Our Wider Curriculum
St Bernadette's Speech Cup
The ability to speak confidently and articulately, particularly in front of others, is a vital skill for success in today’s society and we want to support our children as much as possible in acquiring the skills of public speaking.
At St Bernadette's, we promote oracy skills across the school with a focus on drama through the curriculum, debates, presentations and poetry recitals.
Each year we also hold special competitions:
Foundation Stage, Year 1 and Year 2 children are invited to recite a poem of their choice.
Key Stage 2 pupils prepare a speech on a topic of their choice.
Heats will take place in classes where staff and pupils vote for the poem or speech to go through to the finals to represent their class. The final judging panel includes the Chair of governors and staff and pupils from St Paul’s Catholic Secondary School.
Please click on the links below to view the winners of this year's competition:
Earth Hour
The coronavirus could not stop our community from coming together to take part in World Earth Hour on 28th March. Between 8pm and 9pm, we put down our phones and I-pads, turned off the lights and televisions and lit a candles! Our families spent time together playing board games, telling jokes, singing songs, telling stories etc. We were delighted to receive some photos of our wonderful families taking part - well done; we are very proud of you!
Values Mission: Justice is Truth in Action
These Values Missions have proven to be a fun and engaging way of joining your children on their journey of faith and prayer. We look forward to warmly welcoming you as we actively pursue doing the right thing whilst seeking justice for all.
In January, we held our annual Values Mission. The theme of this year’s mission was ‘Justice is Truth in Action’. These missions have proven to be a fun and engaging way to support the children and families on their journey of faith and prayer. The mission was led by our Mini Vinnies, students from St. Pauls and representatives from CAFOD, who were delighted to support us and share their ‘Zero Hero’ and the ‘Power-To-Be’ campaigns. The families were able to explore our current value of Justice through a number of different activities and prayer spaces. These included:
- Food Bank Collection
- A Canvass Home
- God’s Love in Action
- Child Poverty
- The Romero Cross
- Fairtrade Café
- A Wall of Prayer
- A League of Justice
The mission was well attended by our whole school community and we raised lots of money for the school we are currently supporting in Ghana as well as receiving many donations for the Milton Keynes Foodbank. We are looking forward to hosting our next Values Mission in the next academic year.
Values Mission
'Because We're Happy'
Our friendships with pupils at the Humanitas School in Ayensuako, Ghana continue to grow and develop. The pupils at Humanitas School have been helping to enrich our curriculum through joint learning projects, whilst our fundraising has supported them in developing their school.
Both schools have had great fun recently creating our own versions of the Happy Video to share with each other.
The videos can be seen by clicking on the images below.
The first link is St Bernadette's full video.
The second link, via a private Youtube channel, is an amalgamation of St Bernadette's pupils and the Humanitas School pupils - ENJOY!!!
On Monday 2nd December Year 5/6 choir went to sing at our local Age UK Dementia Club. We sang a range of Christmas Carols and songs which were enjoyed by all. Well done to the choir! 
Our Summer Concert
At our Summer Concert, families and members of staff were treated to an evening of music by children at our school. We enjoyed performances on the violin, piano and guitar. All the children performed brilliantly; it was such a delight to hear their talents and it certainly brightened up a very rainy evening. Many thanks to Paolo from St. Paul’s who played at the beginning of the concert; it was inspiring to hear how far musical talent can develop in just a few years. We look forward to more music-making opportunities soon.
Our Choir Visit the Local Care Home
In June we walked to our local care home where the children sang to the residents. They performed pieces from the recent ‘Catholic Schools Music Extravaganza’ (see below) along with some hymns and traditional well known songs. The children enjoyed talking with ladies and gentleman at the care home and found out some interesting stories. They even got some song requests for our next visit!
“Thank you so much for coming to visit us this morning, such beautiful singing, the children are a credit to your school, so well behaved and polite. It was good to see both generations conversing”. Pamela Bourke, Well-Being Manager, Milton Court Care Home.
Our Catholic Schools' Musical Extravaganza 