A Friday Night Round Up and a Special Video!

What a week! Filled with Easter eggs, trips, goodbyes, church services and so much more!

This morning we had a truly memorable whole school Easter service with the orchestra, choir and a cast of thousands! I Give Thanks raised the roof and the children’s joy was infectious.

Thank you to all those parents/ carers who attended Parent’s Evening and our open mornings – as always it is so important that our school community works together for our amazing children.

The Car Boot Sale was a resounding success and will now take its place in the St Stephen’s Events Calendar. Thank you to all those parents and staff who worked together to make it such a super community event. Watch out for a summer Saturday Car Boot soon!

The House Captain’s Raffle raised over£1300 for their chosen charities and their class trip to Spain! Fantastic and to all the lucky winners, enjoy those eggs!

Easter Bonnet Parade Extravaganza!

The Uxbridge Road was ablaze with the most spectacular hats on Tuesday – see, it was worth it! I know, I know it was a lot of sticking, working together and being creative but the children absolutely love it. Thank you for all your hard work and creativity parents and children – now take a year off!

Goodbye Miss Bell

On Tuesday we said a fond farewell to Miss Bell who has been part of the St Stephen’s family for 14 years. Her support and dedication to our school has been amazing! We had a wonderful assembly on Tuesday afternoon where we shared our memories of Miss Bell and thanked her for her time at St Stephen’s. We wish her the best of luck as she spends some quality time with her beloved boys. Here we have a final word from Miss Bell

I just want to say an enormous thank you and share how incredibly touched I was, both by the beautiful flowers and kind gifts that I received from the parents and carers on Tuesday and also for the many kind words of goodbye on the gate and around school this week. I was very moved. St Stephen’s, as I’m sure you all know, is the best school in the World. I have had 14 incredibly happy years here and have been blessed to be able to work with such a fantastic team of dedicated and creative teachers and staff, not to forget Mr Outstanding himself, Mr Schumm. I will miss the school and the people so much and, above all, I will miss the children, who have been such a wonder and delight to teach and to know these many years. I hope to see you all soon – I am sure I won’t be able to stay away long!

Thank you again,

Chloe Bell x

Neurodiversity Weeks and Odd Socks Day

Last week, we celebrated, discussed and read books about Neurodiversity. The children learnt that Neurodiversity is based on the idea that everyone has a differently-wired brain and their own unique way of thinking and experiencing the world. We discussed that some of the different ways of thinking, learning, interacting and perceiving the world have been given labels, such as: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia and Tourette’s Syndrome. We discussed how Neurodiversity Celebration Week is about celebrating the strengths and talents of people with learning differences.

We celebrated World Down Syndrome Day where we joined many schools and communities around the world by wearing our funkiest, odd socks. We have three amazing young people at St Stephen’s with Down Syndrome, who are very much a part of our school community, and we were thrilled to once again celebrate this special day with them.

Year 6 at the Cottage

Last week, Y6 took a trip to Fulham FC where this year’s Junior Citizens programme was held. Run by TfL, the Police, London Fire Brigade, Fulham FC Foundation as well as other organisations and charities, each delivered highly relevant sessions aimed at Y6 pupils transitioning to high school. The instructors were friendly yet firm and hit the right level to ensure the children were fully engaged, fully informed and learning essential citizenship skills.

Debating

This week was full of St Stephen’s children debating and triumphing!

On Wednesday, a group of 18 Year 5s travelled to South Hampstead High School where their students and teachers hosted a whole day of debating. Altogether we had six teams of three children each, out of 57 teams competing from 14 schools.

Each St Stephen’s team did spectacularly well. 3 of our 6 teams were overall winners, winning all three of their debates and the other three won two debates each. St Stephen’s teams were all either winners or finalists!

The debates ranged from ‘This house believes single sex schools should be banned’ to ‘It is sometimes acceptable to lie to a friend’. Overall, it was a day of great success with groups of Year 5s navigating their way around a large school to prepare and perform in front of judges!

Thank you to parent volunteer Emma Kruger and Miss Bill for all their hard work training the children. They plus Mrs Ashcroft, eight Year 6s and the alumni Malachi and Scarlett Kruger escorted the children to Hampstead and helped with the judging.

St Stephens’s pupils have had two terms of weekly debating sessions at Latymer Upper facilitated by the sixth formers. On Tuesday the course culminated in a competition where our Year 6’s were put into mixed school teams with children from other primary schools. A team with a St Stephen’s member got to the finals and came 2nd out of 16 teams overall, receiving a silver medal!

One of our school debating teams is in the finals of the Cicero Cup National Junior School annual debating competition – this takes place in the House of Commons on 21st June, thanks to some string pulling by a St Stephens parent MP.

Year 4 travel to Fulham Palace

On Tuesday, Year 4 had a lovely trip to Fulham Palace. They were able to tour the main house / grounds and participate in an excellent history workshop related to a previous history unit of work on Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Scots. They also got to tuck into their delicious packed lunches within the grounds of Fulham Palace and Bishops Park!

Year 2 at Gunnersbury Park

Year 2 embarked on a thrilling school trip to Gunnersbury Park Museum, where they delved into an immersive Florence Nightingale workshop. Role-playing and dressing up added excitement as they learned about Florence’s historic contributions followed by some excellent play time in Gunnersbury Park. A perfect blend of education and fun.

A Word from the Library!

An exciting update from the Library…… The Usborne Reading Challenge has been a great success. So many children participated raising £1000 for new library books. Usborne have honoured their commitment offering another £600. Furthermore, the Daunt book sale raised £300 of store credit and Winkworth estate agents have donated £700 for the World Book Day drawings donated by your children. That is a grand total of £2600 towards new books for our much cherished school library. This is a huge effort on behalf of our school community and a step closer on our journey to encourage all of the children at St Stephens to read for pleasure.

Have the most wonderful Easter break and we will see you all soon for a spot of Matilda and so many more events!

If the Easter break seems to stretch out before you, here is a reminder of what is so special about our school – https://youtu.be/JnYixekkcQo

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram – lots of great posts @Ststephensw12

Mr Schumm