St John’s Pupils from the Lord Mayor’s Positively Portsmouth Passport to Success scheme were invited to attend the Annual Meeting of the Portsmouth City Council today, where the new Mayor was elected.

Our Year 1 pupils went on a trip to the Gosport Discovery Centre today to learn about ‘Seaside Holidays in the Past’.

To continue with our celebrations of Charles Dickens we invited JD Sharp, author of the dramatic and gory teen thriller ‘Oliver Twisted’, to the school on Friday 11 May for an inspirational Author Talk and creative writing workshop.

Year Two enjoyed some lovely weather and fun learning activities at Staunton Country Park last week.

Pupils listened for sounds and made musical compositions based on the journey they took around Staunton. They pretended to be centipedes on their journey, blindfolded to strengthen and test their senses!    They also played a game of ‘Bat and Moth’.

Two of our students are soon to fulfil their dream of performing live to a packed venue after going through to the Southern Area final of the national Live and Unsigned music competition at the Portsmouth Guildhall.

Harvey Groom, 16, and Daniel Forbes-Willis, 14, who both attend St John’s form two members of the rock group ‘Spartan’. Harvey, lead guitarist and lead vocals, formed the band in 2011 with fellow Music School pupils Tod Blackmore, aged 16, and Ollie Joe-Browning, aged 14. Daniel, who has been playing the drums for about four years, joined the band just six months ago, after the original drummer left the band. The band has their own EP ‘A new Age’ which is available for download on over 20 websites including iTunes and Amazon, with over 200 copies sold already.

Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Sleep on the safe arrival of their baby boy, Toby. Toby was born on Wednesday 2nd May at 5:35am and weighed 7lbs 9oz.  

On Tuesday our Year 3 pupils braved the weather and headed to for Old Portsmouth for a Geography field trip. 

On Tuesday 1 May we held our first Kayaking and Wakeboarding activity at Hilsea Lido.

As of the start of May, kayaking and wakeboarding are available to Years 10 and above, through Adventure College at Hilsea Lido.  Although numbers are limited, the activities are already proving to be extremely popular. 

On Tuesday 1 May the pupils of St John’s were once again inspired by the world’s fastest blind man Steve Cunningham; he has been described as the most inspirational man alive.

Steve visited St John’s a few weeks ago and gave an awe-inspiring presentation to the whole school which was then followed by delivering some workshops to Years 11, 12 and 13. It was so successful that Steve was invited in again to work with the other year groups 7,8,9 and 10.

The first meeting of the term was a very successful one, addressed by the former Bishop of Rochester and Durham, the Rt Rev Michael Turnbull.

Bishop Michael Turnbull served as Bishop of Rochester from 1988 to 1994 and Bishop of Durham from 1994 to 2003. The latter is the fourth most senior appointment in the Church of England, with a seat in the House of Lords. In office he made a notable contribution to the administrative reorganisation of the Church of England.

On Friday 27 April Year 7 students were visited by representatives of the dog unit from Hampshire Constabulary and the PCSO service, as part of their PSHE programme.  

On Friday 27 April a group of Year 6 and Reception pupils travelled to Marwell Zoo.

For many of the Reception pupils, this was the first time they had visited a zoo and came face to face with animals they had only ever seen on the television or in books. Despite the wet weather, they were able to see at first hand just how big the giraffes and rhinos were. They were also entertained by a small colony of meerkats.

Sixth Form student Katherine Bement is celebrating after she auditioned against 4,600 other hopefuls and won a place on the National Youth Theatre’s Summer Programme.

Katherine auditioned against 4,600 other young people in the February half-term, and in April received the news that her monologue had impressed judges enough for a place on the National Youth Theatre’s (NYT) Summer Programme. The programme is a two-week acting course at Bruford College of Theatre Performance, near London, from 14– 26 August.

Sixth Form student John Hui has had his art work printed and displayed on Billboard’s across the area as part of a national art competition.

John was crowned one of ten winners of the ‘Who Are You?’ national design competition run by the Arts University College at Bournemouth (AUCB) and JCDecaux, beating entrants from all over the UK, Europe and even America.

On Tuesday the 24^th April Amy Seakins joined the Brother Walworth Society for an informal presentation. Amy is a PhD researcher with the Natural History Museum and Kings College London and was conducting her final interviews with the students who had been taking part in her study.