News list
Parents’ Association events have raised almost £12,500 for charity this year. This term’s Fun Day raised £1300 for the Street Child World Cup charity. The Fun Day was in its second year, incorporating the well-loved Fun Run and was designed for all ages to have an action-packed afternoon of sport and play with St John’s families, friends and staff.
The St John’s College Choir travelled to Normandy to take part in services that commemorated the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The Choir performed at three services over the course of the anniversary on Friday 6 June 2014. Performances took place at Bayeux Cathedral, Bayeux Cemetery and Arromanches and the commemoration was broadcast live on BBC One. St John’s College Choir was the only choir to sing at the British commemoration services, attended by members of the Royal Family as well as heads of state from all over the world.
For their production this year, Form 3 presented Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a dramatic adaptation of Roald Dahl’s unique take on the classic fairy-tale. The children had no trouble engaging and maintaining the audience’s attention throughout the performance, immediately establishing a light-hearted and fun atmosphere with some spirited ensemble singing. Comic scenes were counterbalanced with decidedly more intense and moodier moments, with the children’s creation of the ‘Forest Wild’ through carefully choreographed mime and gesture a particular highlight.
Children throughout St John’s have raised a tremendous £5,733.02 for local charity, Blue Smile since the Easter holidays and the total is still rising. Blue Smile is a Cambridgeshire children’s charity that provides counselling and therapy for pupils in schools between the ages of 3 and 13 during a critical window of opportunity for change. The donation was raised by the ‘Grow Your Money’ initiative.
To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong (Joseph Chilton Pearce)
The Welding Institute, based in Cambridge, visited St John’s as part of Form 3’s ‘Wonder Afternoon’. The children discovered that welding with chocolate is an innovative and fun way of demonstrating welding and engineering principles. Bridges are made of all kinds of materials; stone, steel, concrete, wood and, in this workshop, chocolate!
The Thinking Skills initiative has been developed in Byron House to enhance the children’s ability to be logical, critical and creative thinkers. A wide range of transferable skills are taught through lessons across the curriculum and discrete thinking-skills lessons offer a further opportunity to practise decision-making, lateral thinking and mindmapping. The children are encouraged to gain a deeper understanding of their own preferred learning styles and to gain familiarity with a range of study and revision strategies. Lessons continue to focus on encouraging those habits of mind,
The Fifth Form’s thespian offering this year, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was a triumph from start to finish. When the young Alice’s attention is caught by the sudden presence of a curious White Rabbit, she follows it and inadvertently tumbles down the rabbit hole. Thus begin her bizarre and often psychedelic experiences in Wonderland: altercations with talking animals, both extinct and mythological; a tea party with a Mad Hatter and an even madder March Hare; and a game of croquet with a pack of cards, with flamingos for mallets, to name but a few.
The Form 5 children spent an exciting day absorbed in the wonder of words, when acclaimed young poet, Mr Luke Wright, came to visit Senior House. Mr Wright, who has appeared regularly on Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Live’ and tours the globe with his refreshingly irreverent words, injected real life and excitement into the day, demonstrating that poetry is very much alive and kicking in Britain today.
BBC News Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and his production team spent the morning at St John’s filming a computer programming lesson with a group of Form 4 children. The workshop was aired throughout the day on 8th October on BBC News to celebrate the manufacture of the millionth Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive pocket-sized stand-alone computer to which a screen, keyboard and mouse can be connected.