The members of a year 9 tutor group turned their excitement about Christmas into a pledge to make other people's Christmases better by organising an all-day fund-raising event. Festive Friday on 11 December raised more than £300 for one of the charities that students have voted to support this year, the cancer charity CLIC Sargent.
"Everyone dressed up in red and white in homage to Father Christmas and his elves," says one of the organisers, Raniyah Qureshi. "Our form tutor, Christelle Maillot, inspired many of the staff to catch on to our festive fever. A lot of them were wearing Santa hats – which we also sold."
The day took in a fancy dress competition, a bake sale and even a showing of a favourite Christmas film. Raniyah says, "A lucky member of year 7 won the costume contest after bowling us over with her fantastic outfit. There were many other creative ideas for costumes too, including Miss Holley covered from head to toe in sprigs of holly. We sold cupcakes, brownies and sweets in all shapes and sizes and the day was a huge success."
Year 12 entrepreneurs set up shop in Shepherd's Bush
December 2009
25 students from year 12 opened a pop-up shop in the West 12 shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush on 5 December as their Young Enterprise businesses reached their finale. Two teams of students taking part in the Young Enterprise programme, where young people set up their own companies and raise capital to sell their products, joined other companies from Ealing Independent College in an empty shopping unit and collected profits for the environmental charity Healthy Planet.
Charlotte Call, the managing director of one of the Young Enterprise companies, joined the scheme to find out how business works. "It's all about delegation," says Charlotte. "You quickly find out you can't do everything yourself and it takes teamwork."
The board of Charlotte's company, Go, decided to try its hand at fashion retail. Charlotte says, "We have a finance director, three marketers and a sales director who worked hard to source us scarves on a sale-or-return basis so that we could better manage the budget. After spending a long time researching online, she finally tracked some down from a supplier in Italy."
Go's products encourage consumers to make choices that benefit the environment, according to board member Amanda Stenbaek, who spoke to Healthy Planet's blog. Amanda says, "More people should be buying greener Christmas presents for their loved ones this year to help save our planet from climate change.”
Student travel writers visit Michael Palin lecture
December 2009 Four young travel writers from years 7 and 9 visited the Royal Geographical Society on 12 December to hear a lecture from one of the genre's best-selling authors, Michael Palin. Jackie Li, Malin Hay, Clementine Makower and Charlotte Dougal won the tickets after coming first in a travel writing competition organised by St Paul's own Geography Society earlier this term.
"Michael Palin had based his talk on the seven expeditions he has filmed over the last 20 years," say Clementine and Charlotte. "The most famous is probably his first, Around the World in 80 Days, but he also talked about his Pole-to-Pole journey and his circular trip around the Pacific, among others."
Michael entertained the audience of all ages at the RGS's annual Christmas Children's Lecture by recalling some of the people he had met during his travels. "On a small deserted island in the Baring Straits he met somebody who remembered him from Monty Python's Flying Circus even though they had no televisions there," they add. "He started singing The Lumberjack Song to a man in the Himalayas but couldn't get past the first few lines even though he had written it."
Carol singers celebrate a German Christmas
December 2009 "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" ("Silent night, holy night") was the tune of the day on 7 December as German learners from all year groups at St Paul's took their turn to lead our Christmas celebrations. One of our largest modern languages classrooms hosted a lunchtime Weihnachtsfest event, which German teacher Carole Boothman organises every year.
"The Weihnachtsfest was really fun," says one of the year 7 revellers, Georgina Thorpe. "We sang carols, some of us recited poems and some teachers played instruments. afterwards, we were excited to have some German sweets we'd never tried before."
The festival featured German carols and guitar music, poetry readings by year 7 and 8 girls and close harmony singing by a group from year 10. A selection of German treats included stollen, Lebkuchen, biscuits and Haribo gummies.
"It was really interesting to hear all the poems and songs," says Malin Hay, also year 7, "and the fact that everyone spoke only German was really cool."
Bell rings out during work on roof
December 2009 Harps, organs and choirs may be everyday sounds around St Paul's but roof maintenance work on 4 December meant that students and staff heard a more unusual instrument – the bell above the Great Hall.
Iain Radford, the school engineer, was able to ring the bell when he went up on a hydraulic lift to check its housing. "It was such a lovely surprise to hear the warm, sonorous tone of the bell," says Iain, "although it may be some time before we hear it again. We need to take it down and reinstall the bearings to make it really safe."
Research by the St Paul's archivist, history teacher Howard Bailes, has shown that the bell is even older than the school itself. "The bell was founded in 1902 by J Wilson & Co. from Glasgow," Howard says. "We know that it was in place before St Paul's opened in 1904, because it appears in the original Indian ink drawings by the architect, Gerald Horsley. Current Architecture also published a photograph of the bell in its June 1904 issue."
Students battle chess masters for charity
December 2009 A charity chess tournament featuring three internationally-renowned chess masters gathered more than £450 of pledges for the new St Paul's charities, CLIC Sargent and Lawrence's Roundabout Well and our own bursary fund. Jovana Houska, the UK women's champion, Sabrina Chevannes and Lorin D'Costa played as many as 20 girls and some members of staff around three circles of chessboards in the Great Hall.
"With sponsorship based on how many moves our players could make before being beaten, the St Paul's competitors held out remarkably well," says maths teacher Martin Hanak-Hannerl. "Helen Fishwick from year 9 only lost by two points when time ran out and the judges had to adjudicate her game."
"It was very inspiring to watch the masters moving from board to board and instantly calculating what moves to make," Helen says. "I have always enjoyed playing chess inside and outside St Paul's and learning from their unusual style of play was an excellent way of improving my technique."
Netball teams play Harrodian
December 2009 Results from our netball matches against The Harrodian School on 3 December:
Under 14 A
18-5
Player of the match: Sophie Wardlaw
Under 14 B
9–7
Player of the match: Andrea Hamkin
Debaters win team prize at London Transport Museum
December 2009
Four debaters from year 9 turned their minds to the challenges facing the 21st-century city when they took part in an invitation-only debating competition at the London Transport Museum on 20 November. Kate Dunbar, Roxana Legezynska, Clementine Makower and Yasmin Sachee won the team prize in the contest organised by the English-Speaking Union.
"The team had a busy day with three debates about whether graffiti is a legitimate art form, whether to replace historic buildings with energy-efficient ones and whether public transport should be free to use," says maths teacher Camilla Darwin, one of two members of our staff responsible for debating. Roxana adds, "It was a very rewarding experience and really boosted my confidence when it comes to speaking in front of other people."
Being here 