St Anne's Catholic School St Anne's Catholic School

18th April 2023 Parent Update

18th April 2023

Dear Parents,

Happy Easter!

I hope that you have had a good break. Although it’s not been term time the last two weeks, the school community have been very busy with a range of amazing trips both abroad and in the UK. Our ski trip got off to a slower start than expected in Dover along with thousands of other coaches, but our girls were incredibly resilient and ultimately had a great time on the Austrian slopes. Our languages department had a wonderful trip to Paris where pupils got the chance to practice their French skills and take in the Parisian sights. Our geographers had an amazing time in Iceland as they developed their understanding of the unique geological processes and the Icelandic culture. We also had a new trip to the beautiful Cornish town of St Ives for our art students. Without fail, staff reported that our girls were incredibly well behaved and a credit to the school and their families. You can see lots of photos of the trips on our social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

As a Catholic school we have been celebrating Easter as we hail the Risen Jesus. We are now in the season of Easter and we celebrated that in our whole school assembly this morning. We have a new school verse for the summer term: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Jeremiah 29:11. We hope it is an uplifting verse for the school community as we go into exam season!

We also took the opportunity this morning to wish a Happy Vaisakhi to all our Sikh children and their families who celebrated last week, as well as wish all our Muslim children and their families an early Eid Al-Fitr Mubarak for the celebrations at the end of the week. It’s wonderful to be able to share in our common celebrations and a great education for all our children.

We also had some sadder news at the start of term. We stand in solidarity with Springhill Catholic School who lost a member of staff, Mr Rylands, over the Easter holidays. Our thoughts and prayers are with him, his family, and the school community as they come to terms with his passing. We are opening a book of memories in our Oasis room for any pupils who were former Springhill pupils and wanted to take a moment to remember him.

PFA Meeting Thursday 20^th April 2023 6-7pm at St. Anne’s Catholic School

The St Anne’s Parents and Friends Association will be holding their next meeting on Thursday 20^th April 2023 6-7pm at St Anne’s (in room 17).

This is a fantastic opportunity to meet other parents and find out how you can support the PFA, no matter how small.

Strike Days: Thursday 27^th April and Tuesday 2^nd May

You may be aware that the NEU have called more strike days for next week and the week after. More information will follow shortly, but it is likely to be a similar arrangement on those days as we have had in other strike days over the last term. Once we have more certainty, we will contact you with more details later in the week.

Air Quality Study

The University of Southampton and Southampton City Council are working together to study air quality and traffic around schools in Southampton. This is a long-term issue that requires detailed study and input from the parents and guardians of local children. On our first project, we are working with Banister Primary School and St. Annes Catholic School & Sixth Form College in Southampton. We need your help to make the study a meaningful as possible.

We are interested in your views about air quality and traffic in Southampton. Please would you take a few minutes to complete this survey for a second time to contribute towards this air quality project. We really would appreciate you taking the time to fill this out again.

Your assistance will help us to find evidence-based and user-friendly solutions to local problems. We know you have busy lives and really appreciate your responses again. Your help will help us to make Southampton a better place to live and work.

Please click on the link below and follow the instructions: https://forms.office.com/e/MdCMrfESSv

This survey is led by Professor Ian Williams (idw@soton.ac.uk) and researcher Amy Hornsby (alh1g19@soton.ac.uk). If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact them directly.

Young Carers Awareness

Across the Country there are over 800,000 young people providing care for someone they love.

A Young Carer is someone who is under the age of 18 and who provides or intends to provide care for another person (of any age) either inside or outside of their family home where they are not being paid or carrying out voluntary work.

This can include, amongst other things, shopping, cleaning, providing emotional support, taking charge of the care of siblings or paying the bills amongst.

It is important that all young people learn how to help within their family but when this level of support impacts on the young person living the ‘normal’ life of a child it may be that they need some help in managing.

There is guidance, support and advice out there to help our Young Carers manage their caring roles whilst still being able to live their own fulfilling lives.

If one of the young people in your family is having to provide a caring role for someone else, whatever their age, we would love to hear from you.

Please email your daughter’s Head of Year via our info@st-annes.uk.com and someone will be in touch to discuss how we can help.

Year 10 Reports

Year 10 parents were due to receive their daughter's report on Wednesday 3rd May. Due to a variety of circumstances we will now send these reports home on Wednesday 10th May. Parents Evening remains as Wednesday 17th May. Our apologies for this change.

Relationships and Sex Education Policy

We consult on this policy regularly with our parents. There are no significant changes proposed for next year but the draft document is available on the website in the policies section. Responses are invited by email to consultation@st-annes.uk.com by 9am on Tuesday 9 May.

God Bless

James Rouse

Headteacher