N e w s l e t te r I s s u e 1 6 F r i d a y 1 5 J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5

L Roberts — Principal

CONFIRMATION PROGRAMME

Group 2 starts on Monday 18 January 2016, 6.00pm—

7.00pm at St Bede’s School.

Dear Parents/Carers

Hope you have dodged the snow showers this week. The

thought of a snow day can be great, but the reality for

working parents can be a real nightmare.

I basically work on the premise of “would it be safe for

my Mum to travel to work?” So, we take a very long and

hard look at whether to close or not and, of course, I

liaise with the heads from the other MAC and

partnership schools. Of course, our web site is always

the best place to check for updates and the school

status.

We have had a SATs (Standard Assessment Tests)

Information Evening this week, which was well

attended. I need to make it clear that the pupils are

doing a statutory test and this is not set by the school

but, set by the Government through the Department of

Education. I am all for assessment to allow pupils to

progress well and reach their full potential. However,

the Government seems to hold the view that this is a key

way of measuring attainment and progress, but also the

effectiveness of the school to deliver academic success.

This is the first year that the tests have measured the

new curriculum that has been taught, but also using a

new way of reporting. This is an area that can cause

tensions between parents and school.

Pupils will be given an age standardized score (against

all the other Year 6 pupils nationally) represented as 100.

If a pupil achieves a score of 100 they are achieving

exactly the national average. Any pupil who scores

below that is not at the expected standard for Year 6

pupils nationally that year. This then becomes a pass/

fail measure, in a sense. I am mindful that many pupils

work incredibly hard and have made huge progress but

are still below the national expected standard. As a

school, we will be supporting pupils to minimise stress

as much as possible and enable them to achieve their

full potential.

CLASS MASSES

School Chapel—9.00am

Year 6 Mass 22/01/16 Mount Carmel Church,

9.30am

7RJ 29/01/16 7HW 05/02/16

7SC 12/02/16 7AH 26/02/16

7PR 04/03/16 Year 7 Mass 11/03/16

Lord Jesus Christ,

you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father,

and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.

Show us your face and we will be saved.

Ah, Mercy. This is the

name of God. - Pope Francis

How we can participate during this Holy Year

Pray daily/Go to Confession/Forgive Someone/Read

a book about Mercy/Spiritual and Corporal work of

Mercy/Pray the Divine Mercy Novena starting Good

Friday.

Think about it—it is not that difficult for us to achieve

doing the above!!

Visit our website: www.st-bedes.worcs.sch.uk Twitter:

@stbedesmiddle | facebook.com/stbedesmiddle

18 January PCSO Year 7 Drugs/Alcohol talk

22 January Year 6 Year Mass

12 February School Closes for Half Term

22 February School Re-Opens

IONA JARROW LINDISFARNE WHITBY

582 539 557 525

YEAR 5 YEAR 6 YEAR 7 YEAR 8

520 824 350 558

WEEKLY ATTENDANCE

11 January—15 January 2016

Whole School—96.9%

Year 5 97.5% Year 7 97.1%

Year 6 97.5% Year 8 95.7%

Naeema Noor for planning a very good reflection time activity and for being a friendly member of 6LP

Daisy West for a positive and energetic start to the new term

Chairo Rowe for mastering a new skill in English

Sasha Zagrebina for working hard in lessons and for being a friendly member of the class

Pawel Poziemski for his hard work in Maths

Attendance

Attendance in school is currently excellent, with the whole school attendance being 96.8%, compared to the national average of 95%. We have one slight issue with pupils being late to school which we would like to improve. If your son/ daughter arrives in school after 8:50 they will be late and will need to go to reception to have a late stamp and sign in there so that we know they are in school.

Change 4 Life Campaign just got smarter!

The national Change 4 Life campaign has

just released a new, free, smart app to help empower and

support parents wishing to monitor their children’s sugar intake.

By downloading the Sugar smart app you can scan the barcodes

of your children’s favourite food and drink and see how much

sugar is lurking inside. As a guide, the following shows the

maximum levels of sugar which should be consumed by children

per day:

4-6 year olds – no more than 5 cubes (20g) of sugar per day

7-10 year old – no more than 6 cubes (24g) of sugar per day

11+ years – no more than 7 cubes (28g) of sugar per day

Sugar is not only damaging to teeth but can also be responsible

for the build- up of fats internally which can have harmful long

term effects on health.

To download the free smart Sugar app either go to the Apple App

Store or Android store on Google Play.

As always, we ask for your support in helping us to encourage

and promote a healthy lifestyle for all of our children.

Poppy Doran for being such a positive, hardworking and friendly member of the class.

Hirah Ahsan - excellent effort in Maths.

Thomas Munford - excellent contributions to discussions and for working really hard in Geography.

Tayyibah Hafiz - an excellent start to the term and all round good effort.

Sophie Dixon for being an excellent member of 5KB and for work-ing hard in all lessons.

The Year 5 and 6 girls took part in a District Indoor Athletics Competition at Arrow Vale. They took part in a variety of events, including obstacle and running relays, javelin, speed bounce, standing long jump, chest push, and vertical jump and standing triple jump. Each girl scored points towards the team's final total and they managed to score 144 points. The winning team finished on 180 points. Well done to the team; Paulina Jurkowska, Niamh Roberts, Lillia Williams, Julia Orzol, Grace Baker, Lucy Hatfield, Hollie Fuszard, Gracie Wegrzyn, Kinga Greda and Maud Read.

Year 7 Boys Football—Year 7 lost their first game of the season in the National Cup 6th Round away at Wigston Academy in Leicester. With a pitch with foot long grass on it, it made St Bede's passing and moving style very difficult to play. Despite this, St Bede’s opened the scoring when a well worked corner found its way to Matthew Barratt, who thundered home in to the roof of the net. St Bede’s were then under pressure from Wigston but Tom Coleman had pulled off a couple of superb saves and the defence appeared to be dealing with any issues, until a bizarre refereeing decision allowed Wigston to equalise. Tom Sanders was blatantly fouled on the edge of the box but the referee allowed play to go on and Wigston equalised. Equally as bizarrely, two minutes later a foul throw in from Wigston led to them taking the lead. From this point the game became scrappy and not in the style that we are used to seeing from St Bede’s as the boys lost their heads in frustration at the decisions from the referee. who gave every decision in the first half Wigston’s way. There were numerous fouls being made by both teams that were not picked up on and, at this stage of the competition, it was a shame that the game became such a nasty affair. Second half Wigston scored a well worked corner to go 4 -1 up but, again, St Bede's rallied and Jake Staunton and Cian Hodson pulled goals back, but in between this Wigston scored two goals—one an excellent solo effort and the other a break-away after a period of St Bede's pressure. Charlie Williams also scored and we hit the post twice before, unluckily, a deflected shot sent Archie Brady the wrong way and sealed a 8 – 4 victory for Wigston. The boys should be especially proud of their achievement in the National Cup. With nearly 3,500 eligible schools that could enter, St Bede’s reached the last 32, which puts us in the top 1% in the country – not a bad achievement. Now for the Midland Finals in February where, hopefully, the boys will have better luck.

Year 7 Basketball—Year 7 won a thrilling basketball game with Baverstock 27–26 to progress to the next round of the Midland Jr NBA Competition. A much taller and improved Baverstock team caused St Bede's many more problems than last time and the lead changed hands several times. With 7 seconds left on the clock, St Bede's were two points behind but captain, Regan Salisbury, was the hero, scoring a basket with two seconds left to ensure a hard fought victory for St Bede’s. Regan Salisbury was top scorer with 8points, Matthew Barratt 5pts, Gabriel Kubon 4pts, Harry Bradley, Callum Read, George Skelton, Charlie Williams and James Wynne all scored 2

IMPORTANT REMINDER

All planned Rugby in PE and after school will hopefully be back on next week. Please remember the correct kit.

A Parenting Programme on Teenagers

Ms J Wallis will be conducting a 4 week course at St

Bede’s on 21 January 2016, 1.30pm-3.30pm. All parents

welcome.

For further information go on line to

www.familylinks.org.uk/parents.

HAVE WE GOT YOUR CORRECT CONTACT DETAILS??

Please ensure that all your details are correct on your child's Insight Ac-count.

School will only contact priority 1 on your child's contact list when liais-

ing via text.

In the event of severe weather, or other event which will require the

school to close, parents will be informed through the following channels:

The school website: www.st-bedes.worcs.sch.uk

Our Twitter & Facebook Pages/Account

Text to your child’s primary contact

Worcestershire County Council website: www.worcestershire.gov.uk

Tune into your local radio station

For the text system to be of use to you please ensure you have updated the school with your new numbers

NB: Do not take note of a text message from your child, or a third party – the information on the school website WILL

BE ACCURATE

Date for the diary!

World Book Day will take place on Thursday 3 March 2016 so start thinking about your book character costume ideas! All children will need to bring in their favourite reading book on the day and there will be prizes for the most creative costume in each class, though they can still come in uniform if they prefer. (Miss L Mogg)

Year 5 Maths day

Wednesday the 13th was our first ever Maths day for Year 5 at St Bede’s, which was hugely successful. Children all took part in a 1 hour session throughout the day to enhance their problem solving skills. The problem solving company ran 6 practical activities for the children to take part in, including making a 3D cube, pentominoes and making polygons. All pupils were engaged and enjoyed each of the challenges. Some of the comments were: “That was so fun!” and: “It was a really different lesson compared to any we have ever had!” Thank you to all parents for supporting us and enabling us to make this happen. (Miss L Parker)

FINANCE OFFICER Required ASAP

Salary: Grade 5 pro rata £18,209 to £19,970 (FTE £20,849 to £22,212) Location: Redditch Contract type: Term Time including Inset Days plus 10 days Contract term: Permanent St Augustine’s Catholic High School is looking to appoint a Finance Officer. This is an exciting op-portunity for an enthusiastic and committed Finance Officer. You will play an active role in the day to day financial running of the school, providing effective and efficient management of school financ-es. Key areas of responsibility will include accounts, income and banking, procurement, invoicing, debtor control and assets. Previous experience of working in a school financial position would be advantageous but is not es-sential. The successful candidate will:

Have Level 3 AAT, or equivalent qualification or experience Have experience of using accounts package Have experience of liaising with auditors, banks and other financial institutions Have experience of producing budget management reports and cash flows Have excellent numeracy/literacy and communications skills Have the ability to meet deadlines and manage own timetable

Closing date for applications: 4.00pm Thursday 28 January 2016 Interviews to be held Thursday 4 February 2016 To apply for this role please complete Saint Augustine’s Catholic High School Application form, please do not send CV’s

CURRENT JOB VACANCIES

SAINT AUGUSTINE’S CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL

For further details and an application form visit our website www.st-augustines.worcs.sch.uk or contact

Mrs Julie Hardy, HR Officer, on 01527 555963 or email jab144@st-augustines.worcs.sch.uk

Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic MAC is committed to the safeguarding and welfare of students

Saint Augustine’s Catholic High School is part of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic MAC