Weekly News - Friday 21st June 2019

Arrangements for Year 1 and Year 2 Summer Plays

On Wednesday 26th June, Year 1 and Year 2 children will be performing their summer plays to Nursery and Reception children. On this day, children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 should be dropped by parents directly to the Winston Churchill Hall in Ruislip between 8.00 and 8.30 a.m. They will be brought back to school and will have lunch at school as normal.

On Thursday 27th June, Year 1 and Year 2 will perform plays to parents, family and friends. Year 1 will perform at 1.30 p.m. and Year 2 at 2.30 p.m. On this day, all children should be dropped off at school as normal; they will eat school lunch and Year 1 and 2 children will then be taken by coach to the Winston Churchill Hall for their performances. Children will be dismissed directly to parents from the Winston Churchill Hall following their performance.

Tickets are now available to purchase for these Year 1 and Year 2 productions.  Please use this link to book your tickets, and you will then be sent a charge to your SchoolsBuddy account to make a payment. Parents will be permitted to take older siblings out of school on the Thursday afternoon to watch the performance if they would like to; please notify your class teacher in writing if you would like to do this.

We look forward to seeing many of you at the plays, which are always very special events.

Super Pre-Prep Sports Days

Well done to all of our Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children who took part in their wonderful Sports Days at Court Park on Thursday. Without exception, the children joined in enthusiastically and competed with determination and pride. We are sure that parents were as proud of them as we all were! You can see lots of photographs of the children taking part on our Galleries page.

St. Helen's College Are Chess Champions!

Very well done to the St. Helen's College chess teams who performed extremely well in their tournament against St. Bernadette's School this week. There were some very strong individual performances which contributed to the St. Helen's College A team winning the tournament and the trophy! Our B team struggled a little on the day, but gained valuable experience and were delighted to see their friends lift the trophy too.

It is worth noting that, while the St. Bernadette's players were mainly from Year 6, our A team were all from Year 5 and our B team was made up of one Year 5 player and three players from Year 4! They should feel very proud of themselves to have taken on the challenge of competing against older children and performing so well. A badge was awarded to Ibraheem for sportsmanship and another badge to Marcus for best checkmate, and all of the children deserve a special mention for their efforts.

St. Helen's College A team: Michael K, Jai D, Alex S, Marcus S
St. Helen's College B team: Ibraheem F, Sulaiman M, Aaron S, Vidhit N

Aarna Plays at Cadogan Hall!

Congratulations to Aarna A, who will be playing two pieces with the Hillingdon Orchestra at the Cadogan Hall in Chelsea. Aarna plays the flute and it is an honour to be chosen to play in this wonderful venue. You can see details of the performance here:

Encore : A Celebration of Music
https://cadoganhall.com/whats-on/encore-a-celebration-2019/

If your child plays an instrument and would like to get involved with the Hillingdon Music Hub, you can find out more information by following the link below.
https://archive.hillingdon.gov.uk/music  

3M Assembly - Fair Trade

Well done to the children of 3M who presented a truly inspirational assembly this morning all about the benefits of Fair Trade. They took us all on a journey to St. Lucia to see how bananas are grown and who profits the most from the banana trade, before explaining why buying Fair Trade will help to make sure that workers are paid fairly and able to feed and educate themselves and their families. Fair trade coffees, teas, bananas and banana milkshakes were served to parents before the assembly too!

 

 

PA Summer Fete

The Summer Fete is only a week away and preparations are almost complete. To help make this the best event possible, we are looking for donations of:

• Cakes
• Drinks
• Soft toys - for the toy tombola
• Nearly new toys (no books please)
• Old school uniform – for the uniform stall
• Brand new toys - for the raffle and toy tombola stalls
• New items or unwanted gifts - for the raffle, nearly new stall or hoopla

If you are able to donate any of the above or can volunteer your time for all or part of the day, please do get in touch with us at pa@sthelenscollege.com.  We’d love to hear from you!

Dads raise over £5000 for the British Heart Foundation!

Some of our St. Helen's College fathers had a very special Father's Day this year, spending the day taking part in the London 2 Brighton bike race to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.

The Dads have, so far, raised £5,433.98 for the British Heart Foundation, which really got them noticed by the event organisers on the day. They did 1:1 interviews and put out special congratulatory wishes when they reached the finishing line. Even the sun made an appearance!

The families of these men were so proud of the Dads' achievement. Well done to all involved!

 

Young Geographer of the Year

Information about the Royal Geographical Society's Young Geographer of the Year competition can be found here. We would like to give the current Year 4 and Year 5 children the opportunity to take part in this poster competition. Year 4 and Year 5 children could start to think about ideas over the holiday and do research on holidays such as taking photos or collecting items. If your child would like to take part, please register your interest by emailing Miss Walker at swalker@sthelenscollege.com.  Miss Walker will run some workshops (after school) in September for those who wish to enter the competition to work on their posters, ready to submit entries by 18th October. 

Music Tuition

There are still a few spaces available for instrumental tuition at Upper School from September: we have one space for trumpet, one space for flute and two spaces for clarinet. If your son or daughter would like lessons, please email Mrs. Allery directly at rallery@sthelenscollege.com. Places are allocated on a first come, first served basis. All places for other instruments have now been allocated.

Passport Forms

We would like to remind parents that teachers are happy to sign passport forms, but these forms must be brought to school unsigned and signed by parents in front of teachers in order to comply with regulations.

Summer Hair Cuts

Please can parents be very mindful to follow the guidance given in the Parents' Handbook regarding short haircuts for boys. The relevant text is copied below.

Boys’ hair must be cut above the collar and ears in a conventional manner. Crew cuts, shaved patterning, obvious layering and gelling are not allowed.