News list
Eleven members of staff completed the Cambridge Half Marathon on Sunday 8 March. Headmaster, Mr Neil Chippington, explained, “This was an amazing feat and the team effort, as well as individual successes, are part of what make working at St John's College School such a joy and privilege.” This is the second year in a row that the school staff have taken part and raised money for Humanitas and the school in Ayensuako, Ghana. There is still time to donate (https://www.justgiving.com/SJCSHumanitas). Form 1 teacher, Miss Dempster, said, “Running the Cambridge Half
The art department at Senior House is a lively place where the children experience a wide range of media and materials through a stimulating curriculum. Housed in a spacious room with ample natural light, the children gain experience in drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics through the study of both historic and contemporary art practice. Each child keeps a sketchbook which is used to record observations and to research and plan project work. Weekly lessons last for an hour and different topics and processes are studied each term. Some projects use digital media both
Each Form 4 class was fortunate to have an hour and a half long workshop with actor, composer, writer and beatboxing violinist Faz Shah on 3 March. Form 4 gained a new insight into creating music, one that was instant and absolutely unique. The beatboxing violinist led each class through an engaging session exploring vocal percussion and beatboxing and how to layer sections, develop basic core rhythms in various musical genres and explore techniques to nurture musical creativity.
St John’s Under 11 Boys’ 1st Team performed brilliantly at IAPS Regional round in very wet and cold conditions at Haileybury School and have qualified to compete in the IAPS National Finals on 18 March at Rugby School. Director of Sport, Mr McComb, commented, "The boys played an impressive standard of hockey throughout the day and kept their concentration and motivation, despite the inclement weather conditions."
Fresh from their win earlier in the term when they were crowned County Champions, the U13 Boys' 1st team successfully competed in the IAPS Regionals on 20 February and secured their place in the National Finals on 6 March at Cheltenham College. Assistant Director of Sport, Mr David Millward, commented, "The boys travelled to Bedford School with high spirits and plenty of optimism and were ready to work as a tight team. The weather forecast predicted that it was going to rain all day but this certainly didn't dampen the boys' levels of motivation."
House matches for any sport are a real highlight in the school’s sporting calendar and yesterday's Senior Boys' House hockey matches were no exception. Assistant Director of Sport, Mr David Millward, explained, "Traditionally speaking they are the earliest form of school competition and often deliver very passionate and determined performances with children working together as a cohesive team."
Author and illustrator of picture books and children's fiction, Matty Long, visited Byron House at the start of Book Week with drawing workshops designed for each year group. The children engaged fully as Matty encouraged and inspired artistic talents with his easy to follow instructions and demonstrations of how to draw many of his appealing characters from his eye-catching Salty Dogs picture book. After the workshops, many classes drew cartoon strips of their own inspired by his style and wrote accompanying stories. One of the Byron House teachers
As part of Book Week, author Andy Shepherd (https://www.andyshepherdwriter.co.uk) visited Byron House to speak to the children about her hugely popular dragon books. Her book The Boy Who Grew Dragons was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019 and long-listed for the Blue Peter Book Award 2019. The story is the third in the series and tells of Tomas, who hatched his own pet dragon, Flicker, from a dragon fruit.
This term Form 1 are taking part in the ‘Inquiring Science’ philosophy project which explores how children can best be prepared by education to think critically and protect themselves from false or inaccurate claims. The project is funded by Ron Zimmern and the PHG Foundation. It is based at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, as part of The Bridge Centre for Research Translation and Oracy Cambridge, the Hughes Hall Centre for Effective Spoken Communication.
Dr John Maclennan, from Cambridge University’s Department of Earth Sciences, gave an informative talk to Forms 4 and 5 pupils on the magmatic processes that influence the life cycles of volcanoes. Dr MacLennan enlightened the children with an overview of the general tectonic processes and the importance of plate movement and convection currents that resulted in different types of plate boundaries. The talk was part of our specifically designed Thursday afternoon Enrichment Programme and ties in with the geography work Form 5 study on volcanoes: plate boundaries,