FOR five weeks, for an hour after school, a small group of Primary children have been working with Mrs Everitt on an Essex initiative. ‘Carrying the Flame’ was delivered to all primary schools in order to bring awareness of the Olympic Games through cross-curricular links. This idea was to bring together children from the St. Clere’s Family of schools to work on a combined project. The result was a cluster of five children who accessed the Internet for research and developed their ICT, Art and Geography skills. A PowerPoint of Ancient Olympics and its competitions; profiles of British Paralympians; a study of the medals table and a map of the world, showing many of the flags of competing countries, were all part of the presentation given to parents on the final week. ‘It would be good if more children were able to take part,’ was one comment from a parent. ‘The children have really enjoyed doing this.’

SSCo (School Sports Co-ordinator)

ON Friday, 21 st November a Drama Company called “Cragrats” came to St. Clere’s School and carried out activities with Year 9 pupils to raise their awareness of Enterprise.

Mr Steve Spicer, the organiser of this event, was pleased by the quality of the workshops and the manner in which the pupils responded. He said, “This is not just about developing future Richard Bransons, it is more about engendering skills and attitudes such as teamwork, creativity and enthusiasm. These are vital life skills which you can apply to any situation.”

All pupils had an enjoyable day and found it stimulating and challenging.

AFTER the fun of the Community Summer Fun Day, Miss Martin (International Co-ordinator), Miss Squire (responsible for International School Charities) and Ayodele Oshunremi (Inspiration Youth Call) all set off to Nigeria on a British Council sponsored School Linking Visit.

The purpose of this visit was to establish a school partnership with Sango-Ota (Senior) High School, a secondary school located in Ogun state, South West Nigeria, (just outside Lagos); the very secondary school that Ayodele Oshunremi attended while a teenager living in Nigeria.

The visit was a resounding success with Sango-Ota’s principal Mr Thompson and his staff showing a real interest and commitment to the partnership. We have agreed to work on Joint Curriculum Projects on Peace One Day and Year 7 Transition, with a view to developing respective British and African Weeks in each school.

Our current Year 7s have completed letters introducing themselves and the school and leaflets about St Clere’s School. Year 8s have all completed ‘Peace PODs’ which are visual representations of important areas of their identity: family, friends, hobbies etc.

The visit to Nigeria highlighted the real challenges that our counterpart teachers and students are facing on a daily basis. The school was lacking many basic resources, such as electricity, running water, text books and complete buildings. However, Sango-Ota had a very effective PTA run by the Chairperson. We hope to be able to raise funds to help the school support effective teaching and learning for all their students. We are currently looking into the most cost effective and beneficial ways of helping the school.

We hope that this partnership will give students from both schools opportunities to reflect on their own identities; appreciate their own culture and customs as well as respecting cultural diversity within our own communities. Ultimately, we aim to ensure that we are creating global citizens, who have an understanding of the wider world, and active citizens, who can make a difference to their own communities and the global community in which we all live.

THE Sixth Form has now had three successful Sixth Form Open Evenings; one being held at each of the three schools involved in the partnership. Applications are now being taken and some students have already had their Subject Discussion Meeting with Miss Weston with formal letters of acceptance.

Miss Weston will be at St Clere’s on Wednesday lunchtimes in the Careers Library to answer any questions or just give general help with pupil applications. Parents and guardians are welcome to call Miss Weston should they have any queries.

The Sixth Form Planning Groups at each of the three schools meet regularly and in September, they had their first joint meeting at Hassenbrook School. This proved to be most successful and all Planning Groups felt that the way forward was to hold all meetings jointly with representatives from three schools present. This is now the case and the venues rotate around the three schools. The next meeting will be held at St Clere’s School.

As the Sixth Form is new, the Planning Groups have played an important role in putting across the views of the pupils in order to mould the Sixth Form. To reward members for their hard work, some will join the Travel and Tourism group on a trip to London including a flight on the London Eye and a River Cruise along the Thames.

There has also been interest from parents for the setting up of a parent forum. If there are any parents who are interested in being part of a parents’ forum, to help shape the Stanford and Corringham Sixth Form Centre, please contact Miss Weston, Director of Sixth Form, at Gable Hall School on 01375 400800 for further details.

ON Thursday 11 th December 2008 St Clere's School held their annual dance show. This year the show was in aid of Children with Leukaemia and in remembrance of Jamie Saunders, an ex-pupil of St Clere's who sadly passed away on 5th June 2008 to Leukaemia, just 23 days after being diagnosed.

The show was a great success and raised just under £1000. The show consisted of a variety of dancers ranging from line dancing to break dancing. This is the first year that the show has been a competition and the standards were very high. In first place was Emmanuel Shodunke, second place was Rebecca Corben and Bayleigh Mason, and in joint third was Rachael Clare, Brogan Halcrow and Kelsey-Ryan McDonagh and Aimee Burst.

THIS is the time of the year when Year 11 pupils are preparing for their GCSEs, particularly in the Art Department.

The pupil who painted this picture had to work five hours on this piece of work under strict examination conditions. This work will be submitted in the pupil’s folder as part of her GCSE work. The work in the Mock Examinations is of a very high standard.

ON Monday 24 th November Nathan Beacham, Shanice Smith and Christopher Monteiro successfully arranged a tea party. Staff who were seen enjoying a cup of tea, sandwiches and cakes included Mr Griffiths, Miss Hastie and Mrs Jellicoe.

On Thursday 11 th December students went on a successful trip to London. Accompanied by Mrs Andrews and Mrs Calvert, Shanice Smith, Samuel Opeodu and Charmine Sesey went to the Natural History Museum, whilst Mrs Simia and Mr Boxall went to the Science Museum with Nathan Beacham, Christopher Monteiro and Kamil Dworazny. In the afternoon students walked to Hyde Park to see the Princess Diana Memorial before heading home!

ON Wednesday, 3rd December, the St. Clere's Cross Country team had an extremely successful day. St. Clere's pushed the local Sports College, William Edwards School, all the way. The eventual difference between first and second place was only two points! William Edwards finished first on 350 points, St. Clere's were second on 348 and Gable Hall were adrift in third place on almost 800 points.

Every competitor's finishing position is added together to get a team score. There were some outstanding performances on the day including pupils competing against pupils a year older.

Thomas Richardson won his category and is now the District Junior Boys Champion; Lewis King came an outstanding second place in the same race; Emily Hurter was fourth in the Junior Girls category; Darryl Worbey was second in the Inter boys, competing against Year 11s. Antony Taylor was third and Samuel Milsom was fourth. Georgia Webber was second in the Inter Girls category.

In the team competitions, St. Clere's Year 7 team came second behind William Edwards. The Junior team (Years 8 & 9) and Intermediate team (Years 10 & 11) dominated their races; as a result they were both crowned champions. The top 10 boys in both the Junior and Intermediate races category included no less than 6 St. Clere's athletes. This is an outstanding achievement.

Mr Purkiss said, "This is an extremely pleasing result especially as we were so close to winning. Everyone has worked hard this year and I am confident we can win next time. Every pupil who ran should be proud of their achievements".

The Gifted and Talented in PE and Sport visited Piper Vale Olympic Gymnastics Centre in Ipswich recently. They were treated to demonstrations by Sarah Scott, Year 9, whose talent is amazing. The pupils took part in floor work, vaulting, beam and parallel bars. They all had a really enjoyable day. The pupils realised how difficult gymnastics is, especially on the muscles.

Jamie Saunders Charity Match

RECENTLY the staff played an 11 a-side match on the new pitch against an all star ex-pupils side including three semi-professionals who play to a very high level. The average age of the staff team was 33 compared to the pupils’ 21 and confidence and expectations were low in the staff dressing room before the game. Inspired by Mr Ferry’s rousing team talk the staff took the lead through Mr Timcke.

THE St. Clere’s teams have started exceptionally well this year and so far every boys’ football team remains unbeaten within the District. This is a total of approximately twelve games amongst the five year groups with more to come from February onwards.

Let’s hope these teams can continue to improve and reach even more District finals in 2009. This does rely on a dedication to training from all concerned.

The girls’ teams have also started well and are constantly improving through practice and dedication. The girls’ cross country results were particularly impressive due to the improvements made on last year, so well done girls. Keep up all the hard work.

YEAR 7 girls and boys have benefited greatly this year from external coaches coming into school to enhance their netball and rugby skills.

The coaching sessions, run by Mrs C. Chart and Mr R. O’Connell, over a period of ten weeks, have been excellent and I would like to thank them both for their commitment on behalf of the students.