Prep Open Morning

On Wednesday we were delighted to welcome more than 50 families to school for our Prep Open Morning. The gathering was a combination of current Year 2 families, keen to understand more about their child’s journey from Pre Prep into Year 3, and prospective families wanting to learn more about what a St Faith’s education can offer. In front of a greatly appreciative audience, two of our Year 8 pupils spoke most eloquently about their time at St Faith’s. They described how they have enjoyed making the most of all their curricular and wider-curricular opportunities. It was then time for a tour of the school and our parent visitors were shown round most ably by several more of our Year 8 pupils. Our pupil guides excelled in their role and were superb ambassadors for our school.

Please note the application deadline for new pupils seeking to join Years 1-7 for next the academic year, is Friday 29th November 2024 and assessments will take place early in the Lent Term between 9th and 17th January 2025.

Collaborative Project with Shirley Community Primary School

On Tuesday, four of our young musicians visited Shirley Community Primary School in Chesterton to begin a new collaborative project between the two schools. The pupils, along with Mr Newman our woodwind teacher, demonstrated their instruments and answered questions from the Shirley School children. The Headteacher, Mr Cattermole, said “a huge ‘Thank you!’ from all of us at Shirley. Your pupils were an absolute delight and played so beautifully.”

Our schools will be working together to widen access to instrumental teaching, starting with clarinet and saxophone lessons. We are planning joint workshops and performances across this academic year to give pupils from both schools the opportunity to develop their musical skills, perform to varied audiences and make new friends.

2JC Assembly

Class 2JC enjoyed presenting their assembly on the theme of collaboration, one of our core St Faith’s learning habits. Through poetry, song and prayer, the children shared what collaboration means to them and why it matters so much in our school community.

Maths Puzzle Inventor Visits St Faith’s

On Tuesday, one of our Year 8 Maths classes was excited to be joined by Dr Bijon Toloui (known as Ben) for their lesson. Ben is a puzzle inventor based in Cambridge, and he is currently producing an innovative Maths board game involving dice, for ages 5 to 14, which he has named NumberQuash. Some classes have been introduced to the board game in recent months and we are very grateful to the inventor for lending us prototypes of the game. This has meant that we can provide the chance for other pupils to enjoy them in Maths lessons and at the ‘Board Games’ afterschool club this term. The game started with a focus on addition but has since been further developed to include new variations including subtraction, multiplication, division, and rounding; whilst other topics such as fractions, percentages and probability are also in the early stages of development and testing.

This week, Year 8 pupils were given the opportunity to play an advanced version of the game based on Indices. They particularly impressed our visitor with their mental ability to calculate the cube numbers from zero-cubed up to twelve-cubed, which then greatly assisted their ability to work their way strategically through the game. For the classes that have had the opportunity to play so far, it has been extremely encouraging to see the pupils so actively involved and enjoying participating with their peers, in a time when many pupils comment that they are more likely to play interactive online games, than sitting down to play a sociable (and competitive!) board game in groups of between 2 and 6 players.

We are very grateful to ‘inventor Ben’ for making time to visit us at St Faith’s and we wish him well as he moves forward with his game through the design and production phases over the coming months.

Pepper the Robot Comes to St Faith’s

On Thursday, one of our parents, Dr Bradley, brought a humanoid robot called Pepper to meet the children in a Year 6 Computing lesson. Pepper greeted the children and was able to answer some questions, including which St Faith’s House she wanted to be in – Chaucer as it turns out. She was also able to talk about her height and her weight (35kg) and very popular amongst the pupils was the dance that she did. She can even read human emotions a little.

Pepper is relatively old now in robot terms as she was made in 2014, and the technology has advanced rapidly creating ever more sophisticated robots. The electronic chips which power Pepper and similar robots, are made by Arm, a company located here in Cambridge. The lesson dovetailed neatly into the Year 6 Computing curriculum, which is when the children start to learn about Robotics, as well as beginning to programme in Python, a programming language used today by many companies.

Eco Committee

On Thursday, the Eco Committee was visited by Amy Armstrong, the Sustainability Lead from Chartwells, to discuss how to choose to eat sustainably. They enjoyed learning about the farm to fork journey and studying the carbon rating of popular lunch meals here. The Eco Committee came away excited to choose to eat for the planet, and with a better understanding of the impact our favourite meals have on the environment. For further information, please do look at the sustainability page of our website, Sustainability – St Faith’s Cambridge.

Years 6, 7 & 8 Indoor Rowing Regatta v St John’s

Turning to sport, St Faith’s Rowing Squad competed valiantly in their annual indoor rowing regatta, against St John’s. Pupils did brilliantly, competing in a range of different events, including some very exciting relays. There were numerous personal bests achieved, and it was fantastic to see pupils aiming to better themselves whilst cheering each other on. The final prize giving saw everyone’s achievements celebrated, with particular applause going to the first, second and third for each event. If you are a keen rower you might like to test yourself over the same 125m or 250m sprint distances as the pupils!

Under 11 Girls’ Hockey

Congratulations to the Under 11 girls who had a great afternoon of hockey at Bishop’s Stortford College on Wednesday. The girls came away with a narrow loss, a draw and two victories. There were plenty of goals scored and fabulous team spirit from all participants. The gloomy November weather, complete with non-stop drizzle did not dampen anyone’s enthusiasm and the chocolate chip cookies and sausage rolls afterwards were a huge hit.

Year 3 & 4 House Hockey

Meanwhile, Year 3 & 4 girls really enjoyed playing in their House Hockey matches this week. There were some keenly contested matches and plenty of fine teamwork and smiles all around. The results can be found in the sidebar of this newsletter.

IAPS National Gym Championships

At the weekend, our gymnastics teams will be taking part in the Boys’ and Girls’ IAPS National Gym Championships at St Catherine’s, Bramley and Tormead School respectively. The pupils have put in plenty of practice for the championships and we wish them the very best of luck.

And Finally…

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the annual SFPA Fireworks extravaganza this evening. As always it is a sell-out event, and it promises to be a visual spectacular, lighting up the St Faith’s sky overhead. Wrap up warm, arrive in plenty of time to sample the refreshment stalls, and I do hope you and your families enjoy the display!

With all best wishes,

Crispin Hyde-Dunn