World Book Day was on March 2nd this year and it turned out to be World Book Week for us here as we had a full programme of activities for students.

On the Monday of that week we were lucky enough to secure an author visit from Steve Skidmore, one of The 2 Steves writing team. They have penned over 260 stories together and their books have always been very popular in our School library. Steve ran talks for years 7 and 8 in the morning, and then a writing workshop for selected students in the afternoon. The talks were brilliant, very engaging, and year 7 even got to re-enact one of his books. Congratulations go to Theo and Aston who stole the show with their magnificent leading rolls. The afternoon workshop was to encourage and support our promising writers selected from year 7 and 8. Steve gave great advise on story construction, key elements and the golden rules of writing.

On Tuesday we launched our ‘Adopt a Book’ incentive which was very well received and the ‘Date with a Mystery Book’. For the book adoption we had a selection of books which we were giving away to good homes. After students had made their choice of book they were issued an adoption certificate. By signing their certificate, they promised to take care of their new book and share their opinions with their friends. There was also the option to swap with their peers if they were happy to do so. Mrs Evans in the LRC will be contacting all students who participated to see if they enjoyed their selection and encourage them to provide a book review. Mystery Date with a Book, involved selecting a book that had been wrapped in brown paper. Student didn’t know the title, author or even the genre, but had undertaken to read whatever was inside. This is a great way of introducing new genres to students, enabling them to broaden their future reading choices. The importance of reading cannot be understated. Statistics provide by Engageeducation.org prove that students ‘who engage in reading 20 minutes a day, …are likely to score better than 90% of their peers on standardised tests’. ‘Reading can increase your IQ by up to 50 points if you do it for 30 minutes a day. The effect is even greater if you read 5 books in a month—this could increase your IQ by 30 points. The National Literacy Trust states, ‘Strong reading skills have been shown to improve children’s academic attainment across a range of subjects, including English, maths and science.

Wednesday was a strike day but students were set detective exams in Google Classroom. These were set as a warm-up exercise for the murder mystery event due to take place on Thursday. There were two sets of questions available and they were based on lateral thinking problems. With standard and advanced levels available students could choose to challenge themselves with the more difficult questions.

Thursday was ‘Murder by the Book’. A dramatic crime scene was set up in the LRC and clues were posted all around the room. All students had to do was collect the clues to solve the murder. There were a few red herrings too so it really tested their sleuthing abilities but it was greatly enjoyed. Special thanks go to Emily (year 12) who was our chalk outline model.

Due to popular demand we extended the murder mystery in to Friday and we also ran our ‘Design a Bookmark’ competition. To take part students had to collect a template from the LRC and create their own design that was relevant to World Book Day. We received some incredible entries, both hand-drawn and computer generated. The winning entries will be reproduced and available to students as free bookmarks, available from the LRC. All in all, we had a very busy but very enjoyable week!

The year 11 GCSE Drama students have been busy – over two consecutive evenings on 8th and 9th of March, the visiting examiner came into school to see the students scripted performances – students had to learn two extracts from their script, learning multiple pages of dialogue, all word perfect, along with showcasing their vocal and physical skills, as well as their costumes, so plenty of ‘proper’ acting on show. The standard was very high and students were very proud of their performances – some budding future actors for sure.

It was good to restart our yearly trip to Paris after a couple of years’ break. Once again our students created some fantastic memories that will stay with them long after they leave St-Mary’s.

From the Louvre to The Avenue des Champs-Élysées and from the Bateaux Mouches to Disney Land our students thoroughly enjoyed themselves and have shown a level of maturity and responsibility we should all be proud of.

They bought presents and food without asking any member of staff for help as far as language is concerned, this only shows their communication and problem-solving skills are excellent whatever the language.

The hotel manager and the restaurant’s personnel said how well behaved and polite they were. I could not be prouder of them. They really showed the best image of themselves and the school. “

A team of Year 7’s took part in an interschool maths challenge against 70 other teams throughout Hertfordshire.

Tejal, Megan, Joshua, Eva and Benjamin worked well as a team and each of them played an important part in contributing to their success. The team were faced with some general maths questions, a memory and description round, an estimation round and a final general maths question round. Overall, the team placed 37 out of 70 teams of which we are incredibly proud. Everyone had a great time, and they are looking forward to building on their score for next year.

Feeling Good Week is a Hertfordshire-wide event that encourages schools and the wider community to promote young people’s emotional wellbeing by raising awareness of mental health and showing where support can be accessed within the community.

To celebrate this, St Mary’s arranged for some activities to take place during the student’s lunchtimes.

There were 5 events happening every day during the week to promote each aspect of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing.

Get Active – outside on the courts with ‘Capture the Flag’

Give To Others – by making ‘Friendship Bracelets’

Take Notice – with ‘Chair Yoga’

Learn Something New – with ‘Clay Modelling’

Connect With Others – by playing ‘Board Games’

Some on-line workshops covering ‘Self-kindness’ and ‘Connecting on-line’ were also available for students. These were provided in conjunction with the young person’s digital wellbeing service ‘with youth’ part of the Herts Mind service.

Please visit the websites below for more information and signposting.

https://www.withyouth.org/ https://www.healthyyoungmindsinherts.org.uk/young-people https://www.healthforteens.co.uk/?location=Hertfordshire https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/