St Peter’s students living the Lasallian values
Students at St Peter’s Catholic School in Bournemouth continue to live the Lasallian values in their daily lives and recent activities have included strengthening links with the local community and helping their partner school in South Africa.
Building community links
Last month we started our programme to help build links with our local community.
A group of Year 8 students participating in a programme to help develop communication and team work skills teamed up to clear the car park and beach area around SOBO and the lifeguard training centre of all litter. SOBO have kindly offered to provide students with a cold drink (…and teachers with a hot one) for their work, and it has so far been a real success. It was great to see the students interacting with the public and providing such a positive service to a busy area of real beauty.
Thanks to Janet at SOBO for her support!
Learning first-hand
Health and Social Care Year 12 Diploma students were able to learn all about the role of a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) senior nurse today when ex-student Hayley Boyd came in to see them.
Hayley, a nurse for over 20 years, talked about the babies she works with and their parents at Portsmouth Hospital. The hospital is one of only two Level 3 NICU’s in the South of England able to work with complex issues. They are one of the top five units in the world and are top in the UK for survival rates of premature babies from 22 weeks.
Hayley talked about her role, the highs and lows and shared a case study with the permission of the parents of the child. She also talked about reflective practice and how this helps to improve the unit and also the mental health and well-being of the staff.
Hayley brought in some examples of equipment and clothes to show the students along with their “baby” they use for training purposes. It was such a wonderful experience for the students to meet Hayley and learn first-hand about her role.
Helping partner school in South Africa
We crossed a milestone with Shea O'Connor Combined School (our partner school in South Africa) recently. We were asked earlier in the year if we could help by fundraising for solar panels and, through lots of different projects, we achieved our aim and raised enough funds to buy, install (and insure!) enough solar panels to run the whole school.
This is a huge achievement and helps the 750 pupils and 30 staff as regular 'load shedding' or power outages have made life very difficult in recent times.
We worked closely with the Finance team here at St Peter's, the outreach team at Michaelhouse School in South Africa, Nicholas Nxumalo (headteacher at Shea), Mr Doyle and other figures in the Shea community (including Jon Bates) to make sure this project was managed well and funds were spent wisely. It was a fantastic team effort, with a real and lasting impact.
Nicholas Nxumalo wrote this email to St Peter's on 14 October:
It is with great admiration to write you this message and I hope it will find you well. I do not know where to start to thank you and the entire St Peter's School community for the upliftment and support you have given us. Shea O'Connor Combined School will no longer be the same. As of today, the installation has been completed and is functioning perfectly well.
The Solar Power Africa team handed over the project as completed today. All electricity gadgets that the school have are compatible with Solar Power, with the exception of the Microwave and Kettle.
Teachers' lessons henceforth will no longer be interupted by Eskom electricity loadshedding and outages. It will also maximise the amount of subject content knowledge imparted to pupils as there will be less writing on whiteboards and more on projecting prepared work. I also mentioned to you that for us this is a huge step forward, now we are about to start Final Examinations for the entire school.
Photocopying of examination question papers will not be a challenge any longer. We used to postpone other examinations due to electricity loadshedding. Also, teachers used to struggle with entering marks in the system (SA-SAMS) for report-card purposes. School Governing Body meetings that are held in the evening used to be postponed or we lit candles, now all that will be a thing of the past. This is the difference you have made to the school and our lives as teachers.
Thank you to all who made this possible. Mrs Stanisstreet and I will be visiting Shea from 25 Nov - 1 December 2023 and will lay the foundations of more projects.
Martin Ridley, International Co-ordinator
New county champions
The Year 10 boys rugby team entered into the Dorset County 10-a-side rugby tournament. The boys performed fantastically well, managing to balance an aggressive and physical game with some outstanding levels of skill.
They made it through the rounds comfortably and went on to beat Poole Grammer School in the semi-final. This set up an incredible final against Bournemouth Grammar School, where again the boys proved too much to handle.
Congratulations to them all as the new County Champions.
Roses Academy
A big congratulations to Year 11 student, Sascha, on being selected into the Roses Academy Programme 2023-24!
The Roses Academy, made up of athletes aged 14 – 18, is part of the England Netball Player Pathway and supports young athletes on their development journey towards being potential senior England internationals.
We wish you all the best on your England journey. Your hard work and dedication is truly inspirational.
South West Junior Chef finalist
Well done to Elijah for getting through to the final of the South West Junior Chef of the Year.
Elijah prepared a fantastic dish, making the judges’ task challenging. His entry showed skill, and he worked at a high level. The judges were impressed by the standard of the competition on the day. Whilst on this occasion, Elijah didn't win the final, he goes straight through to the third round of Springboard future Chef.
Well done Elijah. What an achievement!
