Over 300 former Sixth Form students and their parents returned to St Bartholomew’s School on Thursday 19 December to be awarded with A Level certificates and prizes at the annual Awards Evening in the School Hall.

Congratulations to all the students who were awarded medals on the last Boxercise session of the year. They have maintained dedication and commitment since the club started in January and have attended 96% of the sessions throughout the year which is a brilliant achievement.

Huge congratulations to the girls who took part in the recent Area Cross Country Competition at Newbury Showground. It was a very wet and miserable afternoon but a tremendously successful one!

On Thursday 5 December, Year 7 Curnock tutor groups put on a fabulous Christmas Fair to raise money for Curnock’s House charity, Newbury Cancer Care. The Curnock breakout space was full to the brim with students’ stalls,including several cake stalls, a tombola and a number of games that were not only fun but also well prepared and brilliantly inventive.

Congratulations to these students who took part in the recent Indoor Athletics competition at Park House on Thursday 7 December. Both boys and girls teams performed superbly in the track and field events, the boys finishing in 2^nd place and the girls finishing in 1^st place with an outstanding team total of 220 points out of a possible 231 points. This score has not been achieved in a local competition previously, congratulations!

This term has seen Evers House continuing their fundraising for their long standing House Charity West Berkshire MENCAP. Students from all years took part in a fantastic evening of entertainment at the annual Evers House Evening, lead by the House Captains.

Year 8 student, Darcy was selected to play Waterpolo for the girls under 14 South East Region team and the girls enjoyed a successful weekend away at the Walsall Gala Baths. Last weekend the team played 6 matches in the Inter-Regional Tournament. They enjoyed wins against the East Midlands, South West, Wales, and East. Their game play improved throughout the tournament but sadly they lost to Ireland and the North East teams. The North East went on to take the gold medal and Ireland took second place. The South East team came 5th out of the 10 regions overall.

On Tuesday 19 November all students in Year 11 were involved in an interview skills day. 

Prior to the day students spent time in their PDP sessions examining the skills required for work, researching career choices, producing CV’s and letters of application.

Students, staff and parents responded overwhelmingly to the annual Harvest Appeal. Many boxes of tins and packets of groceries were collected. Half the donations were delivered to Loose Ends and half to Fair Close Centre.

Thank you to everyone for your response to this Appeal.

Last Saturday we swam in the English Schools National Finals at the London Aquatic Centre. It was such a great experience racing in the Olympic pool and we all swam PBs.