US1 Particle Physics Event - 29th June
A small group of US1 Physicists visited the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for a Particle Physics event. We were greeted with many displays and hands-on experiments featuring the work carried out across the complex and given an initial talk on the work of the STFC (Science and Technology Facilities Council) both at home and abroad. Schools were then split into groups for tours, which took us the eScience department first. There we saw the huge computing systems which help to analyse data from the LHC in Geneva. It was amazing to learn that the air conditioning units needed to cool the operations room requires as much electrical energy as the computers themselves! We completed the day with a tour of ISIS, hearing about the global collaboration required in running such a facility and appreciating the sheer size and diversity of the many experiments run there.
US1 trip to Studland Bay - 27th June
On Monday the girls who are continuing geography to A2 went on a field trip to Studland Bay in Dorset. They carried out an investigation of the vegetation and soils along the sand dunes. This work will be examined next year when they sit their A2 examination. The girls worked very hard to complete their investigation accurately and in detail, they certainly earned themselves an icecream at the end of the day!
Year 9 Biology Lecture with Dr George McGavin - 27th June
All girls in Year 9 were treated to a lecture from visiting speaker, Dr. George McGavin.
Dr. McGavin, an author, lecturer, television presenter and explorer, though an entemologist by trade, was a lecturer and researcher at Oxford University for 25 years. He has undertaken many biological expeditions in his search for new species and the documenting of remote environments’ fauna.
The lecture focused on his involvement in the recent ‘Lost Land of the Tiger’ TV series. He gave girls a gripping account of the decline of the tiger in the wild and of the six week period. that the BBC team he was part of, spent in Bhutan filming for the series. He interspersed his talk with a number of clips from the series that amazing, amused and fascinated the girls.
Year 10 Art trip to Cornwall - 23rd-26th June
Art and Design Technology pupils in Year 10 went to Cornwall for four days. We visited galleries: Tate St Ives, The Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden, The Penlee Gallery and The Exchange to see exhibitions and to make drawings in the galleries. We also spent time drawing and painting in the natural environment on St Michael`s Mount in the National Trust gardens and from the castle.The Design Technology pupils had a morning workshop at The Leach Pottery where they saw production methods whilst the art pupils had a talk on the exhibits at Tate St Ives. A trip to Porthcurno beach gave the opportunity to see a seal and a basking shark and for a swim for those that were brave enough.Over the 4 days the girls filled many pages in their sketchbooks gathering many resources for their coursework unit on Environment.
Final Carnegie Forum - 22nd June
Controversial novel Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace was voted as the overwhelming favourite of pupils in attendance at this year’s Abingdon Schools’ Carnegie Forum. After many discussions at meetings and events during the shadowing scheme, pupils acknowledged that sometimes the best books are often the most challenging and uncomfortable reads.
Eleven pupils from St Helens joined with shadowers from the five other local secondary schools at the Abingdon Guildhall for a day of literary activities that culminated in outstanding dramatic interpretations of the six books on the shortlist. St Helens had the privilege of hosting the event this year and it was with great pleasure that Mrs Pocock Bell was able to present prizes to the following girls who impressed the independent panel of judges with their writing and acting skills. Emma Slater was awarded the best contributor to her group at the forum, Flora Faulk and Alice Knight won prizes for the best reviews, Amie McLellan and Ellie Carpenter were highly commended for reviews and Eloise Collins was part of the group that performed the best dramatic presentation.
Congratulations to all those that took part.
Year 8 Debating Competition - 16th June
The annual Year 8 Debating Competition took place on Thursday 16th June. Two teams from each form, selected from class heats, debated a range of topics: the rights of celebrities to expect privacy, abolishing the monarchy, are books better than films and whether money does buy happiness. The Year 8 audience was treated to some great speeches and engaged fully and enthusiastically when the debate was opened to the floor for questions.
Two girls were commended: Megan Fitzgerald (8J) for her passionate speech and Chloe Taylor (8M) for her summing up. The winning team was Katherine Ellis and Sylvie Pope (8N), and the prize for best individual speech was awarded to Rebecca Chadder (8L).
Congratulations to all those that took part.
Lower School MFL Club
The Lower School MFL Club held in conjunction with Abingdon School continues to be a huge hit amongst our girls in Y7 and Y8, with numbers having tripled since the beginning of term. On the back of a fun session last week learning the song ‘Volare’, the pupils made and named their own pizzas using toppings they had brought along and could name in a variety of languages.
Year 5 trip to the Living Rainforest - 14th June
On Tuesday year 5 visited the Living Rainforest. It was a lovely day and the rainforest was, in places, sweltering. Our guide took us around the exhibit explaining the problems and threats that are facing the world’s rainforests. The group discussed the idea of sustainability and learnt that bananas are actually a herb and you can only get three lots of 500g chocolate bars from one cocoa tree per year - these two crops are intensively farmed and have led to a large amount of deforestation. We were also able to see a Goeldi’s monkey, pygmy marmoset and a toucan all of which were remarkable animals.
US1 visit the National Gallery - 13th June
A visit to the National Gallery London, took place for the returning sixth form group studying the History of Art. With the forthcoming visit to Florence in mind, it was decided that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would be the focus for A2 work, starting now and continuing next academic year. The National Gallery has an extensive collection of paintings from these centuries, so this was an excellent introduction to the course.
Yr 10 visit the Globe Theatre - 10th June
Year 10 travelled to London for a fun packed day at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. We started with a guided tour of the theatre, complete with gory details of life in Shakespeare’s London and then went to one of The Globe’s rehearsal rooms for a one hour drama workshop in which the girls (and some of the staff – not all of them in the English or Drama departments!) grappled with Shakespeare’s language. The energetic and often amusing exercises really helped the girls to understand how Shakespeare creates the relationships between characters on stage.
The girls then had an opportunity to explore The Globe shop and eat their packed lunches before the matinee performance of Much Ado About Nothing.
Everyone really enjoyed the show which was fast paced and full of fun improvisations. Notable was the way in which ‘Beatrice’ coped with a skirt slowly descending to the floor – to the hilarity of the audience and ultimately the actors too. Everyone felt that the day had really brought Shakespeare’s work to life, and that it had been a really worthwhile trip.
Year 6 visit Legoland Windsor - 8th June
Year 6 visited Legoland Windsor to compliment aspects of their Design Technology and ICT curriculum. During the visit the girls completed a workshop called Dr Heartbeat where they programmed robots to perform a variety of ‘life-saving’ activities. The girls even found time to test out some of the many rides at the park. Year 6 and their teachers had a wonderful visit to Legoland.
UK Mathematics Trust Olympiad Initial Training Camp
Katya Richards in Year 10 is one of 22 pupils in the country to be invited to the UK Mathematics Trust Olympiad Initial Training Camp at Queen's College, Oxford, from Sunday 28 August to Saturday 3 September 2011.
Carnegie Quiz - Tuesday 7th June
Ten Year 7 pupils took part in the Abingdon Schools’ Carnegie Quiz. Teams of pupils from the six participating schools answered questions on the shortlisted books that they have been reading as part of this year’s shadowing scheme. Eliose Collins from 7S was in the winning team and Ellis Duignan and Anne-Lise Stewart were in the team that came a close second. Amie McLellan was nominated by Mrs Pocock Bell as the pupil who has contributed most to shadowing at St Helens thus far and was awarded with a bar of chocolate which she shared with her friends.
Natasha Strange from 7S said “ It was a wonderful experience and I am happy I went to the quiz”. Katharine Tompkins said “I really enjoyed the quiz because we all had chance to share what we had read and at the same time met people from other schools”.
Music Scholars' Concert - 6th June
The music scholars and exhibitioners in Years 7-10 gave a fabulous concert in the Chapel. The girls performed a lovely variety of music on piano, violin, flute, clarinet, cornet, voice and harp, and the standards were extremely high. It was a most enjoyable evening - many congratulations to everyone who took part.
Junior Classics Club - "The Last Trojan" - 6th June
Yesterday lunchtime saw the culmination of the year's activities for Helicon, the junior branch of the Classics club, as they put on their performance of "The Last Trojan" in the Studio Theatre. The plot was based on Virgil's "Aeneid" and incorporated details of the Sack of Troy as well as the love affair of Dido and Aeneas, but this production was condensed into a mere 25 minutes of action - surely the shortest epic drama ever performed! Club members wrote the script, acted, prompted, directed and produced the play, as well as creating the armour for Aeneas. Particular credit must go to Zenia, who masterminded the whole affair - both affairs, in fact, for she also played the tragic role of Dido, ably backed by Joanna S. in the part of Aeneas. The strong supporting cast and the novel sight of animal sacrifice live (and, soon afterwards, dead) on stage all contributed to this truly epic production.
More photos can be seen in the Gallery
Year 10 Astronomy Lecture - 24th May
Year 10 were treated to an excellent lecture entitled ‘Stars, planets and wormholes’ by Dr Charlie Barclay of the Blackett Observatory, Marlborough College. The lecture began by the girls having to guess how many planets outside our own Solar System had been detected so far and then how this was achieved – the star’s motion ‘wobbles’ and there may be a dip in the star’s brightness when the planet passes in front of it. With an orange representing the sun, astronomical distances were explained and the girls were visibly shocked to think that at this scale, our nearest star would be in Paris! Dr Barclay also drew on historical aspects of astronomy, showing Aztec carvings of a solar eclipse and an animated clip of Galileo’s drawings of sunspots. There was also an environmental link as he explained the link between global warming and the sun’s activity and the fact that the Earth’s high albedo (reflectiveness) due to polar ice caps and cloud cover actually results in less radiation meeting the Earth’s surface. The lecture concluded with the idea of wormholes and the experimentation ongoing at CERN to find the elusive Higgs-Boson particle. The girls had plenty of interesting questions for Dr Barclay at the end.
Year 10 Geographers visit Nettlecombe Court - 18th-20th May
Year 10 geographers visited the field studies centre at Nettlecombe to undertake fieldwork as part of their IGSCE course.
The girls studied water quality, river characteristics, coastal processes and management. The weather was great and a fantastic, and informative time, was had by all.
Year 8 Trip to Fishbourne - 18th May
Year 8 girls have enjoyed their first Latin trip, which was to Fishbourne Roman Palace, just outside Chichester. They study the palace as part of their Latin course, so they found it exciting to see the building in the flesh - or rather, in the stone. The excellent mosaics are matched by the beautifully laid out Roman garden, and there is a chance to handle real Roman artefacts and then to dress up as Romans, though the girls chosen to play the part of slaves may have regretted volunteering their services, as they ended up having to sweep the floor and grind the flour.
Everyone had a great day out and learned a lot.
Year 10 Charity Dinner - 13th May
One hundred members of Year ten plus their guests and members of staff attended a Charity Dinner in aid of Swaziland Shewula Mountain Camp Project. Next year 18 girls are going to Swaziland to add a storeroom to the kitchen that other girls built in 2010,build an enclosure and help out in a local school.
During the evening Natalie Fatemi organised a music quiz and Claudia Galvez sang. A great evening was had by all.
Young Enterprise County Final - 12th May
Aspire, our Year 10 team, won two major awards at the Young Enterprise Oxfordshire County finals. They were for Best Marketing and Best Use of Media. Martha Stone Marketing Director has led the marketing effort with creative flair and dedication. Katya Richards, ICT Director, designed the award winning company website.
Congratulations to you all!
Cookery Competition Finalist
Congratulations to Natalie Miron (8M) who entered a national cookery competition run by the Guild of Food Writers.
Cook it! is the Guild of Food Writers’ children’s cookery competition and is part of a national children’s food and cookery education campaign launched by the Guild of Food Writers in 2003.
The competition required Natalie to create a menu for a delicious and imaginative two-course meal for family or friends which showed originality and skill. Natalie is one of six finalists who have been invited to cook their menu in front of a panel of eminent food judges including:
Diana Henry of the Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine
TV and restaurant chef Richard Phillips
The event will be held in the test kitchens of the BBC Good Food magazine in London.
Natalie’s menu will be:
Chicken Roulade with a mushroom duxelle filling
Cumin and pine nut rice with a duo of root vegetable purées
(celeriac purée and a carrot purée)
Trio of chocolate desserts:
White chocolate cheesecake
Milk chocolate and honeycomb mousse
Dark chocolate ganache with crushed pistachios served with a raspberry
coulis
This delicious and creative menu has to be prepared within a 90 minute time deadline. We wish Natalie every success in the National Final on Thursday, 9th June.
Years 5&6 Trip to Isle of Wight - 8th -11th May
Years 5 and 6 went on a residential visit to Kingswood on the Isle of Wight. Charlotte Hearne said “the last three days were amazing!”. We stayed at Kingswood, an educational adventure centre, where plenty of challenges and fun activities lay in wait for us. Charlotte Smith reported “I learned many things on the trip, and I discovered that I was a lot braver than I thought at balance beam, which was eight metres high in the air (but we had harnesses on, don’t worry). One of the instructors actually thought that I was going to do a handstand in the middle!” Emma Gibbons added “the most challenging activity was probably Jacob`s ladder, it took me about four jumps to get on. I did go quite quickly after that but my partner was sliding off so I bent down and tried to yank her up”.
The trip provided fantastic challenges and we even had consistently fabulous weather. Every girl was disappointed when it was time to leave, we all returned home to Abingdon exhausted but exhilarated.
Photo Gallery
Year 8 Careers Activity Afternoon - Tuesday 10th May
Year 8 spent a busy afternoon honing their teamwork, investigative, creative, organisation and presentation skills to complete a series of timed team challenges. They were also introduced to the careers department and to some of the information and resources available to them as they move through the school.
The NHS was chosen as a backdrop for the afternoon’s events both as the largest employer in Europe and as an employer of a wide range of careers and professions.
The focus of the afternoon was on careers in the allied health profession- careers that many of the girls would know little about.
The year was divided into teams, each of which had to create a potato creature to represent the NHS- but that was only the start of the afternoon!
The teams were then tasked with investigating a specific career using information from 2 excellent careers websites- stepintothenhs and nextstep and to prepare posters on both the career and on the type of person that would suit such a career. They then presented their findings to the rest of the year group.
In all it was a most informative and enjoyable afternoon.
British Biology Challenge Results 2011
The British Biology Challenge is a national competition run by the Society of Biology for Year 10 pupils. Entrants are required to take two online tests that assess their biological knowledge and understanding across a wide range of topics. This was the first year that girls from St. Helen’s have entered the competition and we were delighted with their results.
Fourteen girls were awarded gold medals, twenty one were awarded silver medals and sixteen were awarded bronze medals. Twelve girls were awarded highly commended certificates and seven commended certificates.
Katya Richards achieved one of the highest scores for the challenge in the country, so has been invited to collect a prize at a ceremony at the Royal Society in London on 30th June. Professor Steve Jones will present Katya with her prize as well as deliver a lecture.
Congratulations to all that took part! - Claire Bulmer, Head of Biology
Yr7 Art Trip to the Natural History Museum - 4th May
Year 7 visited the Entomology Department of the Oxford Natural History Museum to make drawings of exotic insects. The observational drawings they produced in their sketchbooks are preparation for an ink painting and collograph printing project. Towards the end of our visit, the museum's Education Officer brought out some live 'Hissing Cockroaches' which the girls were able to hold.
Yr 9 French Exchange - 29th March - 8th April
Twenty-seven members of Year 9 enjoyed a very pleasant stay in the homes of their French exchange partners in and around the Parisian district of Neuilly sur Seine. During the day, the girls followed an itinerary combining lessons at our partner school, Sainte Marie de Neuilly, with cultural visits to many of the star attractions such as Montmartre and la Basilique du Sacré Coeur, le Musée D'Orsay and the sumptuous seventeenth century Chateau Vaux le Vicomte. In the evenings and at the weekend, girls were generously entertained by their host families, many visiting le Chateau de Versailles or Disneyland Paris. We were blessed with excellent weather which meant we could make the most of spring-time in Paris. The girls were sad to leave, feeling that they had made friends for life and achieved a great deal, both personally and linguistically, in a very short time.
