St Bernard's Newsletter

Dear Families,

The end of another very busy term at St Bernard’s comes around once again! We are blessed, as you can see in this newsletter, with the various talents, skills and abilities of our young people who make a significant contribution to our school, local and global community. Our mission is alive and well in our school community. This newsletter testifies to how our students live out our mission in action. This Advent has given us time to come together to pause, pray and look forward joyfully to the welcoming of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Our preparations including the writing of our Antiphons for our Christmas tree, Advent confessions, Advent Services and Carol Concert have all helped us to mark this special time of year.

We continue to be proud of our students, their commitment and their hard work in embodying our ethos with respect, service and justice as our cornerstone. Please do, when you have a moment, take the time to share in the achievements of our young people and all that our staff do to ensure that our young people have a well-rounded education that develops not just their academic potential but their character.

A reminder that we finish the autumn term on Thursday the 19 of December at 12.30, and students return on Tuesday 7th of January no later than 8.45 am. I wish you and all you love the peace and joy of Christmas with God’s blessings for a safe and healthy 2025!

Warmest regards

Mrs Moise-Dixon

Headteacher

Congratulations to all the students from Year 7 to Year 12 who have earned the prestigious Headteacher Award. We are incredibly proud of your hard work and achievement. Well done.

Year 7: Ramowna

Ramowna has been a dedicated and responsible form captain. She has keenly taken an active role in contributing to the wider school community.

Year 8: Poppy

Poppy supported us in getting our reading books every week since the start of the academic year. When we were handing out our reflection books she was always amongst the first to hand out books. She is the most helpful student with a smile on her face always. You are a superstar!

Year 9: Mona-Lisa

She constantly but subtly supported other members of the school community. Mona deserved the award for her dedication to the pursuit of learning new and unusual languages.

Year 10: Juvaenika

She was always supportive of any school initiative, including the Anti-Bullying campaign and Red November. Juvaenika collected register notices each day and produced the form values poster that is in our room.

Year 11: Freya

Freya is proactive, focused and self-motivated. She uses her time in form productively each morning. Her day-to-day actions demonstrate how she respects the ethos and values of the school. Freya is always polite, courteous, and friendly to all. A well-deserved award and recognition for all your hard work Freya.

Year 12: Anetta

Thank you, Anetta, for contributing to the planning of the assembly for 12/13C. In particular, the prayer you wrote for the week of "Hope" was beautiful. We shared this with all staff who used this with their classes.

A huge congratulations to our incredible students who have won the prestigious "Head of Year" awards.

• Year 7: Abigail
• Year 8: Rosa
• Year 9: Lily
• Year 10: Julia
• Year 11: Angelina
• Years 12/13: Poppy

Your hard work, dedication, and outstanding achievements have truly shone this year. We are so proud of you all.

As a school, we work hard to ensure that our attendance is as high as possible because as we all know, attendance impacts your child’s learning and the results they may achieve. We take a holistic approach working on any barriers that are or may prevent your child from having excellent attendance.

Attendance averages

• National Attendance Average: 95.7%
• Southend Overall Attendance Average: 91.0% Year to date.
• St Bernard’s currently sits 6th highest out of 11 schools.
• The percentage at the end of 2023 was 95.67%, and in 2024 it increased slightly to 96.1%

100% attendance

The following forms had the highest attendance averages for the year. They were awarded with tins of Celebrations, as we believe it is worth celebrating!

• Year 7 – 7H 97.92%
• Year 8 – 8R 98.28%
• Year 9 – 9F 98.15%
• Year 10 – 10H 97.35%
• Year 11 – 11F 97.23%
• Year 12/13 – 12/13F 96.07%

We look forward to seeing what can be achieved in the rest of the year.

The new achievement ladder based on our mission statement with the core values of respect, service and justice has been running since the start of term.

We are delighted to announce the names of the students for each year group who achieved the most amount of achievement points. These students had a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows which was a great choice of a treat by their Heads of Year in this cold weather.

Well done girls.

The following students received the most amount of achievement points in their year group. Well done girls.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception – On the 9th of December, the Head Student Team and the Chaplain led a prayer service marking the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It was a beautiful service with readings and pre-recorded hymns. Given the time of day, and the fact that attendance was purely voluntary, the service was very well attended by all staff and students from various year groups.

Confession – Confessions have been occurring in the Chapel through the Advent season. Many students and staff have taken the opportunity to make their Advent confession, and we owe much thanks to Fr Paul, Fr Viktor and Fr McGrath for making these available.

Advent Services – Our traditional Advent services have been occurring each Friday on the wooden staircase. Students assemble between 1 and 1:15 when an Advent gospel and prayers are read and a student lights an Advent candle. Cantors and students sing ‘Light the Candle’, and each service is led by a year group. So far, we have had Year 7 and Year 8, and this week it will be Year 9. This is a lovely service and the students generally enjoy assembling and singing around the Christmas tree – decorated by Year 7 and 8 with the ‘O Antiphons’ on gold disks – and the Nativity, which will later be taken to the Bernadine Hall for the School Advent Service on the last day of the term.

Advent Charity Appeals – Our Christmas charitable giving has continued apace this year, with the students collecting from the middle of November for St Vincent De Paul (including SVP's Christmas Hamper Appeal) and Southend Food Bank. In addition, students and their families have been buying and donating new toys and other useful presents to the mothers and children who, as a consequence of domestic abuse, will be spending their Christmas at Safe Steps, a local women’s refuge, located in Westcliff-on-Sea.

We undertake this charitable giving project each year, and it gives our students a great deal of pleasure to decorate the boxes in Christmas wrapping paper and fill these with toys and other gifts. They are also very aware of how much joy their presents bring to the mothers and children who may not be experiencing the joy of family during this holy season. Their gifts are presented to Safe Steps on the last day of term, during the school Advent service.

We owe a great deal of thanks to our St Bernard's families for making this charitable giving such a success.

All Saints' Day - We began the month of November by marking All Saints’ Day with a silent and prayerful group of students in the Chapel. Students, from various year groups, prayed daily at 8:30 am in the Chapel through November, for deceased family members and friends. The names of these special people were noted on slips of paper, and in addition to the prayers said in the Chapel, special prayers were offered up by our priests for their Holy Souls during our Year 7 Form Masses on Tuesday.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament – On the 22nd of November, the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament occurred in our Chapel throughout the school day, with all forms represented by 5-6 students arriving at their allotted time to pray and offer up their prayers in the presence of the exposed Eucharist. There are plans to have one of these each term; they will be noted in forthcoming newsletters.

Form Masses – These have proceeded through November, though they were suspended for Advent. Students in Year 7 have done a superb job of reading the difficult passages set for this time of the liturgical year, and have been asking questions about what they have heard being read during the Mass.

Friday Reflections – Since the start of the school year, every Friday we begin our morning with a Reflection, which is shared by form tutors and their tutees. The reflections focus on the gospel of the day, and, where possible, the saint of the day, all to a background of hymns. The saints chosen for these reflections are those whose life and example resonates with our students. Some of these have included: St Hildegard of Bingen, St Thérèse of Lisieux, Bl. Carlo Acutis, Saint Catherine Labouré, and this week, St Nickolaus. Students are encouraged to write up their reflections and discuss them with their tutor if they wish.

PTFA – We are delighted to report the generosity and care extended to the Chapel by St Bernard’s PTFA. Thank you for our generous donation to PTFA. The items purchased and donated included: spring-loaded candle holders with the appropriate candles, brass candlesticks, and glass cruets. The candle holders, in particular, will make a great difference to the cleaning and care of the brass candlesticks. So many thanks to the PTFA.

Moving forward with Retreats – Our next group of Retreats, which we will be reporting on in due course, is Sixth Form in January at the Diocese of Westminster Retreat Centre in Pinner, Middlesex.

Year 13s begin to receive university interview offers

We are delighted to see our early entry cohort starting to receive offers for interviews; there are several interview offers including for medicine and Oxford University. This is fantastic news! A huge well done to all of our Year 13s as they are working hard to complete their UCAS applications and plans.

Sixth Form Open Evening

Our Sixth Form opened its doors to the public on Thursday 28th November to welcome prospective students to see what Sixth Form is like here.

We had all of our 28 subjects on display including both A-level and BTEC options. We encourage students to take an array of subjects and think about what they are passionate about, as the jump from studying at GCSE level to Sixth Form is considerable.

The Headteacher and Head of Sixth Form talks were well attended and we saw approximately 200 families visit us, with a mix of internal and external students. Additionally, we held a Performing Arts talk, which again was very well attended.

Please note that our application closing date is the 21st of February. Please find the links below to the Courses On Offer and Application Form.

Congratulations to our amazing Year 7 students for their incredible 3D cell models. Your creativity, attention to detail, and efforts have brought science to life.

It is fantastic to see how much thought and care you’ve put into showcasing the building blocks of life. Well done—your hard work is inspiring.

Mrs Hunter.

This term, we met with students throughout the school to talk about their mental health and well-being and their impressions of the support that they receive in school.

Focus groups of students in all key stages worked with Mrs Jackson to design a questionnaire which was sent to all students. The questionnaire focused on:

• The understanding of how lifestyle factors can influence well-being.
• The education about wellbeing and mental health they receive in school.
• Where and how they access support for themselves and their family and friends for mental health concerns.

Students responded to the questionnaire, providing valuable insight into the effectiveness of current Mental Health Provisions in the school. Students were aware of the various sources of school support and could identify features of common mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Although nearly 47% of students who responded stated that they received help, now or in the past, with additional help either for their well-being or learning, some students stated that they wouldn’t know where to ask for help outside of school if they had a problem during the holidays, for example.

From both the focus groups and the questionnaires, a few students stated that although staff are friendly and approachable, they wouldn’t know how to ask for help if they needed it during the busy school day.

We want students to always have access to support and to have a variety of different ways of accessing it. As a result, we have created a Mental Health and Wellbeing page on the external website Wellbeing and Mental Health - St Bernard's High School. We also have a ‘Link tree’ https://linktr.ee/sbhs_wellbeing which contains links to a variety of external agencies and charities which provide support for young people and their families. In addition, we now also have a dedicated email address that parents and students can use if they want to reach out for help but don’t know how to start mentalhealth@stbernards.southend.sch.uk.

Further analysis will take place of the results and the students themselves will be involved in designing and evaluating wellbeing provision in school. Moving into the Spring term, our focus will now turn to parents, carers and governors. If you would like to have your say about any aspect of the school’s mental health provision, we would love to hear from you. You can respond using the letter sent out or by clicking on the below link

Students couldn’t wait to get behind Anti-Bullying Week which took place on 11th-15th November.

Highlights included the #petsinoddsocks competition and throughout the week we received adorable images of foxy felines and dapper dogs. The images were displayed on the TV screens around the school sparking a lot of animated conversations about which was the cutest. The winner was Miss Campbell’s handsome cat, Rupert. Miss Campbell has won a Pets at Home voucher to spend on Rupert, perhaps for a matching pair of socks!

Odd Socks Day was celebrated on Tuesday 12th November with the humans in school getting involved this time and donning their brightest, loudest, and warmest socks to raise money for the Anti-Bullying Alliance.

The sartorial theme continued as the real hit of the week was the Friendship Bracelet workshop which we were due to run on 11th November. However, it was such a hit that a second and then third day was added.

Thank you to all the students and staff who contributed to making this week such a success. The next mental health event in school will be Children’s Mental Health Week in early February.

A team of mental health professionals visited the school on Tuesday 26th November to educate Year 12 students about Exam Stress. The team of counsellors and mental health nurses work as part of the WAVE project which is funded by the NHS and works in schools across Essex.

They explained the vital role that stress plays in protecting us from risk and how it can help us perform better by directing blood to the brain. They explained that stress is a normal response that keeps us motivated to meet demands. For example, when sitting an exam, stress can help with increasing writing speed. Increase blood flow to the brain and encourage us to revise. On the flip side, too little stress can lead to feeling unmotivated or bored; whilst too much stress can lead to burnout and anxiety symptoms.

The team identified breathing and grounding techniques which can help students manage their stress levels and get the best out of themselves. Students were told not to wait for anxiety to hit – instead to start developing their understanding of the breathing and grounding techniques by regular practice.

The team will be working with Year 13 and 11 in the coming months to support them on their journey towards their GCSE and A Level exams.

Year 13 student Francesca has agreed to write a mental health blog. Here’s her first article:

November is Men’s Mental Health Month, often this is overlooked or brushed aside but it is vital we take a stand for men’s mental health. This blog will outline just how common mental illness is in men, why there is a stigma, how we can all help to end this and finally how you can spot signs of mental illness in your friends and family and provide the necessary support.

Although people from all genders, ages and backgrounds can suffer from mental illness, men are much less likely to receive treatment. The stereotypes in society, that men should be emotionless and not show signs of vulnerability or ‘weakness’, can have drastic effects on men, as by not receiving the necessary treatment, like with any illness, their condition deteriorates.

So why is it that there is this stereotype and more importantly, why is it completely wrong? You’ve probably heard many times, even from being in primary school, boys being told to ‘man up’ or that they ‘cry like a girl’. These phrases are damaging and teach young boys that crying or showing emotion isn't what men do and instead, they should hide this. Men often feel immense pressure to be the ‘breadwinners’ and there are feelings that their image should be one of strength and control, where people can rely on them – not them reliant on others.

Also, depictions in the media of typical men in children’s TV are that of the superhero or knight in shining armour that saves the damsel in distress. The man might rarely be the one in need of help or support. Although this seems like something so minor, it can manifest itself into something more, especially if boys are exposed to this kind of thing from such a young age. The highest suicide rates are in men, with 77% of all suicides being committed by men. This is obvious evidence that the stereotype is incorrect, men do suffer as much as or even more than anyone else.

However, as evidenced by things like Movember, an annual movement that aims to shed light on men’s health, social attitudes towards men’s mental health are changing. As a society, people are more understanding that men are as susceptible to mental health illness as much as anyone else and luckily more and more people are aiming to break the stigma and end stereotypes. This change is still ongoing though and there are things you can do to ensure this continues.

If you think someone you know may be struggling, you should report it to someone as early as possible. Early intervention can be successful, but it is up to everyone to provide this support.

Mental health issues in men can look like, withdrawal from social situations, changes in appetite, anger or aggression, changes in sleep, persistent sadness, seeming emotionless and substance abuse such as drugs or alcohol. Although, this isn’t an extensive list and any unusual changes in behaviour or mood should be noted.

If you know someone with a mental illness, you can check in with this person regularly and notice any changes that could indicate a development of the disorder. You could also speak to them and encourage them to seek treatment or offer to help them do this. There are many ways you can support someone who is suffering with their mental health. If you are interested in finding out more about how you can help you can explore the websites below!

https://www.manup.how

https://uk.movember.com/mens-health/mental-health

https://www.toughtotalk.com

https://www.mensmindsmatter.org

Recently, students from St Bernard's Sixth Form had the exciting opportunity to participate in the ESU’s Schools Mace Debate Competition. A group of eight students formed a debate team and worked hard to prepare their argument. They were tasked with supporting the idea of building homes on the Greenbelt—a challenging topic to research and debate.

Despite the difficulty of the topic, the team worked together, with help from their teachers, to create a strong, well-researched argument. They wrote a clear debate speech filled with facts and statistics. Throughout the process, the students learned valuable teamwork skills improved their research abilities and developed a deeper interest in debating.

Although the team did not advance in the competition, the experience was incredibly valuable. The students gained important skills, had the chance to participate in a formal debate, and discovered a new passion for debating.

Borough Cross Country success

On Wednesday 13th November the cross-country runners attended the annual Borough Cross Country. We had 40 students represent the school, with teams from Years 7, 8, and 9 who ran a 2.5km course and 10/11 who ran a 3.2km route. The girls all put in a huge effort and overall we came 4th out of 9 schools.

Our most impressive individual performance came from Florence Wallace in Year 10, who came 4th in her race and will now represent the borough at the County Schools Cross Country. Our best team performance came from the Year 7 girls who came joint 2nd with Eastwood which is extremely impressive. Outstanding individual runs came from Rosa, Abigail, Lucia, Ivy and Hetty who finished 6th, 7th, 11th, 13th and 19th respectively.

We are continually training throughout the year running at 8 am on Wednesdays and 3.30 pm on Fridays.

The U13 Basketball Team won their first match!

Our U13 Basketball Team played their first league game against Cecil Jones. This was the first competitive game for most of the girls and therefore the girls struggled initially with the pace of the game allowing Cecil to race into an early lead.

As the game progressed we grew in confidence and began to score some points as Sophia Thomas and Chloe Connolly found their range to put us in the lead at the end of the third quarter. Cecil Jones came back though and moved ahead by 5 points with 3 minutes left.

A quick triple from Enada Prenci and more points from Sophia Thomas gave us the win by 33-27. A big thanks to Matt from Scorpions who has been coaching the girls and provided a very smart new playing kit.

We are thrilled to announce our upcoming Careers Fair, designed to inspire students from Year 7 to Year 13 to explore their career aspirations and options.

This event offers an excellent opportunity for students to:

• Connect with providers offering Post-16 courses, apprenticeships, and vocational training.
• Engage with representatives from universities and employers.

If you are a parent/carer with business connections and want to participate, we would like to hear from you. Please reach out to our Careers Coordinator, Mrs. Liza Phillips at lph@stbernards.southend.sch.uk.

We look forward to your support in making this a valuable experience for our students!

Dear Parents / Carers,

Following a rigorous process at the beginning of this week for the appointment of a new Headteacher, I am delighted to announce that Governors have ratified the decision that Mrs Helen Barnes, current Deputy Headteacher – Pastoral, will be the new Headteacher of St Bernard’s High School from 1 September 2025.

Mrs Barnes has been in the school for some time, firstly as Head of RE and latterly as Assistant Headteacher and now Deputy Headteacher. She has been very much part of the improvements that we have made over the last three years with the rest of the SLT and school community and is very excited to lead the school into its next stage of development. This means that the school can see a smooth transition as Mrs Barnes understands the value and importance of our St Bernard’s family.

I hope that you will join me in congratulating her!

Warm regards

Mr M Harnetty

Vice Chair of Governors

The staff and students would like to say a huge thank you to the PTFA.

We are deeply grateful for the new canopy and seating, which our students are enjoying to the fullest, as well as the significant contribution towards our second minibus. Your support makes a lasting difference to our school community—thank you!

9th January - Y11 Parent Consultation Evening

16th January - Y9 Options Evening

17th January - Westminster Youth Ministry for Sixth Form Liturgy Leaders

28th January - Careers workshops for Year 9

29th January - Y9 Taster Day for GCSE Options subjects

30th January - Y9 Parent Consultation Evening

4th February - "Smashed Live" interactive workshop for Y7 and Y8

7th February - Y11 Taster Day for Sixth Form

We currently have exciting opportunities for passionate teachers and experienced senior leaders to become part of our school community.

If you are interested in applying for one of these roles, please complete the relevant application form and send it to us at recruitment@stbernards.southend.sch.uk.

Help us to show kindness and understanding through open hearts.

Help us to continue to flourish and grow in Your love and support those in need of Your friendship.

Prompt our learning today using our talents and gifts so that we may serve You more faithfully.

Prompt our actions with Your grace and complete them with Your help, so that we may truly love one another as You have loved us.

St Bernard, pray for us

Amen

Email: office@stbernards.southend.sch.uk
Website: stbernardswestcliff.org.uk
Location: Milton Road, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, SS0 7JS UK
Phone: 01702 343583