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ST THOMAS THE APOSTLE NEWS

15 December 2017 Autumn Term, Issue 6

ST THOMAS THE APOSTLE NEWS Autumn Term, Issue 6 15 December 2017

Wishing you a blessed Christmas from Mr Connolly, Mr Cefai, the Governors and

all the staff at St Thomas the Apostle School &

6th Form College.

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ST THOMAS THE APOSTLE NEWS

Letter From the Headteacher

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Between Advent and all of the preparations for Christmas, December becomes one of the busiest months of the year. Some believe that being so busy distracts us from the true meaning of the season and that Christmas has become too commercial, and I do think there is an element of truth in this. But I think that the true meaning of Christmas can be made even more real by the very experiences we sometimes take for granted or that might even seem like distractions. The festivities we look forward to, the food we eat, and the family we see, are experiences that help us fully realise the spiritual celebration that builds with anticipation during Advent and that we celebrate on Christmas day.

It is, of course, important to think of others during this time, and our charity work is more evident than ever, ranging from making hampers for the local community, raising money for worthy causes, providing a Christmas lunch for our Year 7 & 8 grandparents and our elderly neighbours, singing in the local community. The list goes on!

I wish everyone in our STAC community and happy, safe and restful Christmas period– I know everyone deserves the much needed holiday.

I look forward to seeing everyone again in the New Year.

Mr E Connolly

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

19 Dec

End of Term

A Christmas Prayer

Heavenly Father, we celebrate the birth of Your Son, Jesus, remembering the words of the angels on the night of His birth, “Peace on earth to all of good will.” Today, as never before, Almighty God, we pray for Your loving peace. May peace be the guiding force in the hearts of our world leaders. May peace reign in every corner of the globe and in the hearts of every man, woman and child upon this earth. This Christmas and always, may we embrace Your wonderful gifts with courage and conviction. In so doing, we will also be embracing Your greatest gift to us, Your Son, the Prince of Peace!

Amen

Back to School 3 Jan

8-12 Jan

Y9 Ranking Exams

Y10 Ranking Exams 22-26 Jan

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This year our pupils excelled themselves with their sense of charity and giving. Below are a series of snapshots that only go so far to capture the teamwork, commitment, dedication, passion and enthusiasm that both our staff and pupils demonstrated in preparing a staggering 79 hampers!

Everybody in our community was involved; from the catering team who provided the boxes, to the office staff who assisted in wrapping them, to the year 7 and sixth-formers who gave up their time to sort, pack and wrap the hampers. The hampers were then delivered by a team of staff and pupils to people in our local community and surrounding parishes. The Copleston Centre in Peckham was also given some hampers. They do a lot of work with refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom have no recourse to public funds. In addition, over the cold winter, they open their doors to the homeless and provide food and shelter– our pupils’ hampers will clearly go very far this Christmas in bringing love, joy and hope to so many. A special thanks to David Natufi in year 7 who went above and beyond in giving up his time and to Jeffers in year 9. Well done everybody!

Christmas Hampers CHAPLAINCY

CORNER

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On Friday 8 December, Year 9 spent the morning as “Advent people” preparing themselves for the coming of Jesus into their lives at Christmas time. Preparations included developing our understanding of the season of Advent, how we can prepare ourselves spiritually for Christmas and what the true meaning of Christmas is for us as a Christian community. The retreat culminated with an act of worship together as a year group in the Chapel where we prayed and sang our school Christmas carol “What a wonderful day” which reflected our day as a year group nicely!

In addition to the generosity of the school community during our Christmas hamper appeal, students have also been extremely kind in donating in our school giving tree. Several students have grouped together to make the lives of a child who would not otherwise receive a gift this Christmas very happy by buying an additional gift that has been passed on to the families of those who are extremely grateful. STAC students really do know how to show love to others and live out our school ethos and Christian mission; an extremely heat warming effort from all involved.

The Chaplaincy Team

On Wednesday 29 November, Year 9 GCSE Geography students participated in two different physical studies; one at Kew Gardens and one at the Natural History Museum. Students carried out work and answered questions within the Palm House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory. The focus of the study was on plant adaptations, including bamboo trees and cactus. Students then studied tectonic activity at the Natural History Museum and assessed the impacts of different natural disasters around the world. All students completed work to a high standard which will feature within their ranking exams in January.

Miss Malam, Head of Geography

Year 9 Retreat CHAPLAINCY

CORNER

Charities

Geography Trip

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Thank you to our very talented carol singers and musicians who entertained commuters and passers-by on Friday 15 December. A whopping £204.83 was raised for CAFOD.

This afternoon we welcomed a number of our students’ grandparents for some festive fun. Grandparents joined us for a traditional Christmas lunch, and then celebrated further with musical performances from our Junior Band, String Trio and Vocal Soloists. All then had the chance to join us in celebratory song, singing some well-known Christmas carols. Thank you to all grandparents who attended—it was lovely to welcome you to our school.

Carol Singing at Queens Road Peckham Station CHAPLAINCY

CORNER

Christmas Lunch

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The trip to Kings allowed STAC students to attend a talk from King’s College Student ambassadors, who each shared with the students their different university experiences, the courses in which they were studying, University social life, and the King’s College application process.

Students came to learn more about the University, and the courses in which was offered; various different courses, sectioned into 9 academic faculties: Arts/ Humanities Psychology/neuroscience etch Business school Dentist institution Life sciences & medicine Law Natural & mathematical sciences Nursing/midwifery Social sciences

Students also learnt of the University’s impressive employability skills in which King’s ranks 7th in the UK, and links of the university with various London Organisations, which student ambassadors stated were good sources for both work, academic studies and references. Courses in which Students learnt that King’s offered were respected degrees across arts, humanities, business, biomedical sciences, nursing , midwifery, psychology, public policy, medicine, mathematical sciences, + many more. The afternoon saw ambassadors addressing on how to write personal statements, and a criteria, of how to structure a personal statement, especially when speaking on work experiences, was shown: S – situation in which you were in T – Task; what were you doing A – Action, what, why, and how R – Result, what did you achieve?

Coming to the end of the talk, the ambassadors briefly shared their personal views on life outside the university, and how well they fit into their various university societies, and the busy city atmosphere. After, a tour around some parts of the university by the King’s student ambassadors, was given to the students.

Miss Rodin, Deputy Head of Sixth Form

As we approach the Christmas period, it seems like the right time to look back on the progress of the sixth form thus far. At STAC, there is a newly formed student leadership team of the following year 12's: Grace Adetula, Ashe Owo, Jessica Atalor, Ahmad Amin, Kevwe Udu, David Tear-Bussey and Tyrone Koduah. Throughout the term, we have been actively involved in helping the school by assisting various teachers across all departments. We have helped out with the year 8 parent evening and the sixth form open evening. We were also given the opportunity to meet one of the school's governors to discuss the uplifting and heartening history of STAC. We look forward to carrying on our mentoring programme which enables us to assist a group of year 11's as they prepare for their upcoming GCSE's.

Grace Adetula

SIXTH FORM NEWS

Trip to Kings College: 29 November 2017

6th Form Student Leadership Team

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Thank you to all the staff and pupils for their enthusiasm and hard work on the 1st December for our PSHCE day. The day was planned around the importance of all the relationships we have in our lives such as family and our friends. Year 7 & 8 did music and drama workshops on raising awareness of bullying and on why we have different sorts of families. Year 9 looked at their own personal qualities and talents through watching a short film called the “Butterfly Circus”. Year 10 & 11 looked at developing relationships outside of school and did a debate on Christian Ethics. All the external facilitators praised the boys for their exceptional behaviour and were impressed by their thoughtful and creative ideas. Well done boys!

Ms Finley, Head of RE

As a result of the various programs, PSHCE day was a success. During the day, year 12 and year 13 were given the opportunity to learn about how we can effectively work in the modern world by strengthening our CV looking at employability skills and recruitment requirements.

Our visitors, Charlotte and Rebecca who came from TfL, gave us an insight of different pathways we can take to pursue our future career. I strongly believe it benefited both year groups as it provided significant insight into careers and boosting employability. We have been offered some exciting opportunities in the future, which I am very much looking forward to taking part in.

Peace Opara, Year 12

On Friday 1 December (PSHCE Day), a group of year 11 students worked with an external careers advisor. I believe that it really helped us identify our career pathways as we now have a clearer idea of what we want to do in the future. We worked on identifying opportunities that we could access and got a clear overview of what we needed to get to pursue our future careers such as in engineering, aviation and starting up as entrepreneurs. The 3 hour session gave us the time to ask any questions and write our applications for STAC 6th form and apply for apprenticeships. Overall I would rate the experience a 10/10 and would recommend it to any other students as it would give them an insight of what they want to do in the future.

Tom Clyne, Reece Priddie, Year 11

PSHCE - Relationships

PSHCE Day : Year 12 & 13 TfL Employability Lecture & Workshop

PSHCE Day: Year 11 Careers Guidance Workshop

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We have a strong tradition of music during the Christmas period at STAC. In recent weeks, we have all enjoyed singing Christmas carols; and the Gospel Choir have continued to excel in their rehearsals. This culminated in a performance at the Southwark Schools Carol Service on Wednesday evening, alongside fellow students from other local Catholic schools.

We made our annual trip to Queen's Road Peckham to sing carols this morning, bringing some festive joy to our local community on their way to work! We look forward to seeing you on Monday evening for our Carol Service, when we will be treated to a number of musical items from across the school.

Mr Parratt, Head of Expressive Arts

Dear Parents, I am concerned by the number of boys who leave their property quite literally ‘lying around’ both at lunch and after school. Please encourage them to show due care for their property and, where necessary, to please invest in the use of the school lockers.

Mr Smart, Deputy Headteacher

Congratulations to Kobi Holness on being the first person to email the correct an-swer of 24 for last week’s puzzle. Come to the maths hub to collect your prize!

This week’s puzzle

Can you find the unknown value?

A prize for the first student to email the correct answer to E.Willcox1@stac.southwark.sch.uk The winner will be announced in the next edition of the newsletter.

A Musical Christmas at STAC

EXPRESSIVE ARTS UPDATE

Message from the Deputy Headteacher

Maths Corner

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Firstly, we would like to congratulate all the student council representatives that have been elected (over 40 in total). With our new student council team, including 6th formers in place, we have been working very hard over the last few weeks to address students’ concerns and put forward your suggestions for a better school. During our first meeting with Mr Connolly this Academic year, the following issues were addressed.

New School Blazer Mr Connolly explained to the council that as part of a whole school rebranding initiative to modernise the school image, a new logo was adopted and it was also an opportunity to decide whether or not the blazer should also be updated/changed as Mr Connolly was conscious of the price. The School Council looked at the various samples of other blazers and decided to keep the current blazer as the quality was very good and they also liked the colour. It was also felt by some Year 7s that if a new blazer was phased in from

September then it would be very obvious to everyone that they were Year 7s and they didn’t think that would be good. Mr Connolly agreed with their decision and stated that the current blazer, with the new school logo, will be phased in from September 2018. Mentoring It was suggested by the 6th form students that they would like to start a homework club and mentoring area for the lower school after school. This will take place in the Library and students would be able to drop in and seek support from the 6th formers. Mr Connolly agreed to support the scheme which will start after Christmas but was also stressed the importance of the 6th form team not taking on too

much responsibility. Recycling Although having tried previously, there was a general consensus that not enough students were recycling. It was decided that the school purchase a large green recycling bin in the dining hall that could be used for bottles, cans and sandwich packaging (IT’S A START) . It was also agreed that the student council will duty this area in the dining hall. With this in mind we ask all students and staff for their support in improving recycling

throughout the whole school.

The Student Council is present for the benefit of the students, if you have an idea that will improve the school no matter how small it is, tell a member of the council or a teacher who can relay the message to us! Thank you for selecting us to represent you and we hope that you all have an enjoyable and safe Christmas.

Student Council Team

School Council Report

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It has not been that long since our last Newsletter but all Houses have been preparing themselves to get ready for the last competitions of this term as it is already Christmas time ! After the Year 7/11 Christmas Card Competition, the first Sixth Form House Football Competition took place on the Astroturf last Friday and enabled the Heads of Houses to mix their Year 12 and 13 team members with their Year 11 team members. It was a pleasure to see about 35 boys from both year groups turning up to the competition with a lot of enthusiasm, a great willingness to do well and a perfect team spirit. What a great way for our Year 11s to release the pressure from the upcoming mock exams and socialise with the Sixth Formers! The atmosphere was excellent and Cody Drameh, Captain of Rigby, won the Man of the Tournament Award, showing amazing skills on the pitch and delivering a sensational assist to Isaiah. Unfortunately, there is no replay but that was impressive ! Anthony Joshua was pleased with the tournament. During the games, keeper Ivan saved so many shots from the strikers of opposing teams that we would have never made it to the finals. Overall it was an amazing event and we are looking forward to the Basketball tournament on Friday 15 December . It is now time to have a well-deserved Chistmas break but let’s not forget about the House competitions in January. The first one of a long list will be the DOMINO TRANSLATION COMPETITION that will take place during the LANGUAGES WEEK starting on the Monday 8 January 2018.

A BIG THANK YOU GOES TO ALL HOUSE REPS! In fact, this term has been very successful and all of this would have not been possible without the help of all House Reps who did a very good job by promoting the events after school during form time and by getting as many students involved in them and making an accurate list of students to guarantee a good turnout on the day. Mr Tynan and the Heads of Houses wish you a great Christmas with your family and we are all looking forward to seeing you back in the games in January.

See next page for the list of House Events next term.

The House Team

House News

Griffith Gunstone Jones Rigby

1970 1550 1760 2080

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The year 7 boys have had an excellent start to their athletics season. For the last 3 weeks the boys have been travelling down to Sacred Heart Catholic School who have hosted and won the Sports hall competition for the last few years. On week 1 , the scores were pretty close. The top 3 schools were Kingsdale with 77 points, Sacred Heart at 82 and STAC with 96. On week 2 Sacred Heart went out and made some major adjustments, closing the gap between the top 2 schools leaving just 6 points. The final week showed a lot of competitive fight. Sacred Heart achieved 270 points but the STAC boys were able to push each other through to become eventual winers with a massive 290 points. Please congratulate, Ramel Duff, Halim Bakre, Sahaid Mansery, Hazem Bakre (top goal scorer for the schools football team), Adedapo Olugbodi (who broke the year 7 standing long jump record for year 7 boys with 2.6m), Alpha Kamara (who won player of the tournament in a football comp last week), Samuel Asaaju, Tyler Whatle and Mosaray Bangura. Well done to the dedication and athleticism of the team who have now all been selected to compete for Southwark.

Mr T Shodunke, Teacher of PE

Athletics Update

SPORTS

House Events Next Term

Events Dates Location

Translation Dominoes Mon 8 January MFL

Table Tennis Wednesday 17 January Sports Hall

Shrove Tuesday Pancake Competition Tuesday 6 February Food Technology

Spelling Bee Thursday 1 March English

Maths Challenge Thursday 8 March Maths

Rowing Competition Wednesday 14 March Sports Hall

STEM Challenge Monday 26 March Science & Technology

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ROLL OF HONOUR

Hollydale Rd, Nunhead, London, SE15 2EB | www.stac.uk.com | 020 7639 0106

YEAR 7 Hazeem Bakre 7.6 and Ryan Lallaway 7.6 for excellent effort in Science. Hazeem Bakre - excellent effort in lessons. Adeyemi Odunayo - consistently excellent attitude towards Italian HW. He has been going out of his way to complete extra online quizzes. Milo Gray, Temidayo Fagbaye, Alan Addae - consistently excellent attitude in form, helping with duties and overall showing a brilliant work ethic.

YEAR 8 Michael Sotto Fonnegra - achieving extremely high scores on his Italian rank and as a result, moving sets! Kyan Campbell, top of the RM Yr 8 Rank

YEAR 9 Emmanuel Jibona 9.1 for his work ethic and perseverance in his first term of studying economics. Anthony Richardson 9.5 for his hard work and progress in his first term of Business . Jean-Gilles Middah 9.6, Michael Obafemi 9.6 and Teslim Kolapo 9.6 for amazing effort in Science. Habib Ogunbanwo - working really hard in English Jhesy Cueva – excellent WW2 assessment score Fahad Omari 9.3 and Teslim Kolapo 9.6, for excellent engagement in Geography. Gabriel Mendizabel Villarroel: Consistently excellent attitude in Italian all term, resulting in some fantastic extended written pieces. Frankie Coe - doing extra revision to prepare for ranking exam Emmanuel Faminu and Omarah Doumbia for their excellent classwork and quality of homework in French.

YEAR 10 Samuel Abegunde 10.3 for making a fantastic start to science lessons. Kieran Hibbert 10.1, for his attitude to learning and enthusiasm in Business Studies. Isaiah Adio-Weathers and O'Shaen Millington for their massive improvement in 10.2 Science. Fernando Reyes-Ramirez 10.2 and Tyrone Smith-Olaniyan 10.2 for excellent work in Science. Joshua Osei Serebour – fantastic effort and high quality of work in History lessons Oluwaseun Bakare: very good attitude in Italian lesson, resulting in some fantastic extended written pieces. Adedolapo Adeyemo – doing extra revision to prepare for maths exam Emmanuel Adejare 10.2 - leadership and immaculate conduct on the football pitch David Onigbanjo, Gabriel Falade, Richard Akindele for progress and character development in Drama Fernando Reyes Ramirez and Pradushan Packiyanathan for their excellent grades in their writing tests done in Italian class

YEAR 11 Corrie Myrie Johnson – hard working throughout the revision period before his mock exams. Theo Edema and Noah Mbolokele-Maya—showing a conscientious attitude to Italian revision, in anticipation for the Mocks. Jamie Spillane—excellent performance skills Tristan Fellbaum and Dillon Oppon Ferguson for their hard work this term and excellent preparation to their French ranking exams

YEAR 13 Ken Isah - for his continued hard work and outstanding progress in Economics this term. Samson Soladoye - for his maturity and tenacity in approaching challenging tasks in Business. Joao Guidolin and Kennedy Aghara for the quality of their essays in Italian