St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

Dear Parents and Carers,

Easter is a time of renewal. We need to accept ourselves as it

is a fact that we cannot love our neighbours if we do not love

ourselves. Jesus’ death on the cross shows us his command-

ment to love each other as he sacrificed his life to save us

from sin and death. Therefore we must have love for the per-

son God has created within us before we can love the people

around us. The greater love we have for ourselves, the great-

er the love we express to others.

Most of us have a constant struggle with a sense of inferiority. We tend to play a

painful comparison game with others. True appreciation of our personal unique-

ness has God say to us -‘you are unique, the one and only you. From all eternity

and into all eternity there will only be one you. I have loved you with an eternal

love’. Jesus died for each of us-not when we were good but in sin. This Easter,

we pray to enjoy God’s love for us and those we love.

Our newsletter this month shows the signs of God’s love through our young peo-

ple and Staff who have raised money for the homeless, for Lenten almsgiving,

for Romanian orphanages; for the business and careers events; for one of our

staff being awarded as Teaching Assistant of the Year; for the way in which our

French trip staff cared for the children in France during a recent snowstorm, etc.

We have a new Pope, Francis I, who succeeds Pope Benedict XVI. May we pray

for them in their new ministries. Have a happy and holy Easter.

Brendan J. Wall

Headteacher

_________________________________________________________

Sr. Kathleen Dalton - R.I.P.

We sadly announce the death of Sister Kathleen who died

suddenly in December 2012. We are indebted to her for

her many years of service to the parish of St Francis’, both

as a valued teacher of our young children at St Francis’ Pri-

mary School, and then as our Parish Sister with special re-

sponsibility for the care of the sick and housebound. Please

remember Sister Kathleen in your prayers.

Canon John

Sister Kathleen’s Memorial Mass will be at 7.30pm on Wednesday, 10th

April, followed by a drink afterwards to catch up with friends and exchange

photos and past memories.

_________________________________________________________

The Art Department is encouraging all students and parents to enter the Photography competition cur-

rently advertised on the Art Frog page.

St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

CAMINUL FELIX

The school has received a letter of

thanks from the Renewal Christian Cen-

tre for its gift of £103 following a recent

fundraising event. The donation will be

passed to the Caminul Felix Mission who

support Romanian orphanages and the

children and young people who reside

there.

________________________________

CAREERS

In the half-term I had the pleasure of

attending a “Careers Adviser Day” at

Hadlow College – don’t worry, I didn’t

crash the tractor! Having not been

there before, it was a fantastic oppor-

tunity to see the campus and facilities

first-hand, as well as enjoying some

hands-on experience!

I’ll admit that my archery skills are not

all that . . . . . the college has intro-

duced a number of Sports and Outdoor-

related courses with further building ex-

pansion to the campus taking place in

the near future. The College has newly

sectioned football pitches and course

content which includes canoeing, climb-

ing and many other activities, providing

an attractive post-16 option for those

who don’t see themselves sitting in an

office behind a computer.

Being a land-based college, students

can access a wide range of courses,

from agriculture, fisheries, farming and

floristry, as well as different varieties of

animal management, including equine

studies. The campus is huge, with on-

site housing and green fields and hills in

all directions.

A course information evening is being

held at the Hadlow Campus (there are 3

in total) on 17th April at 5:30pm. Addi-

tional open days and family event days

are also scheduled, so check out the

website for more information.

Year 8 Business Day

The Year 8 “Risk It Day/Make it Your

Business” was a fantastic day which tru-

ly showed the potential of many of our

students. A big thank you to the staff,

EBP (the event organisers) and espe-

cially to all the Year 8s who made the

day enjoyable for everyone. Congratula-

tions to the team, “Space Monkeys”,

whose backpack idea won the competi-

tion!

Easter (Job) Hunt

With many Year 11s having already

turned 16 (sorry to those who have to

wait until August!), some students may

be hoping to earn some extra cash in

their pockets by introducing themselves

to the world of work. With a whole 18

days off this Easter (for students at

least) it offers a great opportunity to

prepare and hand out CVs. There are

some fantastic resources on the AEN

page through Centre Zone as part of the

‘Preparation for Working Life’ course to

help you with what you should and

shouldn’t put on your CV (e.g.

“socialising” is far better than “going out

with mates”!”).

Mr T May, Careers Coordinator

________________________________

COMMONWEALTH DAY

On Monday 11th March, Mrs Grove ac-

companied Nicole Conde, Karabo

Khatwane, Elliot Hill and Jonathan

Hart to Westminster Abbey for the

Commonwealth Day Observance when

54 representatives from the Common-

wealth States took part in an hour long

service in the presence of His Royal

Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.

Despite the bitterly cold day, everyone

enjoyed the colourful celebration of

dance, music by The Noisettes and Bev-

erley Knight and an inspirational speech

by Sir Richard Branson, among others.

Mrs B Grove

________________________________

CONGRATULATIONS TO ….

…. Daniel McGuire, Year 12, who has

won an award from the Cinnamon Trust

and was presented with this at the re-

cent Crufts Show - a real honour.

St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

________________________________

CREATING XBOX GAMES IN ICT!

During the Kodu Gaming Lab enrich-

ment club, students had the chance to

create games for the Xbox and PC. Kodu

is an application which Microsoft have

created to allow anyone to try computer

programming. With computer science

becoming more high profile than ever,

this is a great way for students to ex-

plore the world of computer program-

ming and to experiment with basic cod-

ing functions. Students had great fun

building their own racing and flying

games, whilst developing their design

skills using an Xbox controller or key-

board and mouse. After building the

games, students tested them out on

their peers which lead to some interest-

ing challenges!

During the summer term we are aiming

to create a game to enter the Kodu

Challenge, which is a worldwide compe-

tition with a top prize of $3000! Look

out for the enrichment signup in the

summer when we are going to start to

put our challenge together!

Mr Edwards, ICT Teacher

________________________________

E-SAFETY DAY

On Monday 18th March, Year 8 students

had an e-Safety Awareness day.

Throughout the day, students received a

presentation by a speaker from ‘Prison

Me No Way’, which is a charity set up to

raise awareness amongst young people

about the impact of crime.

The presentation explained to students

what dangers exist online, suggestions

on how to stay safe and how to report

problems. The main theme of the

presentation was to encourage students

to consider how they act online and the

information they display. Top tips from

the day are:

- Go through and change the factory

security settings on each device you

own to suit you. You should do this for

GPS, Bluetooth and Facebook.

- Do not send or display personal infor-

mation on social networking sites, blogs

or e-mails. This includes your full name,

age, school or where you can be found

at certain times in the day. - Do not put compromising photos of

yourself or photos of yourself in school

uniform online. Once they are online

they are public and permanent and can

be used or manipulated by anyone with-

out you knowing. Sites like Facebook

own any photos you upload. If you

wouldn’t show it your grandparents

don’t put it online. - Only add people you know and trust.

So called friends may use social net-

working sites to access information

about you and then use it against you

or pass it on. There is no lie detector

online; you never know what they are!

Those who have several friends should

consider how they would feel if they

were to meet all these people in real life

– just because it’s online doesn’t make

it any different. - For more information visit

www.thinkuknow.co.uk.

The day was a big success and we have

had a very positive response from stu-

dents. A big thank you to the speaker

for his time and to the students for their

excellent conduct – it was a very in-

formative day.

Miss G Harvey, Digital Literacy and

e-Safety Coordinator

________________________________

HOT OFF THE PRESS . . . . . .

Collette Gray is going to be awarded

Teaching Assistant of the Year in the

Kent Teacher Awards 2013. She and her

family are invited to this prestigious

event in May at a hotel in Sittingbourne.

The Science department nominated her

and lots of students put forward their

own testimonials about their favourite

Teaching Assistant and how she had

helped them so much with their learning

in Science. As a school, we are delight-

ed for her. Collette has worked at St

Simon Stock for 11 years and is a de-

serving winner of this accolade.

Mrs R Simpson, Deputy Headteacher

St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

________________________________

HOUSE NEWS

Cardinal Hume House

Congratulations to all Cardinal Hume

students who continue to work hard. I

would like to encourage all students to

continue collecting merits; prizes will be

awarded to students who have collected

over 100 merits this term: Ieesha Bar-

nett, Angela Barrion, Rebecca Farry,

Sophia Pratt, Olivia Baxter, Ellie

Murphy, Sergio Niblett-Morales and

Sinead Cullen.

Congratulations to the following stu-

dents who have not been absent for a

day this academic year: Ieesha Bar-

nett, James Thomason, Ben Maci,

John Sparks, Harvey Keating, Ellen

Petrie, Rudo Chakonda, Carla Farry,

Martyna Mackowiak, Patrick Mason,

Oskar Maslanka, Luana Baptista, To-

by Malins, Michael Oliver, Wesley

Jones, Robert Thomason , Mazvita

Musendo, Adam Dring and Jared

Godden.

Congratulations to all students who

have been working hard to raise Lenten

Alms to donate to the Cardinal Hume

Centre, in London, within their Tutor

Groups.

All of the House Team would like to wish

all students taking public examinations

over the coming months all the best.

Miss S M Worron, House Leader

Archbishop Romero House

Romero ‘Wear it Red’ day is on Friday

26th April – we are raising money for the

‘Kent Air Ambulance’ and the students

will receive an informative talk by one of

the representatives from the charity on

this day. Each student is asked to raise

some money and come in to school with

an item of clothing that is red in colour.

Mrs H Horgan, House Leader

St Thérèse of Lisieux House

This Easter term ends on yet more suc-

cess for St Thérèse House, with us be-

ing in top position for merits; even

when behaviour points are deducted! A

big well done to everyone who contrib-

utes with their good work and efforts in

the school; particularly to the St Thé-

rèse student who has the highest num-

ber of merits in the whole school!

I have also been very impressed with

the efforts that our House have been

doing, in order to raise money for Len-

ten Alms and their chosen charities; the

House ethos of 'Caring, Compassion and

Community' has certainly been at work.

The ethos of the House is also continu-

ing as I welcome Ellen Tinsley and

Phoddy Papa-Adams to the roles of

Head Girl and Boy of St Thérèse House;

I'm sure they will do us proud. I'd also

like to announce the appointment of Joe

Black to the new role of Head Well-

Being Officer; I know that Joe's excel-

lent skills in this role will be fantastic.

Sadly, this term has also brought the

news that our adopted tiger, Meow,

whom we have sponsored since the

start of St Thérèse House, had to be put

to sleep due to illness. I am pleased to

say, however, that our support of the

great work of 'Care for the Wild' will

continue in our sponsorship of a beauti-

ful tiger called Jasper.

I wish everyone in St Thérèse House a

very happy and restful Easter.

Miss C Lockett, House Leader

________________________________

MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Year 10 French Trip - Eurodisney

On Sunday 10th March 2013, 59 stu-

dents and 6 staff went to France. Every-

one arrived on time wearing their hood-

ies. Despite the cold weather, students

enjoyed both days in the parks and had

an enjoyable evening watching the Buf-

falo Bill Show where one of their friends,

Jared Hood, was chosen to go on the

stage for a special challenge. Well done

to him!

St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

On Tuesday, after a long day on the

coach, we ended up stranded on the

motorway at a service station. Luckily

we had access to food, drinks and toi-

lets but we had to spend the night on

the coach where we celebrated Laura

Bowles’ birthday and played games.

Thanks to the French police and army,

we managed to get back to England the

following day, 35 hours after leaving our

hotel!

Mr Colmant would like to thank every

student for their patience and excellent

behaviour and Miss Begum, Miss Coin-

aud, Mrs Gray, Mr May and Mr Montero

for being so helpful during this

‘extended’ trip.

“It was a fab trip, it was great to prac-

tise our French. Although we did get

stuck in a coach for 35 hours, everyone

stayed positive and had a great time.

The teachers were great and we man-

aged to get to know everyone that we

did not know before”.

Hannah Keep, Rachel Pearson and

Roisin Randall, Year 10

Mr L Colmant, Trip Leader,

Co-ordinator of Key Stage 3 MFL

________________________________

OAKWOOD CAMPUS PARKING

Parents are politely reminded only to

park in the designated parking bays and

not on the double yellow lines immedi-

ately to the front of the school. Failure

to adhere to this causes unnecessary

congestion to other site users which has

led to the school receiving complaints.

Two people almost had road accidents

due to driver negligence on the site.

Thank you.

________________________________

ONLINE PAYMENTS SYSTEM

Please remember that you can use our

online facility to make payments for the

following online:

-School Trips and Events

-School Fund Donations -Restaurant card top up

You can access our online payments fa-

cility via the school website and by

clicking on the Online Payments and

School fund Donations button or by typ-

ing http://www.ssscs.co.uk/

index.phtml?d=1205502 in to the ad-

dress bar. After this make your selection

for whether you would like to pay for a

trip/top up a restaurant card or make a

donation to the school. Then follow the

on screen instructions.

If you have any trouble accessing, need

your log on details or have any issues

using this facility please email the fi-

nance office: longk@ssscs.co.uk or call

01622 689425.

Miss K Long, Finance Manager

________________________________

PTA

The PTA would like to thank everyone

who supported the Tribute Night. This

was an excellent evening with first class

entertainment

Quality Second hand Uniform

We urgently need donations of second

hand uniform which can be left at the

school reception. Anyone wishing to

purchase items of uniform can do so by

contacting Mrs Lavender on 01622

844340 or alternatively at Parents’ Eve-

nings when second hand uniform is al-

ways on sale. Thank you to everyone

who has supported us in the past.

PTA Meetings for the next year. All Par-

ents/Carers are invited to these meet-

ings which take place at the school on a

Monday starting at 6.30pm:

29th April 2013

24th June 2013

9th September 2013

7th October 2013 – AGM

Please come and join us. We are plan-

ning several events during the remain-

der of the school year.

Miss S M Worron, PTA Secretary

________________________________

SAINSBURY’S ACTIVE KIDS 2013

VOUCHERS

Please can I urge all parents, students

and friends of the school to remember

to collect Sainsbury’s Active Kids vouch-

ers when making purchases at any of

St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

their stores – particularly over the East-

er break. Remember . . . . . . every

voucher counts! Thank you for your

support.

Mrs M Tilby

________________________________

SCHOOL UNIFORM

Please can I remind all parents that

school shoes must be shoes not boots

(boots being any footwear that reaches

the ankle bone) and made of leather or

similar material. Canvas shoes in any

form are not allowed. There has been an

increase of clumpy shoes being worn by

girls, by and large these conform with

the uniform rules but please be aware

that any that are “studded” in any way

are not appropriate because they are

not “plain” as stated in our rules.

We have equally seen a rise in the num-

ber of students having to be told to roll

their skirts down. Skirts must be longer

than the blazer by at least 25 cm.

Boys have still been the greatest cul-

prits during the cold weather for at-

tempting to wear “hoodies” under their

blazers rather than a formal warm coat.

Please ensure your son is not attempt-

ing to wear a “hoodie” to and from

school in this manner. If seen, such gar-

ments will be confiscated.

Thank you for all your support with en-

suring our students are smart repre-

sentatives of the school on their jour-

neys here and home.

Mrs R Simpson, Deputy Headteacher

________________________________

SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

Science and Engineering Week

‘Space Camp’

On Tuesday 19th March, Year 7 enjoyed

Space Camp. Children were involved in

activities such as ‘rocket propulsion’ -

launching space buggies and water

rockets, ‘flight school’ - making different

shaped objects and testing their ability

to fly and ‘living in space’ - where they

made solar ovens and tested nappies for

water absorbency. The students collect-

ed points for team work as well as indi-

vidual participation and the team that

won were Apollo (7Q3) with Mrs White-

head and second were Gemini (7Q2)

with Mrs Gray. Well done to everyone

who participated in a most enjoyable

day.

Mrs G Betts, Subject Leader

________________________________

SIXTH FORM NEWS

On Friday 22nd March, the Sixth For-

mers supported the Cardinal Hume Cen-

tre for the Homeless by sleeping rough

for the night. Over 40 students and 10

staff braved the cold night environment

and slept rough with only substantial

layers of clothing, a sleeping bag and a

cardboard box as protection. Further

details to follow in next month’s news-

letter.

Parents and students are reminded that

their focus over the Easter holiday

should be on consolidation of learning

over the past seven months and prepa-

ration for exams in early May with a

comprehensive and well structured revi-

sion programme.

Mrs J Rodell-Jones, Leader of Sixth

Form

________________________________

SLIDE AWAY

The school has received a letter of

thanks from Slide Away for its generous

donation of £104.31 which was raised

from events held on Founders Day last

autumn.

________________________________

St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT

Psychology

On March 20th, Year 12 AS Psychology

students travelled to London and en-

joyed an excellent range of speakers on

topics relevant to their course. The key-

note speaker was Professor Elizabeth

Loftus from California. She is one of the

key researchers in our topic of Memory.

Loftus showed that memory is selective

and quite often unreliable. Her work has

changed police procedures in the ques-

tioning of eye witnesses to crimes. She

was a lively and entertaining speaker

and it is a real privilege to meet the

psychologists from the text book! Stu-

dents also heard the writers of their text

book speaking on Obedience and Social

Networks. Another highlight was Pro-

fessor David Wilson, Channel 5 present-

er, speaking about serial killers and how

they differ from ‘spree’ killers. All the

students had a great day with some

very stimulating and challenging talks.

Sociology

On March 22nd it was a great privilege to

host staff and students from across Kent

who had come to hear author and ex-

aminer, Keith Trobe. This is the second

year that St Simon Stock has hosted Mr

Trobe’s talk on examination success in

Sociology. The A2 students heard a talk

on how to deal with questions on Crime

and Deviance in the morning. In the af-

ternoon, the AS students heard him

speak about Education and Sociological

Research Methods. Mr Trobe is a highly

entertaining speaker and his advice will

be invaluable for students taking their

examinations this summer. Thanks to

Mrs Broadhurst and Mrs Trobe who did

the organisation for the day. Thanks al-

so to the very enterprising Year 13 Soci-

ology students who ran a tuck shop dur-

ing the day to keep our visitors nour-

ished.

Easter Revision

All Psychology and Sociology students

have been given ‘hard’ copies of revision

materials to use at Easter. Although we

are still teaching the final part of the

specification, it is expected that stu-

dents will get the majority of their revi-

sion underway during the Easter break.

Revision will be particularly challenging

for Year 12 students who will take two

examinations in either Psychology

(PSYA1 & PSYA2) or Sociology (SCLY1 &

SCLY2). They have a lot of material to

cover from the start of their AS course

in September.

As well as using their books, notes and

revision booklets, students should also

use the past papers, mark schemes and

examiner reports available from the So-

cial Science pages on Frog. I cannot

stress enough how important it is that

students work steadily throughout East-

er in order to be well prepared for the

examinations which start in May.

Ms R Matthews, Subject Leader

________________________________

WORLD BOOK DAY

From left to right: Bilbo Baggins, Cruella

De Vil, Alice and The Mad Hatter

World Book Day fell on Thursday 7th

March this year and a range of cross

curricular activities took place all week

long to celebrate the joy and im-

portance of reading. Students in Mod-

ern Foreign Languages, for example,

were writing about their favourite books

and characters in French, Spanish and

even Malayalam. Meanwhile, students

in Art designed and created a delightful

array of book covers.

Our annual week-long Readathon also

took place during Year 7, 8 and 9 Eng-

lish and Literacy lessons, with students

being sponsored by friends and family

to read as much as possible to raise

money for charities such as CLIC Sar-

gent and Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Chil-

dren’s Charity. A book fair enabling stu-

dents to swap books was held to sup-

port this, allowing students the chance

to select new reading material for the

St Simon Stock Catholic School Newsletter

March 2013

week.

To mark the day, members of the Eng-

lish department also dressed up as well

known book characters, much to the

amusement of students on the yard at

lunch while pictures were being taken.

Finally, congratulations go to Keely

Cassidy and Eila McKenzie of Year 7,

who won the World Book Day ‘Book

Character Description’ competition,

which took place across the school.

Mrs K Underdown, Literacy Coordi-

nator

________________________________

Happy

Easter from

Everyone

at St Simon

Stock Catholic

School

________________________________

HEADTEACHER AWARDS

8th March 2013

Olivia Randell, Y7 – for enormous ef-

fort into a recent History assignment,

Laura Keith & Olivia Baxter, Y8 - for

their recent voluntary work at the Gil-

lingham NSPCC Centre, assisting with

refreshments and greeting guests, Toby

Lonergan, Y7 – for exceptional behav-

iour, uniform and participation in all ac-

tivities and Konrad Scherfenberg, Y7

– for his hard work and positive atti-

tude.

15th March 2013

Taylor Bailey Page, Y7 – for his mas-

sive efforts in raising money for Lenten

alms, including a sponsored silence and

cake sales and Niamh Jestin, Y7 – for

excellent amount of achievement points.

22nd March 2013

Finn Carmody, Y9 – for a marked im-

provement in his work recently, Amy

Cook, Y8 – for excellent fundraising

and achieving lots of merit points and

Nathan Richardson, Y7 - for truly

outstanding behaviour – a credit to his

year group and House.

________________________________

Last year we had lots of starlings but have seen hardly any this year. At the moment the most commonly seen bird is the woodpigeon.

IN ST SIMON

STOCK

The Common Wood Pigeon (Columba

palumbus) is a large species in the dove and

pigeon family. It belongs to the Columba

genus and, like all pigeons and doves,

belongs to the family Columbidae. It is locally

known in southeast England as the Culver.

Wood pigeons

A colourful mix of

blue, yellow, white

and green and this

makes it the most

attractive and most

recognizable garden

visitor. Blue tits,

usually resident and

non-migratory birds,

are widespread and

a common resident

breeder throughout

temperate and

subarctic Europe and

western Asia.

BLUE TIT

ST SIMON STOCK BIRD WATCH 2013

Daniel McGuire year 12

BLUE TIT

Blackbirds 5

Black-headed

gull 1

Blue tit 1

Collared dove

2

Feral pigeon 2

Magpie 2

Robin 1

Woodpigeon 3