Weekly News - Friday 11th March 2022

Year 3 Production

On Thursday evening, our Year 3 classes presented their spring production to an enthusiastic audience at The Compass Theatre in Ickenham. Their show was 'Robin Hood and the Sherwood Hoodies' and it was jam-packed with humour as well as some stunning solo and ensemble singing and acting! Every child spoke their lines beautifully, sang with gusto and acted at a very accomplished level. It was such a wonderful opportunity for the children to perform in a theatre and they really rose to the challenge. 

Earlier in the day, they had performed their dress rehearsal to an audience of Year 1 and 2 children and staff. The Year 3 children should be very, very proud of themselves - all of the hard work and rehearsal time really did pay off. This was a first class production!

General Knowledge Quiz Team

On Tuesday, our Quiz Teams took part in the Prep School General Knowledge Quiz Team Challenge. There were, as always, some very challenging questions and this was a super experience for the children who took part. There were 81 teams competing in total.

Team 1 came joint 49th. Team members were:
Ashvika A (3B)
Raiden B (4T)
Minaya W (5A)
Ryan D (6H)

Team 2 came 11th. Team members were:

Rohaym U (3MB)
Jeena H (4L)
Jacob N (5G)
Aryan B (6H)

Team 2 have qualified for the next round of the competition and we wish them well as they continue their preparations for that.

Please do keep encouraging your children's general knowledge by supporting them to read non-fiction as well as fiction books, and to access some of the excellent resources for children's news, such as BBC Newsround and First News.

Speech Competition Semi-Finals

Many classes from Years 1 to 6 have now completed the semi finals of the Speech Competition, with a few classes to complete their semi finals next week. Mrs. Drummond and Mrs. Smith have been hugely impressed with the standard of performances so far and would like to congratulate all of the children who have been taking part in the competition. The finals of the Year 1-3 and Year 4-6 competitions will take place on Thursday 24th March and parents of finalists will be invited to attend on that day.

We are also very much looking forward to the Nursery and Reception speech recitals. The Reception recitals will take place on Monday 21st March and the Nursery recitals on Tuesday 22nd March. Parents will also be invited to attend these events - information will be sent out via class teachers nearer the time.

Robins Class Assembly

On Thursday, the children of Robins Nursery class delighted their audience with their spring assembly reminding us all of the beauty of our four seasons. There was wonderful singing and the children wore vibrant costumes. Every child remembered their words and their confidence was a joy to behold. Well done, Robins.

 

 

 

5G Class Assembly

On Friday, 5G used their class assembly to tell us all about inspirational people. They shared some beautiful artwork they had done of the people who inspire them and told us why these people are their role models. They also told us stories of people who have made a difference in the world, shared some inspirational quotes and read us some 'soon-to-be-famous' quotes of their own! We enjoyed their confident singing performances too.

Well done, 5G! You have given us a lot to think about.

Music News

School Orchestra

If your child (Year 4, 5, or 6) is learning an orchestral instrument outside of school and is interested in joining the school orchestra please email Mrs. Fawbert at cfawbert@sthelenscollege.com. 

Woodwind Lessons

We are delighted that Mrs. Garnes will be returning to school from her maternity leave after the Easter break, and will be offering lessons on clarinet and saxophone to children in Years 4, 5, and 6. If your child is interested in learning these instruments, please complete the following Google Form to register. Lessons will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, and additional students will be added to the waiting list.  

Commitment

Please can we remind parents that when children join one of our choirs or musical groups, they are committing to represent the school and we expect them to follow through on this commitment for the full academic year(s). Singing and music are good for the soul!

Sports News

On Thursday our girls' netball team took part in the Reddiford netball tournament and the girls did themselves proud. They played 5 games, winning 4 convincingly and finishing as runners up in the tournament. Well done to all of the players!

Plastic Free School

St. Helen's College is currently working towards the 'Plastic Free Schools' initiative. Our Eco Team/Eco Warriors have been selected and we have achieved the first objective.
https://plasticfreeschools.org.uk/school/st-helens-college/?obj=1

Our next objective is the 'stop litter initiative' which is now in full swing.

International Women's Day

On Monday in assembly at Upper School, we considered International Women's Day, which always falls on 8th March. We talked about the continuing need to work for equality between men and women, boys and girls in the world. We are proud to be a co-educational school and to offer equality of opportunity for boys and girls here at St. Helen's College, and we hope that you will underline this important message with your children at home.

Red Nose Day

We would like to remind you that next Friday is Comic Relief/Red Nose Day. We have a slightly altered lunch menu for the day, which you can view here.

The children should come to school on this day dressed in red and/or comic relief t-shirts. They are also welcome to wear a red nose on this day if they have purchased one from one of the many retailers.

We will be doing several different events on the day including:

Upper School - a raffle, sporting quiz and a sporting event.
Lower School - a raffle, danceathon and an obstacle course to different landmarks.
Ducklings - a raffle, danceathon and stick the 'red nose' on the face.

To participate in these events and the tog day we would like to suggest a donation of £5 which your child can either bring with them on the day or you can donate via our JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/st-helen-s-college3

In addition we will be selling Comic Relief wristbands for £1 from Monday 14th March on all three sites. Please note the wristbands will be sold on a first come first serve basis until we have sold out.

We are sure that you are aware of Tom Daley's 'Hell of Homecoming' Comic Relief challenge that he did recently. With this in mind we would like to set the children a fun sporting challenge which they could get sponsorship for. We would like the children to run, walk, scoot or cycle to a variety of different landmarks and be sponsored to reach them. Please take photos of the different landmarks you visit and upload them for us here before Friday 18th March. Simply click on your child's year group to upload their photographs.

You can download a sponsorship form here for the children to print at home and use for this challenge.

News from the PA

PA Pub Quiz

Thank you to all of the parents, staff and friends who attended the PA Quiz on Tuesday night at The White Bear in Ruislip, with nine teams taking part. It was a fun packed event and, after much head scratching and brain wracking, the evening culminated in a tie break situation for first place. After a rather challenging tie break question, Universally Challenged (pictured) emerged as the winning team and each team member was presented with a box of Lindt chocolates. As is traditional, wooden spoons were presented to the team in last place: No Eye Dears. Thank you to everyone who came along to make this a thoroughly enjoyable evening!

Second Hand Uniform Sale

There will be donation bins for unwanted SHC school uniform outside the three school entrances every day from Monday 14th March to Friday 25th March and the PA will be opening a uniform stall from 12 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. on Friday 1st April and Tuesday 12th April in the school car park on Parkway.

Easter Draw

The PA will once again be donating Easter eggs which will be given out via a draw into which every child's name will be entered. The draw will take place in the final week of term.

IAPS iArt Competition 

After the success of iArt 2021, in which Arya A at St. Helen's College was a winner, IAPS are running the competition again in 2022 and hope to receive more submissions than ever. Shortlisted entrants will receive prizes of vouchers for local independent bookshops.
 
This year, the competition will have a theme and all submissions must in some way relate to this theme. The theme is my role model.
 
This theme has been chosen because IAPS is interested to see who inspires pupils, who motivates them, who they admire and who they would like to be like when they grow up. The role models can be anyone:

• someone personal e.g. a family member, friend, teacher, coach, librarian, a member of the local community;
• someone “in general” e.g. nurses, doctors, train drivers, farmers;
• someone public e.g. a famous person, such as a sportsperson, environmentalist, singer

While IAPS encourages pupils to attempt a portrait of their role model, pupils – and particularly, younger pupils – should feel free to just paint / draw / create something which reminds them of their role model instead. For example, if a pupil’s role model is David Attenborough, they might choose to paint trees and animals, or if their role model is a parent, they might choose to draw a picture of their house. 

Each pupil must write a maximum of 100 words in a sentence or two to accompany their piece of work, saying 'My role model is...because...'.

Entries will be judged on a) interpretation of the theme; b) creativity around the theme; c) overall design; d) and that ‘certain something’ that just draws you to the artwork! There is no set format for entries and artwork can be submitted in any medium. Submissions can be paintings, drawings, or models, any size, and use any art supplies.  
 
There are five categories for the iArt competition: Years 1 & 2, Years 3 & 4, Years 5 & 6, Years 7 & 8 and Years 9 & 10.  Each school may enter one piece of art for each category. For example, one piece of artwork representing the Years 5 & 6 category, not one artwork from Year 5 and one from Year 6.  

Pupils who would like to enter this competition should submit their pieces of art and accompanying sentences directly to Mrs. Pruce or via their class teacher by 20th April. Mrs. Drummond and Mrs. Pruce will judge which entries to put forward from St. Helen's College.

Good luck everyone and happy creating!

School at Work Open Morning

Our next 'School at Work' Open Morning for prospective parents will take place on Thursday 28th April. If you have any friends or family with babies or pre-school chidlren who may be interested in visiting St. Helen's College please do share the date with them. Visits on this day are by appointments, which can be booked by telephoning the school office or by emailing Mrs. Smith at susmith@sthelenscollege.com.

Easter Holiday Club

Bookings will open at 4 p.m. today for our Easter Holiday Club. Please login to your SchoolsBuddy account to book your child(ren)'s place(s).

Lost Property

There is a significant amount of lost property at Upper School. To assist in getting this back to its rightful owners, we will be putting lost property on a table outside the Parkway entrance at morning drop off times next week so that parents may help children identify unnamed items. Please could we also remind parents to name everything that you send into school.

Blaze Netball Club

If you have a son or daughter in Years 2 - 5 and they would like to develop their netball skills, you might be interested in Blaze Netball Club which runs at Douay Martyrs School on Saturday mornings. Full details are available here. Several St. Helen's College children already attend the club.