Dear Students,I hope this newsletter finds you all safe and well. This week I have been inspired! In last week’s newsletter, I told you how tutors and subject teachers have been reaching out to make contact with students who we think might have found this period of home learning particularly challenging. I have heard from lots of teachers with positive news about how following an email or phonecall home, students who might have become disengaged with schoolwork, have been trying to do more and are now starting to send in some fabulous work again. If you are a parent and are concerned about your child and their home learning, please do email their form tutor who will be happy to do all they can to support them.

I have also been inspired by the honesty and mature reflection of the student who has supplied this week’s special feature about his struggles with home learning. He is being supported by his subject teachers and is now making gains in his studies and re-engaging with his work. This period of lockdown has not been easy for him or for some of our other students. I hope that what he has written helps other students who might be struggling too to ask for help and to know that despite what may have come before, it is not too late to re-engage with learning now. An important regular feature in this newsletter is the celebration of students’ work where we publicly praise and acknowledge their efforts. We love to do this and we know that many students and their parents enjoy this too.

However, there are some students who might not feel as comfortable with the public recognition but we still think it is important that we show how proud we are of them too; this is where our new item ‘Secret Student’ comes in. Although the students we acknowledge there are anonymous, I promise you they are real! Perhaps you are the Secret Student?

Finally, I have also been inspired by our teachers who have supplied their photos and short stories about how they have been trying to keep fit and active during this period. As you will see when you take a look, not all of us are naturally sporty but doing some form of physical activity is great for mental health and wellbeing as well as our physical health. Please do read the Mental Health and Wellbeing Newsletter from Mrs Fisher as there are lots of helpful tips and ideas to help nurture and care for your mental health. While some of us have been engaging in relatively gentle activities to keep active like dog walking or a quick round of badminton in the garden, teachers have been achieving some fantastic things too; I won’t spoil it but take a look at what Ms Akram’s been doing!!!

National Sports Week begins on the 20 June. For next week’s issue of the newsletter, I would like students to send me a photo of them doing a sports or fitness activity with a brief description. And maybe if you haven’t done anything yet, you too might be inspired to try?

Year 8 students have been on fire this week! Well done to Caitlin Boyle who sent in some beautiful descriptive writing for her English assessment last week using lots of language techniques and wonderful vocabulary. Also well done to Max Gilbert in year 8 who has produced some lovely story writing with original plot ideas and quirky and interesting characters. He is a fabulous writer!

Emma Francioni has been a busy bee this week and has produced a fantastic leaflet about bees in preparation for her study of the dystopian novel ‘The Bees’ in English lessons.

Mrs Watson would also like to commend Emma Francioni for her work on the challenge task in Geography. We loved what Emma had to say about her studies in Geography;

‘It is eye-opening to see the extreme consequences of climate change. I really want to be part of helping the planet and learning to change our ways to keep it healthy. That’s why I strive to the best I can in all areas of Geography because I enjoy it a lot and I want to be able to help in the future.’

Your Fantastic Work!!!

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Pupil Password ResetsPlease be aware that it is particularly important that students check their school email accounts regularly (preferably daily on school days) as subject teachers and tutors frequently send

messages directly to students via these accounts. If you have any problems accessing your school email account, please email pupilpasswordreset@st-benedicts.org who will be able to resolve the issue for you.

St Benedict’s at home Catholic High School and Sixth Form St Benedict’s at home Catholic High School and Sixth Form

Meanwhile in Year 9, Ben Latham has impressed Mrs Lowe with his ecosystem in a bottle extension activity. Mrs Lowe had this to say: “Ben has been very enthusiastic in Geography sending in his work and completing the challenge activities that

have been set. We are very impressed with Ben’s work ethic and enthusiasm.”

Mrs Lowe would also like to give a shout out to Riley Williams in year 10 for his recent Geography assessment and for his attitude to learning where he used green

pen to make significant improvements to his work. Well done Riley!

Also in year 10, Mrs Fisher would like to praise Lucy Cosgriff’s mature and eloquent response to the form activity looking

at whether statues of historically racist figures should be removed. She wrote a speech that was thoughtful, insightful and articulate and perfectly encapsulated the gospel values of truth and justice. We are proud of her!

Meanwhile in Music, Mr Gee has been impressed with the efforts of Sam Harper-Mills in 7D, who has been busy creating a graphic score for Benjamin Britten’s Storm. Mr Gee thought this was a ‘fab example’ and so do we!

And finally…Tilly Webber in 7C produced this amazing rollercoaster creation for Maths extension and enrichment work. Her family tested it with a bean and can

confirm it works! That is impressive!

Secret Student.... Could this be you?New this week! This section is for students who might not wish their name to be in the newsletter but we still want to celebrate their achievements. So, take a read below and could this be you…?

Miss Green’s Secret StudentLast week, to my surprise, I received an email entitled ‘My Apology’. I hadn’t heard from this student for a while so I was delighted to see this. As I read his email and saw how honest and brave he was about his struggle with home learning, I felt so proud of him for making this big first step.

This student had previously tried to hide from the fact they weren’t keeping up with their work, however they had just done one of the most difficult things by asking for help. So since receiving this email, it has been wonderful to start working with them again, to help and support them achieve in maths. So this week, I challenge all students who feel like this person! Be brave, be honest and reach out! Ask for help when you need too! We truly want to help.

Miss Smallbone’s Secret StudentsThis week I have three secret students who have really stepped up to the teacher challenge I set them. These particular students have sent me work to check their progress, challenged themselves with revision questions from the enrichment tasks and even turned their hand to Apple Swan making to improve their knife skills. To these three student in Yr10, I want to say well done and keep up the hard work. I can’t wait to see the efforts of my next student challenges over the coming weeks!

Mrs Eldridge’s Secret StudentI hadn’t heard from this year 8 student for quite some time and received no response to my emails. So after a phonecall home and a supportive conversation with Mum, I was delighted to finally receive his completed descriptive writing assessment for English. This student has been open in acknowledging the fact that they struggle to put things on a page and despite having an excellent vocabulary, extended pieces of writing is something he finds more difficult. I was so impressed with his efforts and the fact that he completed not one, not two, but THREE detailed paragraphs of lovely descriptive writing. Well done to my secret student…you can achieve great thing when you try!

Your Fantastic Work!!!

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With National Sports Week looming, now is the perfect time to get in the mood for our forthcoming St Benedict’s House Olympic Games! Sports Day is such a popular event at St Benedict’s and it’s important that despite the lockdown and school

closures, we can still come together as a community through sport. Mr Alford will be publicising the details in full in next week’s newsletter so watch out for that!

We are such a wonderfully diverse, supportive and talented community, and it is important we all get a space and platform to share our talents with one another. We are holding a virtual celebration of talent which is open to both staff and students.

We’d love for you to send us your contributions, and we’re not just talking about ‘conventional’ talent - it could be absolutely anything you’re good at! Of course, there will be scope for music, dance, and drama, but we’re also on the lookout for budding magicians, expert rubik’s cube unscramblers and comedians!

So come on, don’t hide your light under a bushel; share your talents with the school community.

Please send your entries to gee.w@st-benedicts.org - we will then edit these into a film to share with our school community. We are so looking forward to receiving your applications! Mr Gee

Weeds & Wildflowers Poetry Competition Update

‘white petals framing the

fire’

‘I may just grow from a humble seed,

but I grow and grow. I am the weed.”

‘Lock down puts life on hold,

While nature begins to thrive.’

‘Brambles barricade the front lines’

‘a jungle animal’

Not long to go now until we learn the results of our House Poetry Competition! We have been thrilled with the quality of the work you’ve submitted, and this year has seen a bumper crop of entries. English teachers have read every single poem and have forwarded them all to our judge, former St Benedict’s teacher, Mrs Miles.

She’s picked a few stray lines from many that have stood out to her ... maybe some of you will recognise them?

We’re looking forward to hearing more from her soon so that we can announce the winners. In the meantime, keep guessing, and fingers crossed! And by the way, can anyone identify this mysterious weed that has sprung up in Mrs Fernie’s garden?

I am so grateful to this student for agreeing to share their experiences of home learning and being brave and honest about the difficulties they have encountered. I really hope this inspires other students who might be in the same position to ask for help! This is his story in his words.

COVID-19 has been a strange part of all of our lives and will stick with us forever, but as a student with work to do it is especially hard. I, like many pupils thought that this was going to be an early holiday. But with the work piling up, pressure started to grow and after a certain period of time, I started to panic. I could see that there was no easy way out apart from ignoring emails and this worked for a small period of time; however behind the scenes I realised that problems were only getting worse and the time was now to come clean. So, after numerous apology emails, I closed my laptop and waited anxiously for

the next two hours for what was to be the punishment for the lack of work I had done. But to my surprise it was emails filled with empathy and I realised from that point on I had a job to repay the faith that my teachers had put in me. Of course working from home is ridiculously hard due to the many distractions, but there is only so much Netflix, YouTube or football highlights to binge and after a certain period of time you will realise that there is something much more important in life that needs to be worked on. 10 years on you will thank your former self for the effort that you put in during this time. I promise that you will not regret it.

St Benedict’s at home Catholic High School and Sixth Form St Benedict’s at home Catholic High School and Sixth Form

St Benedict’s student shares his struggles with home learning and a message of hope for other students

“

Special Feature!

National Sports Week begins this Saturday the 20th June. In order to get you in the mood and inspire you to do some form of physical activity and exercise, we have a bumper extended edition of our regular ‘Teachers are doing…’ feature. Take a look and see what we’ve been up to. Send in your photos for inclusion in next week’s newsletter.

Mrs Sylvester Challenges the Less Sporty! I thought I’d share my fitness history with you as I want to encourage you to be active now and throughout your life. Research shows that if you take part in lots of different physical activities as a young person then you will continue working at being fit later on and this has certainly been the case for me. I’m not really a sporty or athletic person but as a child l enjoyed cycling, swimming and in particular dancing. I continued dancing throughout my 20s and as I lived in Birmingham was lucky enough to try lots of different styles including African and Flamenco. I even taught dance to KS3 at St. Benedict’s for a couple of years!

Later on, when my two children were at primary school I took them to Karate lessons and decided to

give it a go myself. I really liked the look of the Katas which seemed like dance moves to me. I don’t think I realised that it is all fighting moves in a controlled way. However, I enjoyed the discipline needed to achieve the colour belts as you move up the grades and 6 years later, after hundreds of lessons and often training three times a week I achieved my 1st Dan black belt.

Throughout all this time I have always kept up swimming and joined the local gym in Redditch when I moved here. It is the one physical activity that has helped keep me constantly fit and before the Lockdown I was pushing myself to swim over a mile each session. Of course, I really miss that at the moment and I’ll have to build up my stamina again. Now I go for a fast walk each day in my new trainers and have found an amazing Body Balance YouTube video that I can follow in my home.

The point is that you don’t have to be amazing at the sport or physical activity that you do but finding some that you enjoy is important. So, keep trying new activities; you will make new friends, have fun and start the journey of keeping fit your whole life.

Keep active, keep safe.Mrs Sylvester

Teachers are…. getting active for National Sports week

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Compass Support for Parents and Students

Provision for Year 10 & Year 12

Assessments & Feedback from Take a look at the schedule below and make sure that you are completing the assessments indicated. You need to email

them to your subject teacher who will provide you with feedback and improvement tasks so that you continue to make good progress. Please ensure that you complete these and try your best. Remember, if you are stuck or unsure, email your class teachers for help.

This week we completed our Academic Reviews and Wellbeing Surveys with these year groups. Thank you for taking the time to complete them. They have provided us with useful information that we will use to help target our support and inform planning. We look forward to welcoming students back from next week in line with the government’s guidance. Year 10 students who have confirmed that they will be attending school have been allocated one day a week until the end of term. You will find notification of the date you are due in school on the announcements section of ClassCharts. If you have difficulty accessing this, please call our admin team on the school number who have a list and will be able to inform you. As previously advised, we are unable to swap days or move students between teaching groups.

Students in year 10 will be participating in teacher led sessions in English, Maths, Science and RE, focusing on preparation for mock exams. For year 10 students not attending school, this work will be made available remotely via ClassCharts. Students in year 12 will be focussing mainly on practical work required for IB internal assessments for Science along with some additional Film and DT support sessions. Students have been contacted and advised of the arrangements.

Please refer to the letter sent this week by Mr Madden for a full account of details and arrangements we have put in place. We are looking forward to welcoming you back to St Benedict’s!

Compass is a service whose primary purpose is to promote and protect the health and wellbeing of children, young people and families in Warwickshire. Parents/carers and young people are still able to contact a member of the school health team for advice and support when needed. Details for how to contact them are below:

• Parents/carers can call the service on 03300 245 204 or text Parentline on 07520 619 376.

• Young people aged 11-19 can text ChatHealth on 07507 331 525

Go to the following website if you would like more information regarding support, advice and

services that are available to support children, young people and their families. https://www.compass-uk.org/services/warwickshire-school-health-wellbeing-service/

Assessments & Feedback from your teachers

‘a jungle animal’

”

St Benedict’s at St Benedict’s at

Teachers Get Running!

Miss Cosnett also doing the Couch to 5K Challenge. She is smashing it and now running 5K three times a week!

Miss Wheeler walks around the stunning

Studley Castle with her beau-tiful Labrador

Ahti named after a Finn-

ish sea god…as you do!

Mrs Taylor-Jones has dusted off her

running shoes and is making it a family

affair by also completing the Couch to

5K with her husband who prefers the

Couch to 5 Cakes version!

Mr Singleton takes in some breathtaking views from the top of Round Hill Above Spernall while hiking solo and enjoying some ‘me time’.

Miss Smallbone also walks her friendly canine as part of his rehab after his leg injury. Get well soon Marlee!

Mr Madden carves a striking

figure in red and black! He is in training for the Coventry half marathon

delayed to November now due to

COVID-19. Good luck for that Mr Madden!

We love this picture from Mrs Nickerson working that waistline with

her hula hoop! Liking your moves Mrs Nickerson!

Miss Dance has been practising chin-ups in her garage. At the start of lockdown she couldn’t manage one, but now she is up to an impressive

ten (with a few breaks in between!). Seriously impressive Miss Dance!

Mrs Watson aka Supermum, straps her baby to her back and sets off up Welcombe Hills. No mean feat!

Mrs Eldridge picks up a badminton racket for the first time in 30 years

and suffers an embarrassing defeat

against her daughter!

Similarly, Mrs Hart takes on key-worker children at tennis… and loses to a year 7 student. Never mind Mrs Hart, it’s not the winning but the taking part that counts.

Mrs Suttle picks up her skipping rope and gets fit. Actually a lot harder than it looks!

Mrs Lowe is doing it for the girls! Who says Cricket is for boys?!

Mrs Lowe plays for a well-respected local women’s team where she has improved her batting skills to score a few 4s and is

regularly selected to bat in the first or second pair. During lockdown she has kept up her skills by practising with

her children in the back garden. Who knew she had

such talents?

In addition to all the achievements of the teachers pictured so far, we have decided to give our special

commendation award to….. Ms Akram!Ms Akram set herself the challenge during lockdown of

doing the splits!!! Once you get past fourteen, this is no easy thing to do. As you can see from the photo, she is almost there and she is determined to be able to get to the floor completely before lockdown ends. Ms Akram has never been able to do this before, not even at school. It just shows what you can achieve with a little patience and determination. Well done Ms Akram.

We have no doubt at all you will achieve your goal!

Mr Gee making steady progress on the Couch to 5K Challenge. Now on the final run of 8 weeks with only 1 week to go. Way to go Mr Gee!

Mrs Conn gets on her bike and enjoys the fresh air.

Teachers Get Walking!

Teachers pick up their

rackets...

Teachers Get Skipping

Teachers Get Biking!

Great effort!

Teachers Get

Hula Hooping!

Teachers do chin ups!

Teachers Get Cricketing

Teachers Get Running!

Message from Mrs O’Gara

It is not always easy finding the right words to pray. On certain days we may be feeling particularly “uninspired” and no words come to mind to express ourselves.When confronted with such a listless spirit, one powerful cure is to pray to the Holy Spirit. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “[Prayer] is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man” (CCC 2564).One beautiful and ancient prayer to the Holy Spirit was composed by St. Augustine, a holy bishop who lived in the 4th century. He had a particular way with words, and his prayer to the Holy Spirit is one that can lift up an uninspired soul to God.

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,That my thoughts may all be holy.Act in me, O Holy Spirit,That my work, too, may be holy.Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit,That I love but what is holy.Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit,To defend all that is holy.Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit,That I always may be holy.

It is not unusual to feel uninspired but St Augustine gives us the words to ask the Holy Spirit for help! Why not pray this prayer this week?

It’s all about Books!This week’s book recommendations come from Chloe Clifford in 8D. She is such an enthusiastic reader and has two books to recommend!First, here’s what she had to say about ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma which is a true life story about one man’s search to find meaning in his life after

experiencing a heart attack:“I would recommend this because it teaches you so many life lessons and how to cope with things such as stress and worrying. It gives you methods on how to achieve your goals and strive to be the best you can be.”Second, is the book ‘Five Feet Apart’ by Rachael Lippincott. This book is aimed at those 12 and over and has recently been turned into a major film. In this moving story, two teens fall in love with just one minor complication - they can’t get within a few feet of each other without risking their lives.Chloe told us; “I love this book as it shows you are never alone and there is always someone out there who can relate to you. However sometimes in life, things don’t always turn out the way you want them to.”

Students are creating their own websites…!Max Gilbert in year 8 has had great fun putting together his own website completely from scratch. He has been using free software and learning all about word

press website builder. His website, Gilbert’s Lounge, showcases two of Max’s passions; writing stories and photography. In this technological age, we think it’s fantastic to see students developing

their IT skills. Well done Max!

Students are baking!

Baking seems to be a very popular activity with our students and these delicious treats have been made by Jacob Batchelor Barrera for his Dad’s birthday. They are Conchas, a traditional Mexican bread and we think they look incredible! Perhaps Miss Smallbone would like the recipe?

After Global Parents Day two weeks ago, Jacob would like to share this touching message for his parents. “I’d like to thank my Mom and Dad for spending time with my brother and I. We play a lot and have loads of fun! They both help me with my work, my school, and everything! A lot of kids say this, but I honestly think they are two of the best parents in the world.”

Remember, all the staff at St Benedict’s miss you and have you in their thoughts.

We are looking forward to the day we can welcome you back to school but until then, stay happy, stay healthy and keep learning!

God bless you all,Mrs Eldridge

Assistant Headteacher

St Benedict’s at home Catholic High School and Sixth Form St Benedict’s at home Catholic High School and Sixth Form