the prestigious Christopher Tower Poetry Competition. Millie Guille’s poem, Maiden Voyage, caught the judges’ attention and she has won £500, plus £150 for the school’s creative writing budget. Millie was presented with her award at a lunchtime reception at Christ Church, Oxford. The competition is open to students aged 16 - 18 years and has a reputation for discovering fresh and exciting poetry talent.
A jam packed itinerary met the 17 Year 8 students on a Study Trip to Shanghai at Easter which was full of wondrous places to go, exciting things to see and interesting people to meet. The sights included a visit to the Shanghai Oriental TV Tower and a trip to Hang Zhou, Shanghai’s neighbouring city - the Chinese City of Love. The students also visited Aurora Middle School where they experienced exotic lessons in calligraphy, paper cutting, making Wantons, Chinese craft and the morning exercises. This was a fantastic experience enjoyed by the whole group.
A completely different culture was exerienced by nine students over Easter as they headed off to China for the first leg of this year’s Chinese Exchange. They spent a couple of days in Beijing taking in the sights of Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and an acrobatic show. They then travelled by bullet train to Qingdao where they were guests of our partner school Qingdao no 2 Middle School. The group enjoyed staying in the school’s dormitories as well as spending time with their partner’s family.
St Bart’s will be welcoming the Chinese pupils to England in July for the second leg of this exchange.
Term ends for the Easter holidays on Friday 30 March 2012 at 3.30pm.
The summer term starts for all students on Tuesday 17 April 2012 with registration at 8.40am.
Monday 16 April 2012 is a staff training day.
French language skills are improving as St Bart’s has welcomed their French exchange partners from Roanne for an eight day visit. During their stay the French students are spending some days in school, joining their partners in lessons, as well as seeing something of the area. They will be visiting London, Oxford and Winchester. The St Bart’s students stayed with their exchange partners in France in February.
