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St Bernard's Preparatory School - Newsletter 30th June 2023

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Dear Parents

On Tuesday, we were blessed not only to have one priest but three to say Mass for Miss Grogan's up-and-coming retirement. The children sang their hearts out and were excellent role models, so much so, that not one of the guests misbehaved in the aisles!.

Transition were charged with leading the Mass and did so beautifully with confidence. As Mass finished, the guests were overheard saying, how terribly impressed they were with the high standard of singing - hymns and harmonies, excellent elocution with the readings and prayers.

Miss Grogan managed to hold it together (only just!) and blessed to be surrounded by her close family and friends, and especially her very proud mother.

The Atrium lent itself as a wonderful backdrop for Miss Grogan and her guests to enjoy the celebration.

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Transitions

Thank you to parents who attended the recent Transition meetings, working together to help their children move on to the next stage of their education.

Junior Dukes Awards Ceremony

This morning’s Assembly was a wonderful end to our inaugural year of Junior Duke. Ms Underwood expressed how she felt immensely proud presenting forty children with their special certificates and badges. Completing each Junior Duke level is incredibly challenging and requires perseverance, resilience and dedication. Every child who took part experienced and mastered some really useful life skills, and we are certain these skills will assist in preparing them for the future. A big heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all the parents for supporting their children on their Junior Duke journey. Many congratulations to all the ‘Junior Dukers’ and keep up the good work. Ms Underwood is already looking forward to doing it all again next year!

UKMT Results are finally here!

We are delighted to announce our UKMT results for 2023.

The 2023 award thresholds were:

Gold 82+, Silver 66+, Bronze 52+, Junior Kangaroo 88+, Junior Mathematical Olympiad 113+

We achieved:

3 Bronze: Rudra, Musa, Taara

4 Silver: Annika, Siddhant, Evan, Suhas

8 Gold: Aryaman, Esha, Kabir, Tilak, Hailee, Anish and Arjan and Oscar who were joint ‘Best in School’.

7 of the above children invited to participate in the Kangaroo challenge and the amazing results are:

The 2023 award thresholds are:

Merit: 90+

We have 2 Merit Awards: Oscar and Anish

And finally, the results of the Olympiad:

The 2023 award thresholds were: Merit: 21+, Distinction: 36+, Bronze medal: 36+, Silver medal: 44+, Gold medal: 51+.

We are so proud to say that Oscar achieved a Merit in this stage too:

Oscar – what an amazing achievement! Well done to Oscar and all the children who took part. I cannot tell you just how proud we are of each and every one of them!

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Jenny Cooke, Oddizzi

We were very excited to welcome Jenny Cooke, her daughter Olive and Olly the cameraman, who filmed our children’s reaction to the latest Oddi film about Antarctica. The year 3 and year 6 children were asked questions all about Antarctica. Then Remove watched the film and they were mesmerised for 17 minutes!! The film was amazing, and the children both asked and answered lots of fascinating questions. We cannot wait to see the end product of all the filming. Watch this space!

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Berkshire Maestros

We were really excited to have 25 children from year 5 and 6 take part in Berkshire Maestros’ Junior Music Festival ‘The Show Must Go On!’ on Wednesday evening at The Reading Hexagon. The children sang lots of numbers from different musicals and were even introduced to songs from the Hansel and Gretel Musical. The children's hard work paid off and it was lovely watching their faces as they performed with a conductor and a live orchestra. Everyone who took part did us proud - a truly wonderful experience for one and all! Massive thanks to both Mrs Whittaker and Mrs Kimberley as without them our children on all of the above.

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Elocution Challenge

Throughout this week there has been a buzz of excitement around the school, with all classes preparing for this year's Elocution Challenge. We are leaving you on a cliffhanger as we promise to deliver in next week's newsletter the results.

Below are our Year 5's holding an Elocution rehearsal to select our finalists in preparation for the Elocution Challenge.

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Achievements:

Congratulations to Kaiden in Year 5 who has achieved Swim Stage 7 with his swimming school. Congratulations Kaiden!

Mia, in year 3, started bouldering (rock climbing without ropes) in January and qualified for her Level 1 NICAS (National Indoor Climbing Award Scheme) certificate in April and is now well on her way to achieving her level 2 award. She loves bouldering and is trying more difficult climbs and holds each week.

Also, Mia played a cricket match for her local girls club recently and despite being a little reluctant to play against older children, she accepted the challenge and played really well, by taking a wicket (bowled) and displaying excellent fielding. Her team went on to win significantly - Well Done Mia!

Ellie, in year 5, has been training and taking part in the U11 Netball league in High Wycombe weekly all year.

She was awarded overall Player of the Match for her team by the League on Sunday as she was consistently awarded this after many of the matches. She’s playing a year ahead of herself too, a great achievement!

Early Years

On Wednesday our Early Years' Parents came to play with their children - the children were excited to show them around and they all had fun exploring.

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Year 4

Transition explored life at Tudor Court through the eyes of trumpeter John Blanke. It was a fun and interactive session giving our children the opportunity to examine evidence; finding out what it tells us, as well as what it does not tell us, about this extraordinary Tudor. The children were introduced to simple primary source material and everyday historical terms, as they explored why we are more familiar with some historical figures than others, and why John Blanke’s legacy is so important.

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Upper Trans - Chapel Visit

Upper Trans (Year 5) went to the Chapel at St Bernard’s Grammar School, to work with the Sixth form students and explore the stained-glass windows. They learnt about the symbolism behind the windows and the stories they tell, before creating their own unique stained-glass window design based on the Catholic values of St Bernard and our shared school badge.

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STEAM Club

The fun you can have with a piece of paper!

The children were given one piece of paper and told they had to make a paper chain. We held a competition to see who could make the longest chain. They soon realised they had to cut thin strips.

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Art Club - Coasters

The art club made beautiful tiled coasters this week. They put different colours of nail varnish on water, swirled them with a tooth pick, then gently placed a tile on top of the water, then voila!

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Sports

On Tuesday, Transition (Year 4) took part in not one, but two Inter-House competitions! Firstly, Year 4 competed in a Rounders competition, John and Mark teamed up together and played against Luke and Matthew, both teams started by fielding well and kept each other's score to a minimum. During the second innings, both teams batted well and started to gain rounders for their team and in the end John and Mark ran out winners by 2 and a half rounders!

After the break, Year 4 renewed their rivalry but this time competing in Home and Away (a prep school favourite). This was fiercely competitive, and Luke and Matthew were determined to get their revenge after falling narrowly short in Rounders. The teams batted and fielded well, worked collaboratively and took it in turns to lead! With five minutes to play, Luke and Matthew took control of the match and ended up winning by 2 runs!

Well done to both teams who showed great sportsmanship and thank you all for an entertaining and competitive afternoon!

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Finally, I would just like to say a HUGE thank-you to FOPS for organising and running a wonderfully successful summer fête and I would also like to thank parents (both past and present), who came out in droves. A good time was had by one and all.

Best wishes

Mrs A Verma

Headteacher

Current Prep School families

As school places are quickly filling up we would like to give you the opportunity to register your interest. If you have a sibling or other family member looking for a school place, please complete the registration form on the website, so we can add their names to the list, or alternatively speak to a member of the admin team.