All Year 12 and 13 Students are invited to have complimentary breakfast in the Common Room prior to all of their exams.
Breakfast will be available between 08:00 and 08:45
Breakfast available to all Sixth Formers before all exams in the Common Room (08:00 – 08:45)
Thanks to Waitrose Rickmansworth for supplying the food and to Mrs Fry for organising and running the breakfast club.
Following the conclusion of the recent election and a series of interviews on Wednesday, I am pleased to announce the committee for the next academic year.
The committee will officially take up their positions in September, but will be doing some work towards next year in the coming weeks, including their first full committee meeting next Wednesday after school.
Thanks once again to all students that applied and took part in the selection process and thanks to all students and staff for their support.
On Friday afternoon, Year 8 students were lucky enough to meet our local MP, treasury minister David Gauke MP. All students wrote to him in the summer requesting that he takes action to help get an estimated 57 million children around the world who do not currently have an education into primary school. Mr Gauke was grilled by students on how the government could help more, what he would say to parents who did not want their children to go to school, and why the promise leaders made in 2000 to eradicate this problem by 2015 had not been kept.
There was also time for some more general political questions, which ranged from whether Scotland should have left the UK, whether the UK should remain in Europe, why HS2 was being built and why there has been a further delay on airport expansion in the south east of England.
A few non-political questions crept in too, including whether Mr Gauke had David Cameron’s phone number… Apparently he does not, but did reveal he is closer to George Osborne than Mr Cameron.
Year 11 ARC groups have been working hard this term putting their faith into action. One of our groups had focussed on the refugee crisis. They felt they wanted to do something to help and so looked to the advice of Cardinal Vincent Nichols. The Cardinal suggested that Catholics can above all else pray. So with this in mind one of our groups prepared an all day prayer vigil for Wednesday 7th October. They prepared TCT resources for tutor groups, they wrote letters to the Cardinal inviting him to join us. (unfortunately he is in Rome with the pope!)Students prepared a power point as a focus for groups in the chapel.Groups were brought down in their RE lessons for 20 minutes at a time to pray for refugees in crisis. The chapel remained a constant place of prayer all day with staff and students covering break and lunchtime. Everyone agreed it was a worthwhile undertaking. Well done year 11 ARC!
Year 13 A.R.C have been looking into the ‘Catholic Worker Farm’ which offers accommodation and support to 22 destitute female asylum seekers and their children. All of the women have been homeless and have been recommended to the Catholic worker Farm by refugee services. The Catholic Worker Farm gains no support from the government and strongly relies upon donations. This year, the 13 A.R.C group will be supporting this cause by collecting basic items which may seem little to many of us but is of great importance to the Farm. Already they have shown great generosity and I am sure that this will continue to be the case. Keep up the brilliant work! “Jesus came to serve not to be served.”
Senior Committee Members
All roles have now been allocated and the Student Executive Committee for the 2015-16 academic year will be as follows:
President – Charley McInerney
Vice Presidents – Carrie Gandemer & Rebecca Reilly
CLOTS and Charity Officer (Associate Senior Committee Member) – Hannah Roberts
Student Voice Rep (Al, Be, Ca, Cl) – Felise Martin
Student Voice Rep (Fr, Mo, Th, Wa) – Rebecca Miranda
Arts Representative – Harriet St. Ledger
Community and Environment Officer – Amy Gardner
Media and Communications Officer – Ryan Chamberlain
Sports and Activities Officer – Calum Goodchild
CLOTS and Charity Assistants (Associate Committee Members) – Hope Williams & Isabella Fuller
HEADS OF HOUSE
The following students have been duly elected as Heads of House for their respective form groups and will work closely with the two Student Voice Representative Members on the Student Executive Committee:
Alban: Matthew Cranny & Anna Ferrara
Bede: Imogen Moore & Abigail Wildman
Campion: Eleanor Barton & Harry McCarthy
Clare: Elle Brooker & Sean Smith
Frances: Chennel Fernandes-Todd & Olivia Spencer
More: Michael Evans & Niamh McGrath
Theresa: Declan O’Reilly & Nicola Rogers
Ward: Megan Higgins & Molly O’Regan
Form captains for each of the forms in next year’s 7, 8, 9 and 10 will be elected in September.
Congratulations to all elected members and a huge thank you to all that applied to be part of the Committee for the upcoming academic year.
Have a great summer!
“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.
