St Gregory the GreatCatholicSchool
Newsletter
Volume 7 Issue 1510th January 2014
Tel: 01865 749933Fax: 01865 717314
Email:
@StGregsOxford
MISSION STATEMENT: “We walk in God’s ways where together we live, love, learn and celebrate”
Prayer
We hope you had a good holiday! It’s often a time when we meet up with friends and family but it’s easy to lose touch when the holiday ends. Our prayer this week is about staying connected with God and each other.
Lord of Life
Help me stay connected to you,
the source of life.
Help me communicate optimism & honesty
to everyone I meet.
Amen
Fr David O’Malley
SR Veronica RIP
It was with great sadness that many of us heard about the passing of Sr. Veronica on 21st December. Sr. Veronica was such a special friend to our school and touched the hearts and minds of so many of our students. She will be sadly missed. Her funeral Mass takes place next Wednesday at Our Lady’s Church. School will be officially represented by our Head Boy and Girl and six students. Several staff will also be paying their last respects.
Annabelle Rose Powell
The baby daughter of Mrs Powell our Science teacher weighed 8lbs at birth on the 21st December. Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Powell.
Weather Eye
We have had some bad weather recently and more may be on the way. Please refer to our website and BBC Oxford Radio for information on school closure/late opening in bad weather and avoid phoning school. The issue is often availability of staff: while 98% of pupils live within 0.8 miles of St Gregory’s, 80% of teachers live 15 miles or more away.
School Award 1
Well done to Eva Zhang Garcia-Valcarcel, F8 on obtaining a distinction in her recent Grade 3 Piano exam.
Phantom Chocolate Provider
Our anonymous chocolate donor struck again this week with a special box arriving from Thorntons. I honestly don’t know who to thank. However, given the number of colleagues expressing the wish to diet in the New Year I thought I would keep it all to myself! As if I would. Thank you for your generosity. Much appreciated.
New Year, New Colleagues
We welcome several new members of staff to St Gregory’s this month:
- Mr Reid is our new Audio-Visual technician (another ex-pupil returns!)
- Mr Lord joins our technician team, supporting Design & Technology (and another!)
- Ms Short and Ms Ball join our team of cover supervisors
- Ms Spencer-Phillips is our newest RE teacher
What we were up to on the INSET day
Staff members took part in a variety of professional development activities during our INSET day on Monday. Subject Leaders worked together on plans for cross-curricular themes within the new Key Stage Three curriculum, which will be taught from September 2014. These themes will help teach both the content of individual subjects and the virtues, dispositions & life skills our young people will need in the world beyond school. Teachers developed individual activities and lessons to include these same elements. The English and Maths teams worked to further develop teaching in these core subjects.
A group of thirty colleagues trained in using our understanding of developmental psychology to meet the particular needs of some of our students. We also completed a training module on supporting Young Carers within school.
Archdiocese Days of Prayer for Priests
We are invited to pray for one of the Priests of our Diocese during the year in celebration of their ministry and the gift of themselves to the priesthood.
8th January is the day for Fr John Baggley
30th January is for Rev Fr Peter Brealey
22nd January is for Rev Fr Simon Bishop
We’ll try and update during the year.
Applications for Primary School
Do you have a child born between 1 September 2009 and 31 August 2010?
The deadline to apply for a primary school place is 15th January 2014.
This includes applications to our primary school. Applications can be made online by going to:
Nursery Places
We have a few spaces available for 3 year olds who would like a nursery place for 15 hours per week. Please call Louise Heppell for further details on 01865 749933 ext 263
Sixth Form Open Evening Thursday 16th January 7-9pm
All Year 11 students and their parents/carers are invited to attend the Sixth Form Open Evening next Thursday at 7pm. There will be short talks in the main hall followed by a chance to talk to subject teachers to find out what subjects you may like to study at St Gregory’s next year.
Rome Pilgrimage March 2014
With less than two months until we travel please can all students ensure that their payment schedules are up to date and that students remember to attend the regular Friday breaktime meeting in RE 4. Please can parents/carers encourage theirchildren to keep attending these important planning meetings.
Mrs. Haly and Mr. Bailey
School Award 2
An award goes to Max Birkbeck, nominated by Mr Cerioni for the excellent anatomical drawings he produced at home over the holidays.
School Award 3
Mr Hylton would like to nominate Karriss Munga (8B5) for an award for being a genuinely helpful and supportive student, always lending a helpful hand and giving a word of encouragement. Karriss improves the ethos within the class.
Year 10 GCSE Science trial exams
All students in Year 10 will be sitting a trial science exam on Thursday 23rd January 2014 during normal science lesson time.
The aim of this trial exam is to assess the progress made this year now that they have completed the first Science unit SCA1 and also to provide all students with useful feedback on what is needed to improve. The results from this assessment may also be used to move students into the most appropriate set for GCSE Science. All students have been set a selection of revision activities to complete on SAM Learning.
You must come prepared to this exam with a pen and a calculator.
Hopefully all Year 10 students have already got their AQA Revision Guide to help them prepare for this exam and the real exam in the summer. If not, you should come and get one from the Science Prep room as soon as possible, they are £2.50 each.
School Award 4
Mrs Jenkins would like everyone in class 8b3/bi to receive an award for teamwork in Biology in producing some excellent digestion posters. Well done!
School award 5
Mrs Haly would like to nominate Issac Boyland (8C5) for his excellent use of language and imagination in his story work in Literacy class.
Year 11 Trial Exam Results
Year 11 students received their trial exam results yesterday, together with additional information about study, revision and making progress. If you are a parent of a year 11 student, please talk with them about their results and their next steps. Well done to everyone who is on course to meet their targets. If your results aren’t as good as you were hoping for, the good news is that you have four months to improve them! We will support you to do this.
Year 9 Vaccinations
Our Year 9 students will be receiving Meningitis C vaccinations on Wednesday and students who missed earlier vaccinations will also catch up with these. Our Key Stage Three students may feel a bit like pin cushions at the moment but this is because they are able to receive several vaccinations which were not available to previous generations. Meningitis is a potentially fatal illness and adolescents / young adults are particularly at risk. It is essential that they are protected by this vaccination so please return the signed consent form if you have not done so.
Letter from the Chair of Governors
This issue of the newsletter should arrive with an important letter from David Forster, our chair of Governors. If you have not received a copy please contact School Reception.
SaturdaySchool for English
By invitation only, on January 18th from 10am-4pm Miss Payne will be running a workshop for Spoken Language Study.
And finally…
Last term my A level Psychology classes were learning about how we recognise faces, including how we are still able to recognise a familiar person when some of their features change. I decided to conduct an experiment of my own over the holiday. The students can still recognise me! Thank you for the complimentary comments, including the “Paxman” reference!
Dr Caseby
Vice Principal