A group of pupils from years 8, 9 and 10 attended Hertfordshire University for a Computing Enrichment Day. The day included programming robots, coding with the Raspberry Pi, App development and two inspirational talks by a Master Inventor at IBM and Kate Russell from BBC Click.
St Joan’s very first science journal – Einstein’s Army – written by pupils for pupils has been released and is available HERE and can be accessed from the right hand menu of this website..
Please enjoy reading.
“It is good to help others as the ‘Golden Rule’ is the foundation of our religion which teaches the importance of helping others. The Trussell Trust is a nationwide food bank which is helping people who have met troubled times giving them emergency food for three days. In the parable of the sheep and goats it says ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat’. We at St Joan of Arc have actively supported Jesus’s teaching by supporting this charity and we are helping our local community and wish to continue doing so. We would like to say a huge thank you to both year 7 and 8 for their tremendous generosity as they have truly helped so many people in the community. No doubt year 9 will be as great.”
Year 10 A.R.C Peace and Justice Group.
On the 26th March 2015 the Music Department took students from Year 8, 12 and 13 to the Southbank Centre to participate in a Gamelan workshop. Gamelan is type of music from Indonesia which all Year 8s have studied this year and the upper sixth students are also studying a piece of Gamelan music for their A level. During the workshop we first learnt some background information about the history of Gamelan music and how to correctly play the instruments. We then had the chance to play the instruments and learnt a traditional Gamelan song that we performed together. The day was exciting, interesting and inspiring and really brought what we had previously learnt in school to life.
On the day of the General Election pupils in years 7 to 11 had the opportunity to experience voting in an election. The sixth form common room became the polling station and the sixth formers performed the duties of electoral officials and returning officers. This was the culmination of two weeks of discussions and analysis in tutor time and Citizenship & PSHEE lessons. Pupils were challenged to consider a range of issues that election campaigning raises such as the role of the media, the use of statistics, the question of style over substance and the importance of considering what is best for the common good. Opportunities will be made for pupils to reflect on the results of the actual General Election and how they can continue they own understanding of our democratic system.
Eighteen pupils from Year 9 and 10 joined Mr Doyle, Miss Dell’Orto and Miss Edge for the Italian department’s annual trip to Rome. During our trip we walked lots and visited many of Rome’s most famous tourist attractions including St Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, the Vatican museums, la Bocca della Verita’, the Roman Forum, Piazza Spagna and il Vittoriano. We enjoyed the opportunity to try out our Italian for real and also managed to eat lots of pizza, pasta and ice cream. Even the constant rain on the first day didn’t dampen our spirits too much!
Images from the recent event
Well done to all the bands that competed on Thursday evening. We heard from ‘The Icebreakers’, ‘The Northern Line’, ‘The Regal Narwhals’, ‘The New Strange’ and ‘Vinyl Plan’. We also had a special guest performance from ‘Funk Fever’, a few faces you may recognise…
‘The Northern Line’, starring Daisy-Anne Breen Kalsi, Nicola Rogers, Andrew Laszcz and Michael Evans, are our new trophy winners after a close audience vote.
Thank you to our presenter Annie Beckley who kept us entertained between acts and to Luke Gomm for mixing the sound.
This year saw some new faces braving our stage along with an increasing number of leaders adding their own creativity and flare to our show. Since September, the PE Department have seen numerous groups using the gym, along with any free space they could find around school to practise their dances over and over again. The dedication some of these dances have seen has been commendable and I thank every performer for their hard work and pride that they have shown for this years show.
I would like to congratulate our dance leaders, Daire Quinn (Year 13), Aisling Knight (Year 13) and Filipa Ferreira (Year 13) who I am so glad have been able to end their time at St. Joan of Arc on an ultimate high due to their hard work and excellent choreography. They have been an asset to the development of dance over the past few years and I wish them the best of luck in their future studies.
Also to our upcoming leaders Daisy Ashton (Year 11) and Abbie Wildman (Year 10) who choreographed our finale dance for a large group of Year 8 girls. An excellent piece showing your wonderful flare for dance.
It has been an absolute pleasure to see another Dance Show through and each year our pupils show off how much talent they have. Thank you for all of your hard work and to all those involved in the set up, and running of the show.
Mrs Kane.
‘The Magic of Maths’ shows by Andrew Jeffrey proved a great hit with the students…
Click here to read reviews and quotes from pupils.
Congratulations to Stacey Carroll in 8 Campion who won the ‘Puzzle of the Day’ competition and to Mrs Perotti who won the staff competition.
Hope you all enjoyed Maths Week, see you next year!
On the 2nd March, Joan of Arc were invited to Derby Soccerdome for the National Finals of the ESFA Munich Trophies U12 5-a-side competition. Our school reserved the right to participate at these finals after our Year 7 Girls won both their local and regional tournaments to get there (A massive achievement in itself!).
We watched from the sidelines as the Girls battled against the best teams in the Country, showing amazing teamwork, determination and ability. We won 1 of our 3 games, unfortunately meaning we did not qualify past the group stages of the competition. We played a friendly at the end of the tournament and won 4-2: this helped ease the pain a little from their temporarily broken hearts!
St Joan of Arc are incredibly proud of our Girls being crowned overall 5th best in the country out of 1000 schools that entered!
What an unbelievable achievement. The most memorable and proudest day in my career and I hope a day that the students will remember and cherish forever.
Miss Beament
