After ten weeks of rehearsal, the cast of Matilda Jr took to the stage on the 6th and 7th July.

Our first school production post-covid, the cast performed to a sell-out audience on both nights and did a truly fabulous job! Eve, Koneil, and Shanay gave standout performances as Matilda, Agatha Trunchball and Miss Honey with some real showstopping musical moments. The Wormwoods (Isaac and Amirah) brought lots of laughs with their stellar comic timing and the entire cast brought so much joy with their musical numbers! There was a real sense of enjoyment on the faces of those onstage and in the audience and we look forward to the next show!

The Head Teacher, Mr Simms, along with many other staff, parents/carers, governors and friends, thoroughly enjoyed the show. He said “The students gave brilliant performances in the lead roles and in the chorus, and they managed to switch between the tragedy and comedy of the story with an ease that made for a marvellous evening’s entertainment. I am so proud to be their Head Teacher. Of course, the students are the stars of the show (and this includes Sam in Y8 who was supporting back-stage) but this would not have been possible without the hard work of Mrs Bonfante, Mrs Crawford, Ms King, Mr Crosby and especially Mrs Mathews who directed the whole performance. A big THANK YOU to all concerned for a wonderful show”.

Click this link for more photos: Matilda 2023

We are excited to share that we will be relaunching The Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award programme next academic year, which will be available for students in both Year 9 and 10 next year.

The Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award Is a fantastic opportunity for your child to gain and develop skills working through outside practical fun team-built activities, along with gaining the confidence that they use throughout their educational journey, preparing them further education and work.

The programme consists of four units: physical, skill, volunteering and an expedition. Students will be expected to attend a 1-hour session on Friday after school to work on their DofE online Portals.

If you are a Year8 or Year 9 parent/carer, look out for this letter next week and we will be writing to you again in September with further details, including how to pay for enrollment and trips. If you require further information about this programme, please do not hesitate to email me on DofE@st-maryshigh.herts.sch.uk

Please click this link for more information on the Duke of Edinburgh award: Do DofE – The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

Back in April, all year 8 students participated in the NHS competition “Step into the NHS” submitting projects in the form of a job advert for careers in the NHS.

Matilda W. received a highly commended certificate for her entry St Mary’s participated in the STEM clubs week 2023 “Desmistifying AI”: students watched webinars, in Science lessons taught by experts in the area and the school participated in a live debate sending a set of questions to the panel. One of these questions were put to the panel: How close is technological singularity and what will this mean for us as a society? You can watch the discussion here: STEM Clubs Week 2023 | AI, the world and you: the live debate and find our question from minute 57. STEM club finished for another year.

Students received participation certificates. Gold for those that attended 85% or more sessions and Silver for those that attended to at least 50 % sessions. In total, 25 students participated in STEM sessions. Each session had on average 13 students. We have done lots of engaging experiments linked with the outside world:

• IT – “Finance and Excel”, “Creating Google drive”, “Creating your own business”;
• Textiles – “Designing a t-shirt”;
• Physics and Engineering – “standard egg drop”, “building with spaghetti”, “sundial”, “paper plane making”;
• Space – “mission to Mars”, “Life on Mars”, “rocket launch”;
• Chemistry – “Iodine clock”, “pH rainbow2;
• Biology – “looking for tardigrades” , “DNA extraction”.

‘Club 9’ is for those students aiming to get a grade 9 in Geography and is for students in any year group, not just the GCSE years.

Over the last few weeks the Club 9 geographers have enjoyed taking part in a range of activities designed to challenge and extend their thinking. The students fully engaged in their activities and showed creativity and enthusiasm.

Year 7 investigated the challenges that our planet faces and considered how we might be able to respond to some of these challenges.

Year 8 looked at the circular economy and researched how sustainable big businesses are in elements of their production chain.

Year 9 investigated the Global Sustainable Development Goals and then considered how we measure, compare and judge the development across a range of nations.

Year 10 took part in a simulation activity where they took on the role of different nations and experienced the challenges of the global economy.

The students thoroughly enjoyed the activities and are looking forward to using their new knowledge back in Geography lessons.

This year’s APG was hosted by Megan and Joshua who expertly stewarded the evenings presentations.

The prize winners and their parents/carers were treated to some outstanding showcases of our key stage 3 talent. One of the highlights (pictured below) was the short extract from the show Blood Brothers whereby Sam and Ashlea used their characterisation skills to best effect and recreated the scene of the brothers first meeting. This year we also saw the introduction of the saz to our stage as Efe played a solo, Turkish folksong which ‘wowed’ the audience. It is exciting to see so many of our students receiving awards and to hear young St Marians performing. This all bodes very well for their and our futures together. Well done to all.