ST JAMES SCHOOL NEWSLETTER ǀ MARCH 2020

KEY DATES FOR THIS HALF TERM Thursday 11th March 4-7pm: Year 11 Parents Evening Monday 16th March 6pm: Strings recital in the Music Department Tuesday 17th March 5-7 pm: Y8 Options Evening Wednesday 18th March: Auschwitz residential begins Thursday 26th March 4-7pm History Department’s model exhibition 7-8.30pm: Spring Showcase in the Music Department Friday 27th March: Year 10 BTEC day

NOTICES Only parents who have been issued with a pass may drive on site to drop off / collect

students before and after school.

News from around the school

MATHS

Congratulations to Paula Schrader who won a Chromebook from Sparx for outstand-ing attainment in Maths last year. She was nominated alongside many students from St James as well as about 20 other schools.

SCIENCE

Medical Science club happens in L4 on Mondays and is open to years 8-11. The club started by looking at what “health” is and we performed basic health tests such as tak-ing each other’s blood pressure, temperature and even practiced with the stethoscope. From there we have designed displays about the function of organs, looked at sheep’s lungs which we inflated and then dissected and have completed research on lung dis-eases. Now we’ve moved onto the heart which we dissected in detail and even filled it up with water under the tap to see what would happen! In our latest gathering we did a pretend heart surgery, called a coronary artery bypass, using scalpels, plastic tubing (arteries) and water with red dye (blood) – it was messy! Medical science club is a fun way to learn more about the human body, health and disease and will stand out on any CV or college application. Anyone is welcome to come along and try, there is a sign-up sheet outside of L4.

ENGLISH

On the 5th March we celebrated World Book Day. Tutors groups competed in a com-petition to match the teacher with their book shelf, and lessons began with teachers reading extracts from their favourite books.

FOOD TECH

During this half term in DT/Food we will be focusing on completing Food, Preparation and Nutrition, Design and Technology and Engineering. In Food we will be choosing a Y10/9 Food Prep student to complete in the Exeter College Cooking Competition.

MFL

There have been many opportunities for our students outside of the classroom this half term. On Friday 6th March, Madame Schmitt took a group of students to represent St James at a language speaking competition at Pilton Academy. On 17th March, three of our students will be representing St James at the South West regional spelling bee com-petition in Bath. We wish the students the best of luck! The 2020 Flash Fiction competition for schools is now open. Students are invited to submit a short story of 100 words or fewer on a topic of their choosing. The story should be written in French or Spanish. The judges will award a top prize of £100 , as well as prizes of £25 to a number of runners up. The deadline for entry is midday on Tuesday 31 March 2020. Entries must be submitted online (see below and please read the submission instructions carefully!). Please note that students must en-ter the competition themselves: teachers cannot enter on their students’ behalf for rea-sons of GDPR compliance. More information can be found at https://www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/schools/language-competitions

PSHE

We have another really interesting half term planned in PSHE. Year 7 pupils will be covering the topic ‘Changing Me’ in which they will look at the mental and physical changes that occur during puberty and the importance of personal hygiene. Year 8’s topic is ‘Life Challenges and Me’ where they will explore issues such as ad-diction, the impacts of illnesses (Cancer and Alz-heimers), STIs and dealing with domestic vio-lence and abuse. In addition to this, pupils have attended ‘Road Safety’ workshops run by Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service. These have been really engaging and informative ses-sions highlighting the importance of always wearing seatbelts correctly and how to stay safe on the road when walking, cycling etc. whilst also encouraging pupils to make choices that will help them stay safe.

ART

Exeter based Print-maker and Animator, Catherine Cartwright, visited our Year 11 Art group recently. Catherine has exhibited worldwide including recent exhibitions in London, New York and Baghdad. Catherine's work addresses many social and political issues. As part of her PHD with the University of Exeter she is currently working with service users at Devon Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Services to co-produce an artists book exploring the dynamics and issues involving people who have been traumatised by rape and sexual abuse.

Our Year 11 students were able to view and discuss the work cre-ated by Catherine and also work that has been created by other artists in collaborative projects such as 'Art & Activism'. Students were able to discuss the processes that are involved with creating work and consider issues relevant to themselves.

GEOGRAPHY All years have the chance to learn and revise in many ways during geography lessons; here are some year 9s demonstrating how something sim-ple like a table can be turned into a useful learn-ing tool.

St James beyond the Classroom

SPORTS—RUGBY

Year 11 continued their good form this season with a convincing win over local rivals West Exe. St James, the visiting team, started off with some solid defensive sets, and quickly earned possession. Big carries led to further quick fire scores and the visitors went into half time 27 points to the good. The half time

message was to not become complacent, and keep West Exe scoreless, both of which were delivered with ease. Strong tackling earned good field position, and after some incisive breaks several more tries soon fol-lowed. The set piece was a particularly strong area for St James, ruling the scrums and lineouts. Final score 0-52. Well done to all those involved, Mr Chalmers.

YOUNG ENTERPRISE

The Y10 Young Enterprise team are taking part in their last selling fair on Sat the 14th of March at St Stephens Church in town to sell their product - Bee-usable wax wraps!

After this they will be taking part in the Young Enterprise Semi Finals on Wednesday the 25th of March, where they will have to present their company journey to a panel and the rest of the YE teams. This is especially impressive as St James are the ONLY High school team - the rest are aged 16-18! Ms Dunk.

LIBRARY

World Book Day at St James has been a celebration of reading, with book competitions, teachers sharing their favourite stories in class, and students rewarded for being caught reading around the school. Law-rence Giurgiu also designed an art installation in the library featuring an explosion of books. Don’t forget to spend your £1 book tokens in book shops to get your free World Book Day exclusive books. Mr Halpin.

BRILLIANT CLUB

We are extremely proud to have 7 members of The Brilliant Club this year at St James. These Year 9 stu-dents will experience true academia by studying a course in ‘Literature, Society and the Body: 1900- 1960’. They will submit assignments and attend weekly “university style” tutorials with their PHD Tu-tor Ana. Good luck! Mr Brown.

TEN TORS

Year 10 are well on the way with their Ten Tors training. Before half term they walked 30 miles over the course of a weekend and camped out at Dewerstone Cottage near Yelverton. They had some testing weather conditions to cope with. Next weekend we are concentrating on the North Moor near Okehampton and again will be walking about 30 miles. Training is going really well. Mrs Thornton.

What would you like to see in our St James Newsletter? If you have any feedback, please email Mrs Webster: cjw@stjamesexeter.co.uk

CHARITY—RAISING MONEY FOR SMILE TRAIN

This year I am running the London Marathon and raising money for the Smile Train charity. This charity provides life changing surgery for children born with cleft lip/palates around the world. Last year my son, Evan, was born with a cleft lip. For my wife and I, finding out that our baby was going to be born with a cleft lip was very upsetting and worrying. Luckily for us, living here in the UK, we were able to receive a fantastic amount of support from our local hospital and from a specialist team of surgeons, nurses, psy-chologists, speech therapists which Evan and ourselves will be able to access until he is 18 years old. On 26th June 2019 at 5 months old Evan had an operation to correct his lip or as the cleft team called it, to give him his forever smile.

Unfortunately, across the world this is sadly not the case. Many children around the world are living in isolation with untreated clefts causing difficulties eating, breathing, hearing and speaking; but surgery can change a child's life forever. This cause means a great deal to me and my family so any donations would be greatly appreciated. Mr Gibbs. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/simon-gibbs11