This week at St Faith's

16 March 2018

Waste Week

Did you know the average family wastes £700 of food a year? This was the staggering fact delivered by our Eco Warrior Miss Kennerley in Assembly on Monday, when she took the opportunity to open the debate with the children about food and food packaging waste during official Waste Week. The numbers are truly staggering when considered globally, where it is estimated that one third of all food grown is thrown away. This equates to 24 million slices of bread, 5.8 million potatoes and 5.9 million glasses of milk per day in the UK! Hopefully this message provided our pupils with plenty of food for thought (pun intended).

Miss Kennerley went on to talk about the added and potentially even more devastating waste generated through food packaging and once again amazed our children with the startling fact that the average person in the UK alone gets through 90 drink cans, 70 food cans, 107 bottles and jars and 45kg of plastic each year! She then discussed ways in which we can all minimise the waste we create in food packaging such as re-useable containers for mid-morning snacks. Please try to support your child if they request a move away from plastic or foil wrapping for their morning snack, good habits such as these learned early will become habits for life.

Geography Quiz

Plastic waste was also the topic of a question posed in last Friday evening’s inter-House Geography quiz, won by Latham (pictured below). The four House teams battled it out over geographical questions including those below – how many can you score?

1. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area of plastics floating in the Pacific Ocean. It is twice the size of Texas. Which of these three plastic items will take the longest to biodegrade?

Plastic bottle. Plastic straws. Plastic Bag.

2. The River Cam flows into the Great Ouse. What geographical name is given to the spot where two rivers meet?

3. What ‘S’ is the Cambridge College in which the skull of Oliver Cromwell is buried?

4. The McCurdo Valley is the coldest desert on Earth. It has an average temperature of -20oC but only 100mm of rain per year. On which continent is it located?

5. Which of these countries should you come from if you want to live the longest?

Brazil. France. Japan. USA.

Primary Mathematics Challenge Bonus Round

Our three top young mathematicians in Year 6 were invited to take part in the bonus round of the national Primary Mathematics Challenge recently and the results are now in. All three acquitted themselves well, missing out on getting a medal by just a few points in what was a demanding challenge sat by almost 3000 students nationally. (The following link takes you to last year’s paper for those wishing to have a go http://www.m-a.org.uk/resources/2017%20Feb%20QP.pdf ). Congratulations go to Ava, Ewan and Elizabeth on their efforts. We look forward to further success with the Year 8s in the regional finals of the UK team challenge next month.

Year 1 Sewing

Year 1 children have been getting to grips with sewing, both by hand and with a sewing machine recently. Inspired by the story ‘Jack and the Flumflum Tree’ by Julia Donaldson the children hand sewed together four different material squares to make a patchwork pattern. They then used a sewing machine to sew on the back and a handle to create a bag. The children decided that sewing with the machine was not only easier but much more fun than sewing by hand. Ultimately their creations are more than impressive and a new skill has been learnt – well done Year 1!

Great British Nature Day

The school will once again be celebrating all things connected with Great British nature next Monday in our second on-timetable Great British Nature Day. Originally conceived as a way of counteracting the removal of ‘nature’ words from an established Junior Dictionary and their replacement with words of ‘virtual’ origin the day will involve all lessons from Classics to Computing, Science to Spanish focusing on the theme of Great British nature. The day will start with an assembly with invited guest speaker Mrs Pippa Howard, a current parent and Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. Children will then spend the rest of the day learning more about a variety of aspects of Great British Nature from the use of different wood types in engineering to Picasso’s owls in Art. It promises to be a very stimulating day for all and we look forward to sharing more details of the day next week.

Sporting Success

In addition to regular house and inter-school matches it has been another week of sporting successes for our athletes who have competed in regional and national finals. Last Friday and Saturday our U13 girl gymnasts finished 8th in the National ISGA Finals in Guilford, winning the Improver’s Trophy. Our U9 girls finished 7th, just missing out on a medal, with Hannah coming 5th individually. More gymnastic skills were on display on Monday evening in an informal display organised by Mrs North to show off the next generation of Trio and Acro  gymnasts. Attended by many families the evening offered an opportunity to those just learning these new skills to show their progress and to hone their performance routines.

[ezcol_1half]

[/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]

[/ezcol_1half_end] In the IAPS National Netball finals our U11 team were placed a very credible 7th after winning their playoff. The U12 team lost to Millfield in the Plate Final and were ultimately placed 6th in the country. Very well done to everyone and as ever many thanks to our incredibly dedicated sports staff for all their hard work.

[ezcol_1half]

[/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]

[/ezcol_1half_end]

After School Activities

Today sees the end of another term of wonderful and varied after school activities. On offer this term have been activities as diverse as Chess, STEAM, Girls Football and History of Comics. The breadth of activities on offer is a wonderful reflection of the vast skills and passions of our teaching staff. Below are a selection of photos from just a few of the after school clubs.

Finally

The Beast from the East’s slightly less aggressive cousin is due to visit the UK this weekend with the potential to once again bury the brave daffodils and tulips gamely trying to recover from the last Beast. Let’s hope we will have another lucky escape from the worst of the weather. Whatever your weekend plans herald, we wish you a pleasant one. Normal service will resume next week when Mr Helliwell is back in the Newsletter driver’s seat.

With all good wishes

Kelly Pangalos