Non Uniform Day Raises over £2000

For Ulafu School Partnership and Shelterbox

Thank you to everyone who took donated to our non-school uniform day last Friday and to those who bought cakes and jewellery from the Kenya Link Club and our House Bake Sale. A total of £2,022.08 was made on the day. This amount will split between our Ulafu School Partnership (£828) and ShelterBox (£1,194), a charity chosen by our Sixth Form students.

Our Ulafu School Partnership is overseen by Miss Ostinelli and The Kenya Link club. This club offers our students the opportunity to connect with another culture and to help those who do not have as many resources as we are lucky to have at St Bart’s.

Students speak to Ulafu students via Zoom Meetings and through pen pal emails, and are learning a lot about Kenyan culture. They are also supporting the school through fundraising to buy tools and supplies for various projects they want to undertake including a kitchen garden, and making mats, sisal skirts and liquid soap.

ShelterBox work with disaster-affected communities to provide the emergency shelter, essential items and training needed to support families in the long process of rebuilding their lives.

Year 13 Prom

Last Friday was Year 13 students’ last hurrah – their prom, after their long battle with A Level exams. It was held at the Newbury Rugby Club, and was nicely decorated by the volunteers helping organise the event. People dressed up in their ‘Sunday best’ but ties were off by the end of the night. There was music, dancing and a buffet. It was a brilliant night to remember and a quality way to send off the Year 13s into the big wide world! Thanks to everyone involved with organising it.

Carnegie Shadowing Programme

he Carnegie Medal for Writing is an annual prize for a young person’s book that creates an outstanding reading experience through writing.  There are eight books shortlisted for the prize each year and since April, six St Bart’s Carnegie groups have been reading the shortlisted books and meeting each week to discuss them as part of the national Shadowing programme.

  • Away With Words by Sophie Cameron
  • Choose Love by Nicola Davies
  • Safiyyah’s War by Hiba Noor Khan
  • Steady for This by Nathanael Lessore
  • The Boy Lost in the Maze by Joseph Coelho
  • Crossing the Line by Tia Fisher
  • The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander
  • The Song Walker by Zillah Bethell

On Wednesday 12 June, 12 KS3 students, chosen from the Carnegie groups, attended a Carnegie Shadowing conference at Kennet School, where they joined students from five local schools who had also been reading the books. Students were organised into groups based on their favourite book from the shortlist and were given the challenge of creating a presentation in a form of their choice to showcase their chosen book.

“My group had chosen The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander, which is an amazing book about African slavery.  We made a model of the boat that the main character was locked up in, when he was taken to be a slave, towards the end of the book.  I really liked meeting other people and talking about the books that we had enjoyed reading.”  Joshua Cloke (7E2)

“It was an incredibly fun day and I really enjoyed it. Many of us were the only St Bart’s students in our groups and it gave us the opportunity to talk to people who enjoyed the same books from other schools. We all came up with ideas on how to show that our book was superior to the other choices in a presentation in front of the conference and all groups came up with different ideas. Some groups’ presentations included rap battles, creating origami designs, paper models of scenes from our books and even a beautiful theatrical piece that brought some teachers to tears.” Katie Gibbons (9E1)

On Friday 21 June, all the students from the Carnegie groups were then invited to a Carnegie Party in the school library. Mr Evans announced to the gathered crowd that the official winner of the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal was the Black British author, and the current Children’s Laureate, Joseph Coelho for his “beautifully descriptive” novel in verse ‘The Boy Lost in the Maze.’ The school’s winner, ‘Crossing The Line’, as voted by the students, was also announced and 14 group members, both students and staff, were awarded substantial chocolate prizes for reading all eight books.

Students enjoyed party food and chocolate lolly awards were given to the students for the best Carnegie Book Reviews.  Thank you to Mr Matthias, Miss Medlock, Mr Evans, Mrs Hewetson and all the other staff who have been involved in the shadowing groups.

English Schools Track and Field Cup South West Regional B Final

Well done to the Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 athletes who represented the Junior Boys, Junior Girls, Inter Boys and Inter Girls Athletics Teams at the English Schools Track and Field Cup South West Regional B Final at Winchester. St Bart’s was the only school to qualify for the final for all four teams.

The Junior Boys (282 points) placed 7th out of 9 schools, Junior Girls (319 points) placed 4th out of 8, the Inter Boys (413 points) placed 3rd out of 8 schools, and the Inter Girls (352 points) placed 5th out of 7 schools.

Some standout performances included:

Junior Boys – Dexter Brown, 800m, 2:31.7 secs, 19 points., Eli Bodin, 1500m, 5:09.9 secs, 19 points. Oscar Hook Discus, 24.72m, 19 points. Vincent Bardsley, Javelin, 26.22m, 19 points.

Inter Boys – Kenechi Akosa, 300m, 35.7 secs, 32 points and Discus, 30.47m, 21 points. Theo Nightingale, Hurdles, 12.9 secs, 20 points and High Jump, 1.68m, 22 points. Max Charlton, 100m, 11.9 secs, 24 points. Henry Wilson, 800m, 2:21.4 secs, 19 points. Haydn James Javelin, 42.87m, 22 points. Jacob Tang, 200m, 24.5 secs, 22 points. Antonio Valdivia, 39.2 secs, 23 points. Joe Bell, 800m, 2:19.0, 20 points and Discus, 27.49m, 18 points. Chris Broadfoot, Javelin, 37.37m, 18 points.

Junior Girls

Finished 4th out of 8 schools with a great total of 319 points which was higher than in their qualifying round, very well done!

Penny Prowse, 100m, 13.6, which is superb and 4m11 in the Long Jump giving her a combined total of 39 points. Jessie Mc Curtin, 1500m, 5min 30 and High Jump, 41 points. Anna Hall, 1500m, 5min 37, 23 points. Emmeline Lloyd, 800m, 2min 49, 21 points. Chloe Yorston, 300m, 47.1 and High Jump, 1.26, 34 points. Eva Mahoney, 200m, 30.3 and Shot, 6m 24, 29 points and Bella Meir, 100m, 14.5 and Discus 16m20, 28 points.

Inter girls

Finished 5th place out of 8 schools with a great total of 352 points, whilst missing a key athlete due to illness.

Beth Maclean, 800m, PB 2.27 and Javelin 23.98, 45 points. Isla Clare, 1500m, 5min 16 and Discus, 16m, 34 points. Ava Hewetson, 100m, 13.8 and Shot, 7.58, 32 points. Hazel Cook, 200m, 28.9 and Discus, 19m 06, 35 points. Olive Muir, 1500m, 5min 27 and High Jump, 1m 20, 33 points. Annabelle Franklin-Wilson 300m, 48.8, and Triple Jump, 8m71, 29 points. Ellena Clare, 100m, 14.1 and Long Jump, 4.08m, 29 points. Finally Grace Shopland achieved her PB in 300m, 47.6.

An outstanding team performance. Everyone worked extremely hard throughout the day on their track and field events and should be very proud of their achievements.

BartholoNews 26 June 24

Our Carnegie Shadowing programme culminates with a party and Non Uniform day raises over £2000. Read about it in this week’s BartholoNews.

School Officers’ Weekend

One of the most exciting aspects joining the student leadership team is the annual trip to St Cassian’s. It’s a chance for the School Officer team to get together and discuss plans for the school, as well as making new friends and learning key skills.

After we left school on Friday, we went to go and buy food for the night’s cooking challenge and made our way to St Cassian’s, a retreat in Kintbury. After we had all set up our tents, we gathered in the room for an icebreaker. We had to write our names and tell the story behind them, some more interesting than others! Every year the School Officers bid for funding from the St Bart’s Trust Fund for special projects so we had a group discussion about what it could be used for. It was interesting to hear a range of ideas and be a part of the process, which will hopefully have a lot of impact. We got to discuss ideas about the school even further when we separated off into the relevant groups, allowing us to get to know each other better.

And then finally, the pinnacle of the night – the ready, steady cook challenge! Lighting the disposable barbeques proved a challenge for some (including myself) but in the end we got there and all the groups produced a three-course meal. The winners were team 5 who made and assembled bruschetta, mini burgers and meringues. This was arguably the hardest bit of the evening, although it was fun to be cooking together and enjoying the nicest bit of weather all weekend! We finished the evening off with more discussion about specific areas of the school, including the student newspaper, integration, sustainability and campaigning. It’s important, that as student leaders, we can make positive change, and this weekend felt like the beginning of an exciting journey to achieve this.

The quality of the night’s sleep varied according to who you ask, but we all woke up early on Saturday morning and set off on a treasure hunt around Kintbury. The treasure hunt this year was in honour of former teacher, Mr King, who used to lead it each year, but sadly died a few months ago. Carrying on the tradition of the student leaders was a fitting end to the trip.

A huge thank you to all the teachers, and St Cassian’s, for organising the trip. Particular thanks to Head of Sixth Form, Mrs Lane, for supporting her 15th School Officers’ weekend! We all gained valuable skills that will help us lead change and make a

BartholoNews 19 June 2024

The School Officers forge exciting plans for 2024/25 and we hear about some amazing achievements by our musicians in this week’s BartholoNews.

St Bart’s at Wembley

 

On Friday 7 June, 10 staff and 90 students made their way to Wembley to watch England play their final warm-up game before the Euros against Iceland. Traffic, as always, was bad, especially getting into the car park but we all made it in good time. We had an extremely long walk from the car park to the stadium, as we were the other side of the stadium and in the upper tier! Once we had got all the students in their seats, they were allowed to grab some food and drinks. Despite the attendance being over 80,000, the queues for food and drink weren’t too long, thankfully.

Sadly, the performance from the England players was nothing short of terrible, which made the game much less enjoyable for those of us watching. However, our students made the most of the experience and managed to start multiple Mexican waves, which continued around the stadium. Despite the result and performance, the students and staff still had an excellent time, and it was fantastic to experience the atmosphere of a home England game at Wembley right before a major tournament. We still got to see some of the best players from the Premier League this season, with Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Declan Rice all starting. The performance didn’t fill us with confidence that football is coming home but it’s the hope that kills us!

Thanks to Miss Ostinelli, Mr Fry, Mr Sullivan, Mr Bandy, Mr Bateman, Mrs Stevens, Mr Wilder, Mrs Shopland and Miss Broome for giving up their time to support on the trip and to all the staff behind the scenes who helped organise it. We hope everyone enjoys the Euros – come on England!

 

Year 8 Rounders

 

Well done to the Year 8 Rounders teams who competed in their first round of matches.

The A team won both their games comfortably, winning 10 rounders to 1 against St Bart’s B and won 8.5 rounders to half a rounder to Park House B.

The B team lost 1.5 to 4.5 against John O’Gaunt and lost 3.5 to St Gabriel’s who scored 5.5.

 

Business Studies Cotswold Wildlife Park Trip

On Tuesday 4 June, A Level Business students and L3 BTEC Business students visited Cotswold Wildlife Park. The day included a business lecture. Students got an insight into the ownership and structure of the business and the way in which external factors, for example legislation and technology, affect the management of the park. The talk also covers the way in which the park undertakes its marketing and how it has changed over the years, with the growing importance of sites such as Trip Advisor and social media.

Students then got the opportunity to spend some time in the park, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

“It was amazing! I enjoyed seeing the giraffes”– Charlie (12E6)

“The talk was very interesting and helped us to understand the running of the business” – James (12P4)

“We found the trip a lovely day out, visiting all the animals and the talk was very informative, as we learnt all about marketing strategies, which helped us to match our learning with real life situations” – Eva (12E4) and Beth (12E7)

 

 

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