Remembrance Day at St Bart’s is always a significant occasion in our calendar, one where the whole school gather in the Hub together with former students, governors and members of the Parents’ Association and Old Newburians’ Association. This year a different approach was required but the outcome was no less poignant.

The recent non-uniform day for Children in Need raised a massive £2334. This is nearly £1000 more than in 2019. Thank you so much for your generous support of this excellent cause. In these exceptionally challenging times, these children need our support more than ever and it is wonderful to see how our community has responded. Thank you.

This week the Photography enrichment class were looking at ‘exposure compensation’. The background is this: the automatic camera settings give a picture that will have an overall ‘medium’ brightness, but sometimes this creates a poor image so the photographers need to make a decision to have the image brighter or darker than the camera selects! Here are some of them.

“We are your head students for this year. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to introduce ourselves properly to everyone like we normally would but we are keen to meet as many of you as we can this term. This half term we’ve been working on some plans to make the school better for everyone in coming years, having taken all of your suggestions, and we can’t wait for you to see them!”

Emily, Sanskriti, Ethan and Siena

The Sixth Form Open Evening was very different this year for Staff and Students alike. We were disappointed not to be able to open the doors and welcome all our prospective Year 12 students in the usual way. However the Sixth Form team were determined to make our Virtual Open Evening an exciting and informative experience, which gave students a chance to learn about life at Sixth Form and showcase our extensive portfolio of 39 Level 3 subjects.

Lawrence (9D3), played The Last Post and Reveille twice last Sunday; once at the service in Speen and then afterwards at a service at Boxford war memorial. He has played for these services for the last 3 years and before that played Last Post and Reveille at Stockcross CE Primary School remembrance services.

Year 13 student, Annabelle, ran and swam 72 miles during September as part of The British Red Cross “Miles for Refugees” campaign. Her challenge represented the journey taken by refugees fleeing Damascus to Beirut and she raised almost £600!

On her fundraising page Annabelle said, “It’s a brilliant cause and together, we can help the British Red Cross continue supporting refugees in the UK…

At the start of October Mr Brooker gave assemblies to Year 7, 8 and 9 Patterson students about the importance of Black History Month.

He sent students off to create a piece of writing or artwork to describe why they felt Black History Month was important. A selection of students across the three year groups brought in some fantastic work fromPower Points and poems to collages and photos of cakes they had baked at home

On Sunday 11 October James (8C3) threw his javelin 37.5m, which not only beat his PB, but also proved to be the current leading distance thrown in the UK for his age category (U13).

He was representing Team Kennet at a competition in Portsmouth. James, his coach and parents were all over the moon. Congratulations!

You can see the amazing throw on our Facebook page.

Well done to Daisy (8C1) who was awarded the Coaches’ U12s Player of the Season for Newbury Netball Club in July. She was only recently presented with the trophy, due to lockdown.

Daisy has been playing netball since primary school and was put forward for a 10 week coaching programme at Newbury Netball Club by her after school club teacher in Year 5. She trialled for the team at the end of the programme and was picked for the U11s squad.