News

We have appointed our new teams of various leaders for the year. Our School Councillors were voted for by their classmates and the Prefects, House Captains and Head Boys & Girls were nominated and voted by staff. They will be working hard this year to organise events and represent the school.

During the month of October, we were thinking about how to help others in our community and around the world. For our Harvest Assembly, we collected some food to donate to our local food bank at St Margaret's Church, as well as bringing in our small change for our collection boxes to send to CAFOD for the work they do around the world. The School Council will be taking our donations to the food bank this week.

We were delighted that Tim was able to visit us in July. Tim is an ex pupil of the school and was in Miss Doherty's class back in the 1980s when they attended St Helen's. Tim was the first winner of The Apprentice and has gone on to be a hugely successful business man. He was awarded an MBE in 2012 for Enterprise Culture on the New Year's Honours List. Tim really enjoyed visiting the school and reminiscing on his school days, the building has changed since Tim was a pupil, but some places he still recognised. This video shows his reactions on his tour.

In July we said goodbye to our year 6 pupils. At their memories assembly, the children shared their favourite memories of their time at St Helen's. We are so proud of all of them and wish them well on their next journey through secondary school. Click on the link to read the memories.

This weekend, pupils from St Helen’s received the Sacrament of the Eucharist as they made their First Holy Communion. They children have been preparing for this special day, and we hope they had lovely family celebrations.

Our girls football team represented West Ham at the Schools Premier League Finals. The girls played so well and had an amazing season this year, making it to the finals. We are so proud.

Some of the year 3 and 4 children took part in an AIM High Writing Day with the poet, Neal Zetter. They wrote about all sorts of crazy poems about colours, food and the world around us. Neal was very impressed with the children and their creativity. Our future poets everyone!

This month has been a very busy one for the Music Department. Our school choir performed at the St John Bosco camp fundraiser where they helped to raise over £5,000 for the camp that will happen in the summer.

We are delighted to share the fantastic news about one of our pupils in year 5 - Maxwell. He represented Essex in the EPSCA (English Primary Schools Chess Association) National Finals held in Northampton on May 11 2024. The U11 Essex Juniors delivered a tremendous effort, achieving 4th place in the EPSCA Association National Finals, missing out on a prize by just half a point. This is the highest result for an Essex U11 team since 2003, showcasing an excellent performance despite the narrow miss.

As part of our PE focus week, Miss Cascayan planned warm up mornings for us. Every morning throughout the week, we gathered on the playground and did a warm up session and same dancing too. Movement and exercise is very important for our physical health, but it is also very important for our mental health too. We all felt so much better, and were able to work harder after the warm up sessions! Watch some of our videos here