Our Carol Service on Monday 19th December was a huge success; the school choir sang a range of music both traditional and contemporary including carols composed by Peter Dyke, Morten Lauridsen and our own director of music, Edward Davies. Here is a recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s Hark the Herald Angels Sing:

Our thanks go to the school choir (all 80 of them!) the school brass ensemble and SMR church organist Andrew Kirk.

Our thanks also to UWE Music Technology students Saoirse Christopherson and Solomon John-Addey for recording and mixing our carol service. To hear all of the items from the service please visit the Music department's soundcloud page at:

https://soundcloud.com/smrt-music-department

A joint project between the website Bristol24-7 and a team of student reporters at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School has produced a series of features offering a ‘kids-eye view’ of Bristol attractions, written by students themselves. These places, events and activities are all Bristol highlights aimed at entertaining whole families and our cub reporters followed a strict brief: to hold the fun they offer up to serious teenage scrutiny.

The project aims both to build both top-notch writing skills and instil confidence in students. Each of those taking part has had advice on writing for websites, coaching on how to conduct phone interviews, as well as assistance with editing to a tight brief and producing copy to a deadline.

Chris Brown, Bristol24-7 editor, said: “I am delighted to be able to offer this opportunity to young people interested in what can be an exhilarating profession. Huge credit is due to everyone on the editorial team whose hard work is, I hope, appreciated by all who read their work over the next few weeks.”

The articles, which run weekly until the end of this month, can be viewed on the Bristol24-7 website.

Here are the direct links to the first two:

Rowena's piece on the Gromit Unleashed trail

http://www.bristol247.com/2013/09/30/read-all-about-it-bristol-children-making-the-news-headlines-47039/

Lucy's view on the Bristol Aquarium 

http://www.bristol247.com/2013/10/07/read-all-about-it-enchanted-by-beauty-of-bristol-aquarium-29338/

The examination results this year were excellent again. We are very proud of all our students and of their hard work and talents. Congratulations also to all staff on their hard work, inspirational support for learning and attention to detail, and sheer determination in supporting our students to achieve so well. Congratulations to all our parents/carers on their care and guidance and support during the stress of examinations.

GCSE

This year, the 5 A* - C pass rate increased by 6% to 88%. The 5 A* - C pass rate including English and Maths also increased by 4% to 72.4%. (The average for Bristol was 52%). 99.5% of students achieved 5 or more A*- G grades.

An amazing 50% of students (up from 38.5%) achieved 3 or more A* and A grades. We are really proud of all our students who achieved so well. An impressive 23 students gained 5 or more A* grades! Notable successes were Matthew Chapman, Richard Betts and Jonathan Catt, all of whom achieved at least 8 A* and 2 A grades. Also of note were Barnaby Lewis (8A* 1A 1B), Matthew Palmer (7A* 3A), Dorothy Hislop (7A* 2A 1B), Sarah Tomlinson (6A* 4A 1B), Florence Hislop (6A* 4A), Marcus Hook (6A* 4A), Harry Johnson (6A* 4A), and James Moseley (6A* 4A). We had six sets of twins who did really well indeed. Between them they got 87 A and A* grades (43 A* and 44 A grades)! There are also significant success stories for many other students as we had a number of students tackling personally challenging situations and triumphing over adversity. We are very proud indeed of them.

You may have seen that our students featured in the national media – you can still read about them on the following websites;

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-08-22/pupils-gcse-exam-results/ (picture),

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/22/gcse-results-day-six-twins-top-grades_n_3793900.html (article).

A2 (A Level)

The overall pass rate was 99.3%. 60% of grades were A*, A and B grades.

Outstanding achievements were Jeremy Budd with 4A* who will be studying Maths at Cambridge and Krystyna Smolinkski with 4A* who will be studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge.

Jeremy is an inspiration to those over coming challenges as he has Aspergers Syndrome and Sensory Neuropathy and is an example of how resilience and love of learning can triumph over obstacles. His success was covered extensively in the local and national media. You can still read about him and some of our other success stories (and see some lovely photographs) on the following websites;

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/16/a-level-results-day-2013-pictures_n_3766247.html#slide=2805598,

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/into-university/clearing/cancer-what-cancer-six-fabulous-feelgood-stories-from-alevel-results-day-8763497.html.

We have 3 additional students going off to start courses at Oxford and Cambridge (Gareth Bromley – History at Oxford, James Hilton – English at Cambridge, and Alice Thomson - Biological Sciences at Oxford). 6 students are off to study Medicine (Ben Alba, Zoe Barber, Henry Atkinson, Dominic Dee, Joe Healy, Mike Masih). Other notable successes were Karis Godbeer (3 A*), Rossy Barnett, Stephen Fulham, Susanna Harvey and Anna Skinner (2A* 1A), David Moseley (1A*, 2A, 1B), and Will Bryan-Smith, Tiffany Irwin, Hannah Wyatt and Anthony Sefia (1A* 2A).

AS

The pass rate was 91.9%, with A and B grades at 46.1%. Of the 15 students in Year 13 who took the Extended Project AS qualification, where students have to undertake their own piece of independent research, 11 got an A* or A grade.

Year 8 History Cabot Project   The Cabot Project is an international project trying to discover more about the Bristol discovery voyages – in particular, those undertaken by the Venetian adventurer and explorer, John Cabot. As part of the project, year 8 students from schools around Bristol, including SMRT, participated in a research and presentation project, about Bristol in the 1500's.   We kicked off at Bristol University, with a presentation from Dr Evan Jones (a Historian, Senior Lecturer and founding member of the Cabot Project.) Then we were divided into groups of four within our schools - my group decided to study John Smyth, a man who was a successful and influential Bristol merchant, who had a dark side of smuggling and bribery.   Having agreed our area of research we then set to work with sources allocated to each group member. After that, over the course of many weeks and two group meetings, we learnt lots of new information; studied primary and secondary sources which we selected ourselves; and created PowerPoint's teeming with fascinating facts and superb sources. We ended the project with every group presenting their research, back at Bristol University.   Through this project we've got to know new people, we've learnt research and presentation skills, and we've discovered Bristol in the 1500's - a totally different Bristol to the one we know today...   Oliver Year 8 History Student

 

We were delighted to welcome to our school recently the Ikoba School Deputy Headteacher Patrick Zahura and S4 student Tonny Ayebale. Here’s a selection of photos and memories of their visit.