1 Newsletter No. 3 – December 2017 Dear Parents/Carers It has been another successful, productive term in the life of the school with much to celebrate and strong pupil progress evident. I am pleased to inform you that Rother District Council approved planning permission for a four court sports hall on the field last week. LCVAP funding, supported by 10% funding from the Governors’ Fund, will now allow us to build the sports hall with a hopeful completion date of October 2018. This is fantastic news for the college and, in particular, for the PE department who will be able to extend their curriculum diet and ensure that physical activities are available to the pupils, whatever the weather! I look forward to sharing further news with you as the project gets underway. We began the term celebrating the talents of the pupils in music and dance when they performed at the annual Proms event. Over one hundred pupils were involved in a thoroughly polished performance of ‘Supermarket Flowers’ and ‘Needed Time/I wish I knew how it feels to be free’. The standard achieved by all involved can only be described as exceptional. Days later, the choir were again in demand at our Annual Certificate and Prize Evening held at the De La Warr Pavilion. They performed a short concert to our guests and leavers ending the evening with John Rutter’s ‘May the Lord bless you and Keep You’ as a final farewell and thank you to our leavers. We were delighted to welcome Father Aaron Spinelli, a former pupil, as guest speaker. Celebrating our leavers achievements (83% 5 or more 4-9 grades and 53% 5 or more 5-9 grades) and the successes of one hundred current pupils as well as the speeches delivered by the Head Boy and Head Girl, was an extremely proud moment. As always, each term offers a variety of activities to pupils to extend their talents with a number of trips (Barcelona, CAT Camp, Christmas markets in Aachen, university trips, Neasden Hindu temple, Greenwich and stargazing at Herstmonceux) running alongside a range of enrichment activities including sport, dance, drama, art, creative writing, music, maths masterclasses and booster classes and competitions in cyber security, poetry, art and sport. Please encourage your son/daughter to get involved in at least one extra-curricular activity if they are not already doing so. Fundraising continues to be a vital element of school life and this term has been no exception with monies/gifts donated to The British Legion Poppy Appeal, Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, Love in a Box, MacMillan Cancer Care, Bexhill Foodbank, Guide Dogs for the Blind and Chestnut Tree House Hospice. Our final fundraising event of this term involves pupils contributing £1 and a donation to our annual Surviving Christmas Appeal. As the term draws to a close, we say farewell to a long-serving member of staff who is moving into special education. Mr Beaumont has taught at the school for 13 years beginning his career here; he will be greatly missed. He is an outstanding teacher of maths who has always been calm and kind in his approach. Hundreds of pupils have benefited from his knowledge and talents, turning into strong mathematicians, and it was Mr Beaumont who achieved Maths Hub status for the school. As well as thanking him for his loyal service, I would like to wish him good luck in his new role. We also have one of our Vice Principals, Ms Horton, moving onto a new Vice Principal role having supported the leadership of the school for eighteen months. We wish her well and thank her for her many contributions to school life. Finally, can I thank Miss Kargbo-Reffell for all her help in the music department this term. She starts a new job in Brighton in January and will be replaced by Ms Mason, Subject Leader for Music and Performing Arts. The annual ski trip heads off today and we wish all the pupils involved a fantastic experience. It would be lovely to see you at our Advent Service on Tuesday at 7.00pm. The theme this year is ‘Do you have room for Christ this Christmas?’ The PTFA raffle will be drawn at the end of the service before refreshments are served. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your support this term and wish you and your family a really happy Christmas. Term three begins on the revised date of Thursday, 4th January to allow for an Inset Day for staff to occur. I look forward to the pupils’ return refreshed, smart and ready for the opportunities and challenges of term three. A very happy Christmas and sincere good wishes for a healthy, happy 2018. Yours sincerely 2 Message from the Chair of Governors As I get older time seems to pass ever quicker. It seems no time at all since last Christmas and we are now well into Advent. I am looking forward to attending the Advent service at the college, always a very special event helping us to reflect on the Christmas message. It also seems no time since the start of the academic year, although I am sure the staff and possibly the pupils would beg to differ. At the start of the year you were asked to contribute to the Governors’ Fund and you might wonder what happens to the money collected. The Governors' Fund is used to finance the 10% contribution required by the Department for Education or Local Authority for building projects and for other items of expenditure, approved by the Governing Body, for the benefit of St Richard's Catholic College, Bexhill. It is audited annually by the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton's Financial Secretary under the direction of the Diocesan Trustees. It is also independently scrutinised annually. The college is part of the registered charity number 252878. The coming year will see the development of a new sports hall on the school field and the Governors’ Fund will contribute 10% of the capital building cost. Please consider supporting this fund if you have not already done so. I would like to wish all staff, pupils and their families a joyful and peaceful Christmas and a very happy (and hardworking) New Year. God bless Alison Horan, Chair of Governors YEAR SEVEN NEWS Merry Christmas to all families from the Year Seven Team. This term, as you will have seen from reading your child’s report and attending the parent consultation evening, has been an extremely successful and busy one. I am delighted with the hard work and caring nature of the year group who are certainly making an impact on school life. I know many of the Year Sevens are regulars at extra-curricular clubs and I shall be compiling a new Year Seven club list for Term 3; which will be shared on www.showmyhomework.com at the start of January. I am sure you have all been delighted with your notifications of achievement points via our new system – School Gateway. Currently, we are running a dual system of using credits and/or achievement points. Both systems show how well your child is doing and as a year group (pupils, tutors and subject teachers) we have been discussing which model best works for us all. If you have any questions/ comments about either, please do not hesitate to contact me. Attendance in Year Seven is very good but can still be improved. One way to support your child is to ensure they wear a coat to school each day. I have been quite shocked with the number of children travelling to school without a coat this term. At college no Year Seven will be able to go on the playground at break or lunch without one to help prevent ‘coughs and sneezes’. The issue with coats brings me onto a growing problem of lost property. I hope you all saw my picture on www.showmyhomework.com of a typical day of PE kits left on playgrounds or corridors. Sadly, only one of the twelve bags was labelled which makes it so much harder to reunite belongings with its owner. This week I have taken a picture of the many coats left in lost property. Again, very few are named and this is a typical day’s haul of coats left around the school and placed in lost property. On a much more positive note Year Seven have shown why I consider them to be the best year group in the college. This year, we are supporting two charities as a year group. The first is Guide Dogs for the Blind and the second is Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice. We have a visit from the Guide Dog Association planned for Term 3. The pupils will meet a puppy being trained and get to ask many questions to its trainer. More about this in the next newsletter. On Monday and Thursday, pupils completed a sponsored Reindeer Run chasing Father Christmas around the cross 3 country course. Our plan is to raise over £1000 for the Chestnut Tree House Hospice and I thank you for your generous donations. As you can see from the photo it was a great deal of fun! Well done to Keira Fitzgerald for raising over £180 and Erin Todd for raising over £115. Year Seven have also had the privilege of listening to the Gideon International Society speak to them in assembly and each received their own Gideon Bible. I am sure they came home and spoke to you about this.