Annual Societies Fair

St Bart’s held its annual Societies Fair in the school hall at lunchtime. All students were encouraged to attend, explore and ask questions about the very many opportunities on offer. Those clubs and societies in attendance included: the school production, Oliver, PE and Sports Clubs, Mock Trial, Creative Writing Club, Poetry Society, Science Clubs, Spanish, Friends of the Honey Bees, Book Club, Manga Club, Pride, GeoGuesser Club, Kenya link/international school links, Eton Fives, House Events, Careers, Eco Committee, Wildlife Club, Moth Club, Dungeons & Dragons Club, Backgammon Club, Chess Club and Train Set Club.

The event was really well attended and we would like to thank all the staff and students who volunteered to organise and oversee the different stands. We would also like to thank Mrs Lane for organising the event. We hope the clubs and societies got lots of new attendees. You can now view a list of the activities available.

Harry Plays to the Crowd

Harry (7C2) has just started St Bart’s but his music career is taking off fast! He got spotted at Carfest by Chris Evans and was asked to play a DJ set in the main club tent to over 500 people on the Sunday night. His story has been picked up by the Newbury Weekly News.

His mum says “It’s all gone a bit crazy since then, and his story has been picked up by national TV, radio and newspapers. He’s also being supported by the UK’s top Drum and Bass stars Chase and Status and by the mighty Ministry of Sound in London. We are talking to agents and getting requests for gigs at more festivals and venues, so it looks like his music career is going to be taking off much earlier than we thought!”

Well done Harry, we look forward to following your progress.

Vivaan is UK Winner

St Bart’s are extremely proud to announce that Vivaan (11E3) has won the prestigious UK Junior Water Prize.

This is a national STEM competition aimed at solving environmental challenges with a link to water quality and security.

Vivaan says, “My research was to develop a technology-driven system for smart houses that can detect, predict and report water quality, leakage and clogging issues in distribution pipelines. By predicting leakage issues in advance, the system has the potential to avoid leakage and mould problems, which cause serious health risks.

The system uses sensors, IoT, and AI technology. It collects and analyses the data from the sensors, and generates alarms in real-time if any water-related issue arises. The water security index is calculated to assess the safety of the water supply on the premises. The system can be scaled up for larger areas such as buildings, residential societies and cities.”

Vivaan won a £1,000 cash prize, a trophy and certificate plus an all-expenses paid trip to World Water Week in August to take part in the Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition in Sweden.

He says, “After winning this competition at the UK level, I feel more motivated to continue my research and take it to the next level.”

His entry has been published here.  This is an amazing achievement. Well done Vivaan!

Celebrating Another Summer of Exam Success

We are again celebrating another year of fantastic exam performance by last years’ Year 11 and Year 13 cohort. The progress made by Year 11 students from when they started with us in Year 7 was once again extremely high and they deserve to be immensely proud of their achievements. Their hard work and dedication, supported by their parents and their teachers, has truly paid dividends.

At GCSE, a record figure of over 85% of all grades were at grade 4 or higher and well over a third of all grades were at grade 7 or higher. A fantastic 84% of students gained at least a grade 4 in both English and Maths, ensuring that they can smoothly progress to further study, with all doors open to them.  A total of 60 students achieved at least 8 GCSEs at grade 7 or higher, with Erin Clark, Aayush Joshi, Vaibavi Lakshmi Narayanan, Charlotte Lethaby, Adria Rumbauskaite, Annabel Maclean, Imogen Ciochon, Daanyal Begg and Ben Wigmore achieving an extraordinary total of 95 grade 9s between them.

In Year 13, half of all grades achieved were at A* to B, and over 75% were at C or better. 22 students gained at least 3 A*/A grades or better, with eight achieving this high standard across four subjects. Special mention must be made of the achievement of Ollie Davey, Joe McClellan, Laura Mills and Aditya Sanyal in gaining four A* grades.

These results are particularly impressive given our open-access entry, providing opportunities for all students to achieve. Nearly 200 St Bartholomew’s students will be taking up places at universities across the country and many others have secured places on competitive apprenticeship programmes.

Our students’ successes lie not just in their academic progress, but also in the way in which they have been a real asset to the school as a whole, acting as excellent role models who have made a really positive contribution to the wider school community.  Whether they have progressed to St Bart’s Sixth Form, taken up places at college, university or on an apprenticeship programme, or are travelling other new pathways, we wish them all the very best as they move on to the next stage of their lives.

House Championship 2023 24

Last week in our first full school assembly students waited to hear the results of last year’s House Championship which turned out to be very closely contested.

In the Sport Shield, covering over 150 matches and 13 different sports, Curnock and Davis were tied on points. They had both won 6 of the competitions so it was necessary to consider the total number of 2nd places. Curnock narrowly won 4-3…

The Citizenship Shield considers attendance, awards and charity work and Patterson ran away with this competition in 2022/23.

The Arts and Enrichment Shield was also a closely fought competition between Patterson, winners of House Music, and Evers, winners of House Drama, and Curnock, winners of House Dance. Patterson were again victorious.

The Sixth Form Cup is competed for by Sixth Form students only, and includes various leadership opportunities, report scores and Sixth Form sports became another tussle between the top two houses, with Davis edging the win.

The Academic Shield is the final component decided, with exam results and milestones considered as they come in. Again, this was a close competition between Curnock and Davis but Davis took the prize with one more competition under their belt than Curnock.

So, overall Davis were our worthy winner, taking the House Championship Cup. Curnock and Patterson tied for second place but with two other 1st places Patterson edged into second place, with Evers in 4th by only 1 point.

House Head for Davis, Miss Suggitt, says, “A HUGE congratulations to all our Davis students, what a fantastic achievement for a second year in a row! Mr Fry, Miss Moore and I are so incredibly proud of everyone. Every single Davis student has contributed to us winning the championship, whether it be taking part in a school event, getting house points, engaging in your lessons or fundraising for charity.  It just goes to show that all those contributions, however big or small, can add up to big results! Can we make it a hat-trick? GO DAVIS!”

The 2023/24 Competition is well under way with points scored by the new Year 7s in Summer School already added to the tally.

House Dance

The end of last term saw our annual House Dance competition held in the school hall in front of a large audience. This year, the competition was judged by Reuben Spencer, member of Orb Youth Dance Company in Eastleigh and FuzzyLogic based in Southampton. Reuben has been filmed for the BBC dance passions and was in the Newbury panto last year. At the end of June, Reuben produced the Young Performers Showcase at the Corn Exchange, where he was part of the front of house team.

The House teams showcased performances by Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9, as well as Year 10 dances with and without props. The dancers were led by our Year 12 students, who were responsible for their House’s whole programme including choreography, music and costumes.

Each House was recognised with the following awards: Teamwork Award (Curnock), Organisation Award (Davis), Determination Award (Evers) and Resilience Award (Patterson).

The competition was extremely close with fantastic dedication from all those students involved, but there could be only one overall winner on the night and the winners were”¦CURNOCK! Davis took 2nd place, Patterson 3rd and Evers 4th.

Our congratulations to Curnock House, as they are crowned House Dance Champions 2023.

Y12 Biology Field Trip

On 3 July Year 12 biology students departed for Aberystwyth in Wales to investigate and conduct research for our required practicals. On day one, we arrived and went to Borth Bog and found a variety of different plants that could only grow in acidic conditions. We also discovered that the peat in the bog is around 8m deep and may contain the corpses of ancient wolves and other creatures that lived in the area thousands of years ago.

On day two, we had a lovely sunny day at the shore where we conducted a vertical transect and identified many creatures and their zonation followed by ice cream bought by Mrs Woodgate. On day three we found small insects in the rivers and tried (and failed) to measure the abiotic factors. On the final working day, we explored the sand dunes and conducted point quadrat tests and ended up taking some of the dune with us in our shoes.

 

St Bartholomew’s School, Andover Road, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 6JP

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