Oom-Pah-Pah! - St Peter's Church of England Aided School

NEWSLETTER PAGE
A word
from
the Chaplain!
Is it possible to see any good news
around us There might well be “green
shoots” but current fashion in the media
seems to be that bad news is the only
news. They want to outdo each other
in foretelling doom and gloom. We aim
to train our young people to see the
positives in situations, to see options in
the circumstances.
Our work raising money for charities
gives a great chance to do this,
working together imagining, planning
and producing all sorts of events. In
addition, there have been many activities
celebrating our school links with Africa
and Europe. We have listened to other
people from many different places
telling us about what challenges they
face and how they are working to
overcome them. Our assemblies have
been about a young man dragged away
from his homeland deciding to take
his opportunities to gather a team and
rebuild the walls of his capital city. Our
school play is a triumph of teamwork and
practice.
After half term the season of Lent will
start which gives us a chance to practise
self discipline. Faith teaches us to look
beyond the bad news to possibilities of
new life. At Easter we are inspired to
face even the most hopeless situation
and imagine the possibilities. It is a
challenge to speak positively and act
confidently but in a world so filled with
bad news, let’s encourage the “green
shoots.”
KC
Nadine Werner
Our German foreign language assistant this year is Nadine Werner who hails from
Baden-Baden in Baden-Württemberg. Nadine has been studying English and German
at the University of Tübingen and has chosen to spend this year in Exeter to gain
experience in teaching and to improve her spoken English.
Nadine admits to loving the English and the English language and was eager to spend
time here this year. Four years ago, Nadine spent 7 months working in Ilfracombe in
an office-based role and loved the region so much that the South West was her first
choice of location for this current placement. St Peter’s has been really lucky to have
Nadine as she has proved to be popular with students and staff alike. She gives freely
of her time and also teaches in the community programme twice a week.
She accompanied the trip to Bamberg in
November and is currently preparing for
the Rhinelands visit. Nadine has certainly
enjoyed her time in Exeter to date and is
eager to say “The pupils and staff helped
me to feel welcome and at home here so
there has been absolutely no time to miss
Germany!”
When Nadine returns to Germany in the
summer, her first plan is to complete her
degree. Later she would like to become a
teacher of English and German in Germany
but we are trying to persuade her to come
back to the UK!
Poetry Live
Many students ‘don’t like poetry’
(although they often have a great interest
in song lyrics). After the Poetry Live Day
they were surprised. Many of the 120
Year 11s who attended this event on the
3rd of February left the Great Hall, Exeter
University with a different view of poetry
from the one they arrived with.
Poems should be heard as well as read
and many of the poets who have their
poems in the English GCSE Anthology
were there to perform these and other
poems. Poets included, Carol Ann Duffy,
Gillian Clarke and Imtiaz Dharker.
Gillian Clarke read poems about a
daughter growing away (“the tight, red
rope of love which we both fought over”)
about Bosnia (“the air stammering with
gunfire”) and the Paddington rail crash
(“Darling, I’m on the train”). Asked “Why
do you like poetry” she says that “a poet
will have said something about all human
feeling. Somewhere there is a poem that
will meet your need”.