St. Michael-at-Bowes C. of E. School
Religious Services and Events 2022 – 2023
July 2023
SMAB News – Another Baby
Mr Cooke is now a father of two! His wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl yesterday evening – Hallie Iris Cooke, 6lb 8oz. Mother and baby are doing very well, and Mr Cooke is a very happy man! I’m sure you will join with the staff in wishing them all the very best as they settle into life as a family of four.
June 2023
French Day
Bonjour! On Thursday we held our annual French Day, with children and staff speaking French as much as possible throughout the day and learning more about the language and culture. We learned to play boules, created artwork based on the works of famous French artists and even ordered our lunch in French! Thank you to the family members who joined us for our French cafe – so many of you attended and it was wonderful to see you all.
Horrible Science
A lucky group of year 3, 4 and 5s got the chance to pop along to our neighbours, Oakthorpe, to be entertained by a visiting author- Nick Arnold. He spoke about his famous writing – The Horrible Science series – and led us through some experiments. Here is what the children had to say:
“I was chosen to do a demonstration and Nick really made me laugh. It was called the flying poo experiment but thankfully nobody got covered!” That’s a relief! This was an activity to show how forces can remove a piece of paper without moving the object on top – in this case a fake poo!
“Nick spoke to us about different forces and demonstrated some cool tricks with a bucket and a water bottle – we really want to show the school in a future assembly!” I agree, we will definitely pass on our new knowledge to the rest of the school. Unlike some of the volunteers, hopefully the SMAB audience will avoid getting wet!
May 2023
Community Garden
Our section of the community garden next to St Cuthbert’s vicarage is in need of some love. Our gardening club are working hard to prepare the ground for planting and groups will visit during Living Well week. If any parents or other family members can spare some time during the week to help us dig and weed, we would really appreciate your support. We would also appreciate donations of seeds and plants, particularly fruit and vegetables to plant. Please let us know if you can help via Class Dojo or by speaking to someone on gate duty before or after school.
Miss Iesini, Miss Karakas and I were lucky enough to take a group of children to the Dugdale Centre in Enfield Town on Saturday 20th May to see a play written by Onjali Q Rauf. Onjali wrote one of our favourite books ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’, which Year 4 read as one of their Big Read texts. We also have many more of her books in school and they are beautifully written as well as addressing some incredibly important themes (refugees, autism, friendship etc.)
The play was excellent – we laughed and cried and we were so impressed with the acting. After the show, we met Onjali, who was absolutely lovely, and she signed our books. We have several signed copies for the school library and are hoping to organise for her to visit the school next academic year.
We are pleased to announce that Miss Lopes gave birth to a little girl, named Maria on Sunday 21st May. Mum and baby are doing very well. I’m sure you will join with us in wishing the family well as they enjoy time together.
This morning we had a wonderful collective worship, led by the RRS council, which included a quiz on out knowledge of King Charles. Four children won a voucher for a free ice lolly! This afternoon we joined together in the playground to share food and fun, and to celebrate the coronation ahead of the main events over the weekend.
April 2023
SMAB Celebrations
We have much to celebrate at SMAB this week. Over the Easter holidays Miss Bell got married and became Mrs Wood. I’m sure you will join us in wishing her and her husband many happy years of married life together. In other news, Miss Lopes is expecting a baby girl at the end of May. We wish her the best of luck (and sleep) when her daughter arrives.
After a long illness, Miss Miller is finally feeling well enough to start back at work part time. She is building up her strength and her hours during this half term. We are very happy to have her back.
MARCH 2023
FOTSA Spring Fair
Thank you to everyone who attended and/or supported our spring fair on Tuesday. It was a lovely event, despite the rubbish weather, and we managed to raise £777.65 for FOTSA. The money will be shared between both schools. The book stall raised an incredible £100 for our partner St Jerome’s Orphanage. Thank you to May and Viviana in Year 4 for organising the book stall.
A special thank you to the parents from both schools who came early to help us set up, and stayed at the end to help tidy up. Your support is hugely appreciated.
There was a sea of red in school, as we raised money for Comic Relief today. The person wearing the most red items in each class received a chocolate egg. The child who wore the most red items in the whole school was… They won a larger Easter egg. No one quite managed to beat my total of 29 different items but several came very close, with Miss Morus wearing a spectacular 26 items.
This week Ashley from Pathway and Rebekah from St. Michael-at-Bowes Church came to perform a sketch about the Easter story during collective worship, exploring how the crowd responded to Jesus. Pathway works in many schools across North London presenting Bible stories in a fun way to about 10,000 primary-school age children every term, including the FAB@SMAB club here.
JANUARY 2023
Trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral
I had the opportunity to take some children to the LDBS service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Throughout our travels to and from, the children represented our school amazingly. Some of us had never travelled before on the underground, so we were able to learn a few new geographical skills on the way!
Once we arrived at the cathedral, every single one of us was mesmerised by the vast, intricately detailed and designed building. The children were inquisitive and impressed the helpers with their questions and knowledge of the history of London. As the service began, we were given candles to help us reflect during the prayers and bible readings. The atmosphere was overwhelmingly calm and peaceful.
Overall, we had a fantastic time and would recommend to everybody that they take the opportunity to visit this historical landmark in our city!
SEPTEMBER 2022
McMillan Cake Sale
The RRS School Council, with the help of the RE Team, held a successful and well attended MacMillan Cancer Cake sale last Friday afternoon to raise money for this wonderful charity. Parents/carers and their children bought a mountain of mouth-watering cakes, doughnuts, and biscuits donated by so many people. Thank you to everyone who came, supported and bought cakes! In one hour, a total of £444 was raised.
To mark the beginning of a new school year, the whole school participated in the first of three RE days this year. With the theme of this day focusing around reflection and prayer, children were invited to our local churches, St. Michael at Bowes and St. Cuthbert’s, to join in on writing our own reflections and prayers for the year ahead, which they did with the support of Father Engin and Mark.
Each year group looked at 4 different aspects that could make up a reflection/prayer: gratitude, community, guidance and the world. We spent the afternoon discussing what each aspect meant to them and what they were thankful for or ask for guidance about to add to their class prayer book to use as their prayers at the end of each day.
Alongside this, each year group spent the morning looking at a different area of Christianity. Year 3 focused on ‘Who is the saint of our school?’ and explored the life of St. Michael, creating beautiful mosaic pieces of our saint. Year 4 looked at the Beatitudes and how they can influence a Christian’s way of living. In Year 5, they reflected on wisdom, looking at where Christian’s and people might gain wisdom from and how this could help their day to day lives to grow their knowledge and challenge their behaviour and thinking. Year 6 spent some time looking at what it means to go on a pilgrimage as a person of faith, and why some people might want to go on one.
