A Friday Night Round Up from Mr Schumm
Good afternoon,
It’s rather a lengthy newsletter this week so choose your beverage wisely and put your feet up!
Auction Night
A huge thank you to everyone involved in auction night, especially Linda as chief organiser, who did such an impressive job. Thank you if you donated a lot, bid on a lot, swept the hall, served a drink or just had a marvellous time. It was an excellent evening, highlighting once again what a superb community we have.
Fossils Return!
Talking of community, last Thursday we welcomed back the Fossils (parents whose children have left the school) for a rather excitable drinks party. The atrium was packed with so many familiar faces and the evening was spent catching up with everyone and hearing all about what their wonderful children were up to now. One of the ideas for the summer term is to organise an alumni event which will see our current Year 6 reunited with their reading buddies (the class of 2019) who read with them as Reception children. The plan is to organise an evening get together for the current Y6 children and their buddies, who are now young adults, and of course the parents. This is a great opportunity for Year 6 to hear all about their buddies (positive) experiences at secondary schools and their plans for the future! More information to follow.
Parents Evenings
Thank you to all those parents who joined us for book looks and Parent’s Evenings this week. We really value the parent/carer and teacher partnership as we know it makes for the best possible outcomes for the children’s educational journey.
Neurodiversity Week
This week we discussed and celebrated differences in our classroom, with opportunities to talk through these ideas in our year groups, in collective worship and in library sessions. We ended the week proudly wearing Odd Socks (a regular feature of World Down Syndrome Day). This is a day that we particularly enjoy at St Stephen’s with our two children with Down Syndrome in mind especially.
Gymnastics competition
Well done to all the gymnasts who took part in a borough gymnastic competition at our school this morning. They all did brilliantly and we have an array of certificates to celebrate.
Debating – a word from Emma
Two teams of St Stephen’s debaters participated in ‘The Queens Gate junior school debating tournament 2025’ in South Kensington from 4-7pm this Wednesday. 14 teams of 3, from primaries and prep schools, spent 3 hours passionately debating 3 rounds of 3 motions:
‘This house believes exams are the best way to assess students’ followed by ‘This house believes superheros are the best type of world leaders’ and finally ‘This house believes should help people in need no matter the cost’.
The teams had one prepared debate and they were given 15 minutes to prepare before each of the two unseen ones. Judges were in each room with detailed marking schemes (an alumni St Stephen’s debater helped with some judging – not for our teams!)
St Stephen’s No.2 team triumphed and won the whole tournament, scoring the highest overall marks. Phenomenal work St Stephen’s! Thank you Emma – you are amazing!
Year 2 at Gunnersbury Park
Year 2 had a wonderful adventure to Gunnersbury Park, where they had an opportunity to take part in a Florence Nightingale workshop. This engaging experience perfectly complemented the National Curriculum, providing a hands-on exploration of Florence Nightingale’s life and remarkable contributions. The children enthusiastically participated in activities, including role-playing hospital scenes from the Crimean War. Not only did the workshop deepen their understanding of historical events, but it also fostered empathy and teamwork skills. Children were inspired by Florence Nightingale’s legacy and eager to bring their newfound knowledge into their classroom discussions. The day also included some fun time spent exploring Gunnersbury Park and the playground before the workshop!
Some of the pupils shared their thoughts:
“I never knew helping people could be so interesting!”
“I liked learning about the old hospitals and how they cared for the soldiers.”
“Florence Nightingale was really brave! Maybe I’ll be a nurse one day.”
More Soup?
For DT Day this half term Year 6 made a nutritious minestrone soup for Streetlytes who run the soup kitchen at the church. They had a great time making the soup and were proud to be helping their local community.
Netball Team
A HUGE well done to our netball teams from year 5&6 who took part in a local schools netball tournament at St Paul’s in Brook Green. Our year 6 team were magnificent throughout winning all their games and finishing 1st overall. A special mention to Vivian who was awarded ‘Player of the Tournament’! Great job Team.
Build a Bridge
Year 6 had a fantastic day at Bute House where they worked with the team working on Hammersmith Bridge, Conway, to build a bridge they could walk over and they built smaller bridges with K’Nex and tested the strength of them.
Arts Day
The Arts Day theme this year was: Let’s Draw London.
We had a visiting artist, Claire Rossiter, who kicked the day off with a really interesting assembly about being an illustrator. Claire stayed for the whole day and managed to work with lots of different classes on their projects. She taught a range of different ways to make marks with a pencil and had an exciting task for each group.
As well as looking at Clair’s work, the children looked at work from Phil Dean and Stephen Wiltshire, known for their detailed drawings of London.
The children then spent the day making London themed artwork in their class. There was a huge variety of projects with children making all sorts of things and trying out different techniques. The very youngest children made London buses with ink and crayons and our oldest children made some spectacularly detailed London buildings. If you come along to Arts Cafe on Friday 28th you might even spot a few escaped dinosaurs from the Natural History museum!
The Year 4 Great Exhibition
Last week, Year 4 Bloom took part in the Great Exhibition Programme 2025. The Programme’s Big Ideas facilitator and two researchers/inventors from Imperial College London led the workshop here at St Stephen’s. The children had a fantastic time coming up with their own inventions which they then made out of recycled materials. Once the children had finished, they created an advert for their invention. The adverts were filmed and will be on display at The Great Exhibition Road Festival in South Kensington from the 7th -9th June.
Science Week – a word from Mrs Wordsworth
It’s Science Week at St Stephens from 24th-28th March. This year, our focus is Sustainability to tie in with the Great British School Clean campaign and our new school Climate Action Plan.
https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/get-involved/support-our-campaigns/great-big-school-clean
Each year group has chosen a different focus for the week to tie in with our overall theme including plastic pollution and water scarcity.
H & F Council have kindly lent us litter picks to help us keep the school and local area clean and log how much rubbish we collect during the week.
Sustainable speakers will be popping into classrooms including some of our amazing parents. We also have sessions from Common Seas, the Plastic Clever Schools initiative, eco active and an old friend – Linda (previously our Scientist-in-Residence and now Engagement Officer at Imperial College).
The library reading focus for Science Week will tie in with our theme with lots of green reading materials. Our School Councillors are monitoring food wastage and water usage throughout the week. We will also going meat-free all week at lunchtimes and switching off both the heating and photocopiers to save energy and resources.
Homework this weekend ties in with this theme with children logging water usage at home – Miss Bill has sent an email on this activity.
And if that wasn’t enough it’s also Earth Hour this Saturday evening at 8.30pm (although surely children will be in bed by then!). Join in by switching off non-essential lights and dedicating 60 minutes to Give an hour for Earth.
St Stephen’s Got Talent – the children get in on the act!
Following hot on the heels of St Stephen’s Got Talent our House Captains are planning their very own St Stephen’s Got Talent for children.
We will be holding auditions for acts on 24th April. We are looking for magicians, singers, dance acts, musicians, comedians etc.
- children can only be in one act,
- the acts can be made up of children from different years
- the children will need their own music/ costumes
- only open to children who attend St Stephen’s
From the auditions Miss Whiting, Mrs Allen and myself will select 10/12 acts to go through to the final on Thursday, 8th May.
Dates for the Diary
24th March – Science Week
27th March FOSS Uniform Sale – after school
28th March – Mums and Chums Breakfast – 8am in the school hall
28th March – Arts Café – in the main hall from 3am
1st April – The Easter Bonnet Parade 9am in the school hall
3rd April – Special Eid Lunch
4th April – Whole School Easter Service in church at 9am
Have a lovely weekend – are you still reading?
Mr Schumm
