COVID-19 test centre now live

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Last week our asymptomatic COVID-19 test centre opened its doors for the first time to staff, pupils and students. With the help of a team of volunteers (pictured), many staff and pupils who are currently attending school were able to complete tests and will now have access to weekly tests to hopefully contribute to the management of the COVID-19 virus and keep our staff, pupils and students safe. Test results are given after 30 minutes and the test itself takes only a few seconds.

Testing is only currently available to pupils and staff working on-site and we plan to enable our pupils and students access to testing when we are able to welcome our Saint Cecilia’s family back through our doors.

Fundraising for the wider community

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The Saint Cecilia’s Family supported each other and the wider community in so many ways during the first term.

Our Little Sleep Out event has so far raised an enormous £3,880 for Crisis at Christmas. Just £28 gets a homeless person off the streets for a week over the Christmas period. This means that we gave 132 homeless people some respite from the cold over the festive period.

Our Sixth Form took part in Football Shirt Friday - a nationwide campaign raising money for Cancer Research UK and the Bobby Moore Bowel Cancer Fund. Everyone really enjoyed wearing their football tops into school and we raised £160 for an excellent cause.

The official school Christmas cards featuring the design by Amy in Year 10, raised £183.65 to support our local Home Café, who have been working closely with Earlsfield Foodbank to provide for those in need during the pandemic. Our contribution helped them gather items for Christmas hampers for families in need to provide them with luxuries many of us take for granted.

Sixth Formers and Staff donned Christmas Jumpers at the end of term and raised £161 for Save the Children Fund.

Trolley-loads full of food was donated for local charity KICC the Open Door Charity which was made into Christmas hampers for local families, including our own. And four car-loads full of warm clothes, sleeping bags and toiletries were handed in to the school. These were driven to YMCA in Wimbledon and will be distributed to homeless people and people living in temporary accommodation. They were so grateful for our donations.

And finally, we have collected close to £2,000 for our Hardship Fund to help Saint Cecilia’s families in need. Thank you for all your generous donations and do please get in touch f we can help you through this Fund.

THANK YOU!!

Jack Petchey Award winner

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As a winner of this year’s Jack Petchey Award, Year 9 pupil, Joseph has generously decided to donate his £250 cash award to the Library. The money must be spent on something we would not normally be able to buy, and it was easy to think of something! Joseph has always been a film enthusiast, doing a course during the holidays and helping his mother with videos for her workplace. He’s also kindly agreed to help make promotional videos about the Library’s activities and resources, so a good quality stills and video camera was an obvious choice. Watch out for forthcoming productions!

The Jack Petchey Achievement Award Scheme, recognises outstanding young people aged 11-25 across London and Essex. These exceptional young people have gone above and beyond to achieve. An important part of the scheme is the involvement of young people in selecting the award winners for their hard work and efforts. Joseph was nominated by his peers at school. Congratulations to Joseph!

 

Have your say on our consultation for admission agreements 2022/23

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Friday 6th November to Friday 18th December 2020

We have opened a consultation about admissions to Year 7 from September 2022. Full information is available here. The key information is:

  • Owing to the expansion of the school, we are increasing the admission of new Year 7 pupils to 180 (currently 150) from 2022.

  • The number of Foundation Places and Open Places will be balanced at 90 each.

  • In light of the closure of churches during the Covid pandemic, we would like ministers to be able to provide a reference for a Foundation Place for members who have been unable to attend due to exceptional circumstances.

Sixth Form prospectus and open event videos now LIVE!

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Our full prospectus entry into our Sixth Form in September 2021, together with virtual open event videos are now live. Videos from our Headteacher and Sixth Form team give an introduction to life at the school for Years 12 and 13. Students themselves explain why they chose Saint Cecilia’s, what opportunities they are enjoying, what pastoral support is on offer and explain our curricular offer. And we have a video from London Irish’s wing, Ben Loader, to explain our Rugby Academy.

We will be hosting a Live Online Forum on Wednesday 11th November 7-8pm. To register for this event and receive admissions news, sign up for our Sixth Form mailing list.

National Poetry Day competition

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To mark this year’s National Poetry Day, the Library is launching a poetry competition for pupils and students. Winners will be recognised by a trophy for their category (either Junior Award or Senior Award), a prize and a certificate. There will be one main prize in each category and several runners up, who will receive certificates and gifts.

The competition will be judged by external sponsors:
- Patrick Malone, Children's Librarian and member of the Wandsworth Libraries Poetry Group - Years 7 and 8 (Junior Award)
- Sarah Bland of Waterstones (Southside store) - Years 9 to 12 (Senior Award)

The rules: The topic of the poems aligns with the National Poetry Day 2020 theme: Vision (See the National Poetry Day website for full details) Each child may enter a maximum of three poems. Each poem should be between 14 lines and 30 lines long. Any form is admissible, so no rules e.g. rhyming, verse length. Poems must be legible though not necessarily written on a computer, and spelling MUST be correct unless it is obviously a stylistic or vernacular effect. This is important. If your poem is designed to be recited/performed aloud as spoken word you can specify this. The poems/spoken word pieces must be entirely your own work. They must be emailed to library@saintcecilias.london or handed in to the Library by no later than the closing date of Tuesday 3rd November, 3.30 p.m.

Virtual Sports Achievements to round off the term

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Saint Cecilia’s joined with other Wandsworth schools to form Team Wandsworth in the Virtual London Youth Games 2020. Students were given three sports events to do every week for a month. Overall, Team Wandsworth came 6th out of 33 Boroughs, with just three points separating 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th places.

During the last week of term, pupils in Years 7 to 9 took part in our Virtual Sports Week. PE staff posted a different athletics event each day on Show My Homework for pupils to do at home and submit their scores. They awarded points for participation and bonus points when bronze, silver and gold scores were reached.

Congratulations to all our winners!

House competition:
1st Ives House
2nd Archimedes House
3rd Newton House
4th Turing House
5th Schubert House

Most points accumulated across all events:
1st James Gilmour (Year 8)
2nd Amy Hatherall (Year 9) and Grace Eminson (Year 8)
3rd Barnabas Woodcraft (Year 7)

Winner of each individual event:
Standing long jump: James Gilmour
Endurance shuttles: Grace Eminson
Speed Bounce: Barnabas Woodcraft
Throw: Samantha Gearey
30m sprint: James Gilmour and Barnabas Woodcraft