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The hrist’s hronicles

 

Friday, 27th February 2015

www.christs.richmond.sch.uk 

Welcome to the new format

Christ’s Chronicles, which we will

be issuing weekly. Your feedback

would be most welcome. Please

email me at: 

sgarrett@christs.richmond.sch.uk 

Well done to our Year 8 Boys Football

 Teamwho beat TwickenhamAcademy 16-0

in a borough league fixture. This

comprehensive victory was sealed, mainly,

by a glut of goals scored by Owen Perkins.

Well Done!

 The Year 10 Boys Football teamplayed

Grey Court this week whilst sporting their

brand new kit, courtesy of Christ’s SchoolPTA. (see pictures on our Facebook page)

 They trailed 2-0 in the first 30 minutes but

rallied to score just before half time through

the first class effort of Imran Uche. Sadly,

Grey Court made a come back in the

second half and the final score was 4-2.

As always, see our Facebook page

for pictures and fixture list. Just

click here. 

Tuesday 3rd March 

 Year 9 Parents Evening 

3.30pm - 6.30pm 

Some important dates for your diary:

 Year 9 Boys & Girls

Vaccinations

World Book Day 

Character Costumes 

Thursday 5th March 

GCSE Science Live! 

 Year 7 Trip to Spain 

Issue No. 12

Remember to check

the School Bulletin for

more information.

Friday 6th March 

For World Book Day we are challenging students & staff to

take a photograph of themselves reading a book or an e-

Reader in an “extreme” situation… That might be at the top of

a mountain, on their skateboard, up a tree... or somewhere

else. We will be tweeting these on our school twitter feed

during World Book Day on the 5th March. Please email your

photos to: sgarrett@christs.richmond.sch.uk

HumSocHumanities Soc iety started this week with a

presentation and debate about changing

animal cruelty laws. Year 11s Natasha

Blackmore, Ben J ones, Hannah Perks &

Maya Regan are campaigning to have

stiffer penalties for those found guilty of

animal cruelty and presented a provactive

and informative case to HumSoc

attendees.

HumSoc is every Thursday at 12.30 in Mrs

Hoyle’s Room 8. 

Future topics for presentation and debate will

include:

Why aren’t we deporting more

dangerous foreign criminals?

Campaign to reduce food waste

Campa ign to legalise some recreational

drug use

How companies abuse low paid workers

in developing countries

Should students travel free on public

transport?

Should UK consumers boycott Israeli

products?

What to do about British citizens going to

Syria to fight for IS?

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PTA Quiz Night

Friday 20th March 

Tickets will be available from Wednesday

11th March. 

You can buy them from the school office by

cash or cheque, or online using Scopay. 

Our Bible verse for the week:

or nothing is

impossible with

God.”  

Luke 1:37  

O God of all nations and all people, inspire

us to live in your presence each day. On

our journey through life lead us to choose the right

direction, and show us how to respect and valueothers, even if we do not agree with them. May we

ind other people as willing to help us as we are

willing to help them.  Amen. 

Parents Prayer Meeting 

Monday 2nd March 2-3pm in The

Chapel with our Chaplain, Rev Serena

Willoughby 

Royal Holloway Launch Ceremony 

12 Able and Ambitious Year 9/10 Christ’s School students

attended the launch ceremony of The Brilliant Club at Royal

Holloway, University of

London on Tuesday 24thFebruary. The purpose of the day was to launch The Brilliant

Club programme, introduce their PhD tutor and allow them to

discuss their assigned programme of study. This year the

programme of study is Nationalism; does it unite or divide us?  

The students enjoyed a tour of the campus by second year

undergraduates and a study skills session run by the Brilliant

Club team. The students also undertook their first tutorial

based on Nationalism. They will attend 4 further tutorials run

by PhD students in school throughout the month of March,before

submitting a

2000 word

assignment

in April,

which will

then be

marked at

Key Stage 5level and

given a

University style grade. 

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Thursday 5th March 2015

Next Thursday is World Book Day, a celebration of everything wonderful

about books, and the school has a number of events organised to mark

the day. We are delighted to announce that we have the author of My

Second Life, Faye Bird, in school all day on Thursday. Faye will be

holding creative writing workshops with a selec tion of students from

every year group, and speaking to all of Key Stage 3 during afternoon

assembly.

As you know, we are asking students to come to school dressed as their favourite character from fiction,

and to send a photograph of themselves reading a book in an extreme way for our#extremereading

competition. You can see that some of our staff members have already taken the initiative with this one!

On the day each student will receive a £1 book token which can be

used to purchase a book in any participating bookshop. To

encourage students to use their token we will have a Pop-up

Bookshop from Waterstones in the school library during lunchbreak. They are bringing along a small selection of paperback fiction

books which students can purchase using their £1 off voucher as part

payment. Our visiting author, Faye Bird, will be available during lunch

time to sign any of her own books purchased by students.

We recommend that any students interested in buying a book on the

day should bring along b e twee n £ 7 a n d £ 10 in c a sh  . This money will

be their own responsibility, and so we suggest an envelope, purse, or

wallet for safe-keeping is a good idea.

 There will be lots of fun, lots of prizes, and some reallygreat books!

New 

Clubs

Timetable 

March 

2015 

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Clare Tweedie’s Arts Richmond Young Writers Award Shortlisted Creative Writing

Coma

To me it’s awfully crowded in here. The darkness is crowding me in, but it’s been like this for a few

weeks now. I’ve learnt, so far, the smell of each nurse, my wife and our daughter. There is also a

distinctive smell of old person each time anyone over the age of sixty comes, a mixture of

canned cough sweets and itchy blankets. The nurses, well, they smell of medicine, chemicals-the sort of smell you only encounter in a hospital or old people’s home. There is always a bit of

sadness in this smell, a sort of disappointment, a constant waiting. Well, that’s how I used to smell

it; now it’s the smell of hope, development, maybe something different?

My wife’s smell - now that’s one of my favourite smells. It smells of life, joy, excitement! Everything

I remember her to be. She sweeps into the room and kisses me on the forehead. This is when I

can smell her most strongly. ‘Ode di Fiori’ –  ‘Scent of Flowers’ - was the first perfume I ever gave

her, and since the accident she has never stopped wearing it, so that is now her smell and will

always be. My daughter’s smell is my drug. It’s the smell of calm, love and chance. My wife rests

my joy on my chest and I can feel her breathing, in and out, in and out……The sound of herbreathing drowns out the beeping of the machine with a calming, soothing rhythm. It seems to

take away the pain of being so lonely, and not being able to connect to the outside world. She

is the only one I can connect with.

My wife brings her every day for four hours, but that will never be enough. Twenty hours a day

I’m with other people who I barely know and who don’t know me. But in those few hours with my

daughter, my entire existence regains its meaning. I mean, the nurses are kind and respectful of

my privacy, and I can trust them, but they don’t talk to me or think I’m there. They probably think

I’m just a useless body, which should probably be turned off.

The only person who thinks I’m here - which I am - is the cleaner who plays Hungarian folk music

and talks about her family back home in Budapest. Her story is no Charles Dickens or Jane

Austen but it is certainly a different one. She says: “I know you are in there –  I can feel it “, and

my heart sings for a second before I remember that I can never tell her she is right.

Sometimes, I think her life seems amazing because of all the hardship she’s been through. But

then I think that what I’m enduring is hardship and that some might think that this is very

dramatic. But to me, this is just a cruel payment of fate, something that can happen to anyone

at any time. So why not me?

One person who doesn’t think I am here is my mother -in-law. She exudes an odour of irritationand disappointment as she declares, “How is he?” She then announces to whoever is listening:

“Such a shame, he was such a handsome man. Now look at him: just a useless shell. I‘ve been

told that there is no hope. My daughter should just give up.” 

At this point, I reply in my head: “Get lost you old cow!”

With her needle-point voice she adds: “Of course he’ll never recover. He’ll never get better. My

daughter should really get on with her life and marry someone else, you know.”

Suddenly, the crowding becomes significantly worse; I am suffocating on her words. But then I

hear a sound in the outside world, a burst of light through the traitorous dark, a magical

sensation all through my body. I hear “Daddy.”