Good afternoon,

There’s no business like show business – who said that I wonder? Well, here we are careering towards the end of term and packing in events, trips, productions, learning and just a spot of rehearsing! Ahh Year 6 are on a trip – ok I will just do all the parts myself, which I love!

Our music assemblies over the last two weeks have really showcased our superb musicians! There has been some real stand out moments and we wait with baited breath for the final next week. Who will be presented with the Raworth Cup?

Reception and Year 1 had an amazing Sports Day at Shepherd’s Bush Cricket Ground. With Year 5 leading the activities, Reception and Year 1’s impeccable behaviour, and the sun shining, who could have asked for a better day? A massive thank you to Mr S and Clare for organising such a wonderful Sports Day.

Thank you to all those parents who popped into the classrooms in last week to check out your amazing children’s books and the work they have completed this year.

Another thank you to all those Reception parents who joined us for the Year 1 Transition meeting. Together we can make this a smooth transition.

A final thank you to all those Year 5 parents who joined us for our secondary school transition talk! It’s hard to believe that Year 5 will be entering Year 6 in just a few months, but yes, the cycle of school life continues.

Our very own Heritage Museum

A quick reminder that we have an exciting new event planned for Friday, 12th July straight after school in the playground (weather permitting) – we are creating our very own ‘St Stephen’s Heritage Museum’! This will be a museum filled with items / artefacts which have a very important meaning to your families… Items which may tell us about a family’s cultural heritage, their family history or just something that is really special to them!

But to create a museum, we need artefacts and this is where parents / carers come in! Do you have an item that you would be happy for us to display? If the answer is ‘yes’ then please send it in next week with a label offering a brief history of the item and why it is important to your family.

Together we can create our very own museum to celebrate our school community!

Year 2 at the Ecology Centre

This week, Year 2 went to the Holland Park Ecology Centre to reinforce all of their great work on habitats so far this term. They focused on woodland and pond habitats, finding creatures from each habitat through pond dipping and hunts. They identified each creature from the reference sheets and talked about what each creature ate. They found lots such as a greater Water boatman and a newt!

They even got to play in the adventure playground after lunch as they had done so well!

Debating!

We have been continuing our morning training sessions, having reached the quarter finals, semi-finals and FINALS of the ‘National Cicero Cup 2024’ debating competition for private preps and primary schools. Last Friday morning six enthusiastic members of Y6 travelled with parent and expert trainer, Emma Kruger, to Hampton Court Palace for the ‘Finals Day’, where they were competing against seven other teams from all over the country.

The morning consisted of three of our squad taking part in a prepared debate as proposition for the motion: ‘This house believes that international tourism does more harm than good,’ followed later by an impromptu debate with three other members of the team opposing the motion: ‘This house believes it is more important to plant trees than build houses.’ To our great delight, at the end of the sessions, the judges announced that St Stephen’s and Jean Allen’s Girls School were the two winning teams who would fight in ‘THE GRAND FINAL’ that afternoon. What a victory for St Stephen’s!

After lunch, and 20 minutes of preparation, all the competitors and teachers gathered in the main hall to watch the two winning teams fight for the Cup with the impromptu and topical debate: ‘This house believes the voting age should be lowered to 12 years old’. After a lively performance, both sides giving strong arguments, the judges had a difficult task, but awarded the Cup to JAGS. They admitted it was very close! Well done to our excellent debaters for their great achievement! We are the only school to have reached the finals twice.

A group of children from Year 5 had a great day at South Hampstead High School taking part in an ethical debate! Out of 6 debates we had 5 wins, meaning a win for two of our teams overall!

Following on from a triumphant winnings at South Hampstead High School for girls in last terms debating competition, we were victorious last night in SHHS’s Philosophy Event! 12 year 5’s have had some more training sessions with parent/ volunteer Emma Kruger discussing and debating issues such as animal testing, honesty, truth and justice. We entered 3 teams of students from our year 5, there were 16 teams altogether all entering into 3 exciting rounds of ethical dilemmas! St Stephen’s won 8 out of 9 of the debates (the one we lost was a robbery) so two of our teams were overall WINNERS of the evening! (Thank you to Miss Marchant, Miss Lulu and parents for taking them last night.)

An absolutely massive thank you to Emma Kruger who has worked tirelessly with Year 5 and 6 teaching them the skills of debating!

Anyone for Cricket

Our two cricket teams enjoyed a superb cricket competition at The Harrodian School. We played against a number of different schools and won three games with some wonderful skills on show.

The Selfish Giant

Last Friday afternoon Reception and KS1 participated in a production of the Selfish Giant by Image Musical Theatre. All the children were taught a few songs, and the Makaton signs to accompany them, before eight lucky children were taken to the ‘green room’ to be prepped for some special acting parts. The children all had a great time!

All aboard the Golden Salamander for Year 5

This week, Year 5 were lucky enough to spend the day aboard the Golden Salamander as part of the Thames Explorer Trust’s River Thames Case Study programme. Whilst on-board, the children used OS maps to write 4 and 6 figure grid references for the main attractions we passed. The children then had the opportunity to spot different wildlife. We saw common gulls, mute swans and a grey heron. After enjoying our lunch, whilst sailing through Richmond, the children learnt about how the river was used during the Victorian Era and then compared it to how it is used today. We ended the day by looking at the environmental issues that affect the river. There is no better way to study the river than by spending the day exploring it!

Some Goodbyes

At the end of this term we will sadly say goodbye to Mr S, who is looking to continue his coaching career with a football team, Mrs Foster who begins her maternity leave, Clare as our amazing sports fixtures coordinator and Mrs Conner, who after 30 years of dedication and commitment to our school is retiring as a teaching assistant. Mrs Conner was actually a pupil at St Stephen’s, so it will be her second goodbye to the school, once in Year 6 and now to have a well-deserved rest and enjoy her retirement. We wish them all well and thank them for the gifts and talents they have brought to our school.

A few quick reminders –

• Class Photos are available to purchase on Parentmail and the actual photographs are on display in the noticeboards in the Early Years playground and the main entrance to the school.
• The tickets for the school production are available on Parentmail
• Finally – it’s the Summer Fair tomorrow – 6^th July at 12 noon so I look forward to seeing everyone there and could England round the day off in a rather special way? We will have to wait and see!

See you tomorrow

Mr Schumm