A massive well done to 84 Year 9 & 10 Students that took part in the Bronze DofE award at the weekend. It was an adventure from the beginning to the end and gave some of our students the most memorable experiences!

Day 1
Started off nice and sunny as pupils embarked on their 6 hour walk around the Harborough area. However, the sun soon changed from snow, hail, rain and then back to the sun shine but in very cold conditions. When pupils got to the camp they certainly enjoyed a well-deserved rest once they had pitched tents, cooked tea for themselves and roasted marshmallows around the camp fire. The weather tested us throughout the night and parts of their DofE experience was a challenge, but it didn’t let that stop them and ultimately found their self-belief to persevere and succeed.

Day 2
Pupils woke up in -2 weather making it a very tough start. Despite the frost, frozen food, few tears and heavy load all Y9&10 pupils supported each other to reach their final destination. They experienced laughter, resilience, friendship & independence.  For some it was life-changing and aspiration-raising, breaking down barriers to a limitless life.

Thank you to Ms Pinel & her team, Mr Cockcroft, Mr Bray, Mrs Howes, Mr White and Miss Clarke who gave up their weekend accompanying the students.

“Students were amazing, they really embraced the walk especially in testing conditions and worked exceptionally well in their teams, supporting each other whilst also having fun.”

A special thank you to Teej and his team of instructors from cogyouthservices.co.uk for leading all the groups.

An amazing start to Day 1 for our Bronze DofE students  – a very snowy start, followed by glorious sunshine and seeing a beautiful Spring lamb coming into the world.

That’s DofE!

Our Year 7 and 8 have been busy planting sunflower seeds during Science Week.

Year 8 and 9 dance students were lucky to have a visit from degree students who visited from De Monfort University to teach them some workshops and talk to them about their hopes for the future.

For Careers week we invited some of our alumni into school to speak to our sixth form students. On Tuesday, we had the pleasure of hearing from Fran Gallo who left St Pauls in 2018, she pursued an apprenticeship with Mattioli Woods where she is now a Client Relationship Manager. We also heard from Henryk Smolinski who left in 2011, he now works at DeMontfort University as a Schools and College Recruitment Officer. Our third guest on Tuesday was Samara Dale who attended St Paul’s between 2002 and 2009, she started work as a Health Care Assistant and is now the Deputy Sister in the Intensive Care Unit at the Leicester Royal Infirmary. We could not be prouder of our Alumni and would like to thank them for coming and inspiring our students.

On Wednesday morning, we welcomed Ant Gargan and James McCabe. Ant left St Paul’s in 2012 and went onto University where he secured employment with KPMG, he moved on and now works for Transport For London as a Change Portfolio Manager. James left school and worked at McDonalds becoming the youngest manager in the country at 17, he went on to work for the Probation and Young Offenders Service and is a now a Deputy Director and Responsible Individual in Private Children’s Services.

We are so proud of our ex-students and thank them all for their time this week, we’re looking forward to arranging many more events throughout St Paul’s with our ever growing Alumni group. If you attended St Paul’s in the past and are not already a member of our group or if you work for a company who would like to get involved with activities at school, please contact our Careers Advisor, Mrs McDonagh at careers@st-pauls.leicester.sch.uk.

On Tuesday 8^th March 20 roving reporters were tasked with the challenge of planning, writing and publishing a newspaper; all in one day.

The students who took part in the event worked incredibly hard as a News team to make sure that the news was reported well and in keeping with the core values we learned through the BBC’s teaching early in the session.

The day took us from learning about the news, to how to conduct an interview all the way to publishing the papers.

Well done to all involved. The students that created the paper and the array of staff and students that made the day possible.

World Book Day, the greatest day in the world of reading has been a huge success and we have thoroughly enjoyed the day  with lots of activities. Everyone that took part is a winner and have got goodie bags, including staff and students.

The winners of the Best Dressed competition are:

Best dressed boy:
1st Harveet  Year13  (GOODIE BAG AND £25 VOUCHER)
2nd Oliver  Year 8    (GOODIE BAG AND £10 VOUCHER)

 Best dressed girl:
 1st  Erin  year 11    (GOODIE BAG AND £25 VOUCHER)
2nd Tillie-Rose Year 8  (GOODIE BAG AND £10 VOUCHER)

Well done everyone!

Today being World Book Day showed the excitement and enthusiasm of our staff and students towards reading. To mark the day, we had a range of activities; a short story read today in all classes by all students, book quizzes and character quizzes entered our classrooms and a number of students and staff dressed as their favourite characters from a range of different literature. We saw characters from Harry Potter to the Victorian Classics such as Alice in Wonderland and Oliver from Oliver Twist. So diverse was the offering that we even had a little Miss Sunshine from the popular Mr. Men and little Miss books! Thank you to all who really got involved and showed the strength of St. Paul’s spirit and our appetite for reading. Particular thanks to our librarian Mrs. Tutla, who organised a most wonderful day full of reading related activities.

Ash Wednesday Prayer and Fasting for the people of Ukraine with Pope Francis.

Amazing fundraising from students across all year groups on Friday.

Congratulations to:
– Abrielle & Katrina who raised £53.99 for ‘Action Village India’ selling samosas & spring rolls
– Isabella, Megan & Manal who raised £180.24 for ‘Plan Intentional – Equality for Children &   Girls’ who sold Diversity Slime and Lollipops
– Kelis, Astar, Riley, Richard, Michelle & Juliana who raised £172.84 for the Friends of British Southern Cameroon from their Year 8 cake sale.  (Thank you to Mr Chapman for his support on that one!)