St Paul's Steiner Parent Portal

Dear All

We have had a wonderful few weeks as the leaves change colour and start to flutter into the School garden. Autumn is here and we have been lucky to enjoy crisp bright days. We celebrated St Michaelmas, and St Michael, the archangel, a figure common in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He is a symbol of good triumphing over evil, courage, and strong will. The Festival inspired us to face our fears, as St Michael faced the dragon, and strengthen our resolve. Michaelmas falls near the Autumn Equinox, as the days get darker, a time of turning inward, a time of gathering strength to face growing darkness.

We have also celebrated the Jewish Festival of Rosh Hashanah and shared as a School Cholla bread and Apples dipped in Honey.

We are excited to be engaging with Black History Month at St Paul’s, and have some really interesting events planned. Class VIII went to the Tate Modern to see the Lubaina Himid exhibition and we look forward to having a Gambian Drumming workshop soon for the children. Collet Hunter came in to talk to the Middle School about her organisation that encourages positive social values in youths and communities, creating awareness to knife crime and wellbeing practices.

Class V went to the Shirdi Sai Baba Hindu Temple and Meditation Centre and Kagyu Samye Dzong Buddhist Meditation Centre in Bermondsey to compliment their block on Ancient India. Class VI have been studying Ancient Rome and spent last week Blacksmithing with Bernard Graves and have all come home with a lovely iron wall hook. They’ve also visited the London Mithraeum to see the remains of a Roman Temple near Bank. The children get to do such wonderful, diverse things to support their curriculum as we are lucky to be in the heart of London.

A huge thank you to you all for helping with our Open Day. We quite simply would not have been able to host it without you. The feedback from visitors was overwhelmingly positive.

We were sad to say goodbye to handwork teacher Miss Gebauer. She has been with St Paul’s for 9 years and much loved by the Students. She is going on to concentrate on being a Forest School teacher, and we wish her the very best of luck with her new endeavour.

We have two new members of staff. Miss Von Joel will teach Handwork to Class IV-VIII. She will also be running a knitting club at lunchtime so watch this space. We hope you enjoy her profile piece. She is already bringing much joy and creativity to St Paul’s with a her wonderful style!

Mr Steggall knows St Paul’s well, he is a former student and now a semi-professional footballer! We are very lucky to have him as our new Games teacher. He has been bringing much excitement to the Classes. Every week Class VII go sailing, Class VI kayaking at the West Reservoir and Class VIII rowing.

Miss Freeman and Class V collected food for local Food Bank - thank you so much to everyone who donated food, we had so many generous donations.

We hope you have lovely Half Term week and we look forward to seeing the children refreshed and ready for the rest of the year.

Anna Retsler