Dear Parent/Carer Ollie Gibbs, a British designer and illustrator, and his girlfriend were walking around the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam when they noticed a common theme among the portraits and sculptures - they all looked miserable. Using the face app on his phone (I’m sure your girls have shown you something similar; my daughter delighted in showing me what I would look like when I was even older), he transformed their faces, giving the miserable ladies and noblemen on display a little joie de vivre. The picture below is of a nurse maid; the transformation is remarkable.

Joy is an underrated virtue. Being miserable is seductive, isn’t it? The weather, the amount of work we have to do, other people’s behaviour! I was reminded on some training that I did this week, that just because I’m the Headteacher I don’t have to be the most miserable; I should be the most joyful (and tell my face to cheer up!). And so this week there has been much to be joyful for, and this weekend, even more! The hot weather is coming, the Lionesses are through to the semi-finals, and some of our girls will be confirmed this weekend. I will be there to pray for them and wish them all the joy that comes from confirming their faith as adults. The Holy Spirit will keep them safe. Two feasts today and tomorrow, so important to our school, are also about joy: the union of the sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary, for whom our school is named: La Sainte Union des Sacrés Cœurs de Jésus et de Marie. Be filled with the love of Jesus and Mary this coming week. O Sacred Heart of Jesus I implore the grace to love you daily more and more. Amen. Penny Johnson Headteacher

Please follow us on Twitter, @GraysConvent, to ‘re-tweet’ and ‘like’ all the good things going on in our school!

Scan our QR code with your phone camera to be taken straight to our twitter page. For real time updates and photos from our sporting fixtures follow @graysconventPE or search the #GCHSsport tag!

Maureen Williams of La Sainte Union sent this lovely photograph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus saying that she had prayed for us at Mass this morning. She said the back row of lights are for each of you – how beautiful?!

IMPORTANT MESSAGES:

GCHS TWITTER

Inspiring Ambition,

Achieving Excellence Week ending Friday 28

th

June 2019

At Grays Convent our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is Mrs Collis, and our Safeguarding Officers are Mrs Wells and Mrs Bishop. Students can contact any of our Safeguarding Team during the school day.

Mrs Collis

Parents and carers guide to Musical.ly

Directl.ly and Live.ly Direct.ly is a direct messaging function within Musical.ly that allows users to send direct messages to each other. In 2016 Musical.ly launched a linked live streaming function known as Live.ly, which allows users to broadcast their Musical.ly videos in real-time (Live.ly has the same unclear age restrictions as Musical.ly, users need to be at least 13 years old but by using the service they are

affirming that they are 18). To access Live.ly, users will sign in to their Musical.ly account. The default settings on Musical.ly (and therefore Livel.ly) are set to public. This means that anyone can view a user’s videos, write comments or send them direct messages. Location settings are enabled by default which mean a child’s location could be publicised on the app.

Mr Burr

If you intend to purchase your shopping or summer holiday on-line, please remember to use our Easyfundraising link: http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/

grayschs/ Set up an account, add to your favourites and access your retailer through: www.easyfundraising.org.uk. The school benefits directly from every purchase made and there is no extra cost to you for your purchases!

Easyfundraising = Easy Money for Grays Convent!

SAFEGUARDING OUR CHILDREN AT GRAYS CONVENT

INTERNET SAFETY TIP – Musical.ly EASYFUNDRAISING

POPE FRANCIS’ TWEET OF THE WEEK

Worried about a child? You can phone or write to The MASH about your concerns. Phone immediately if you believe it is urgent.

Thurrock MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding hub), Civic Offices, New Road, Grays, Essex, RM17 6SL, Tel: 01375 652802.

Emergency Duty Team (for out of hours) 01375 372468.

Police Child Abuse Investigation Team 01277 266822 or call 999 if you are concerned a child needs immediate protection.

Childline 0800 11 11 www.childline.org.uk

NSPCC 0808 800 5000 www.nspcc.org.uk; www.facebook.com/nspcc

If your daughter is absent from school and you leave a message on the absence line, can you please make sure the message is clear and that the following details are clearly given:

Student’s name

Student’s form

Reason for absence

With regards to the reason for absence, can you please be specific as ‘not well’ is not sufficient.

If your daughter has menstrual pain, there is no need for her to be absent from school. Your daughter may bring medication into school with written permission from parents regarding the administration of the medicine. The medication must, however, be brought to the General Office on arrival into school.

Mrs C Smith

Congratulations to Reesha, Daisy, Tom, Sian and Nancy who play for Grays Athletic on winning the Raleigh league. Amazing play and well deserved. The girls played out of age group in the U15’s and still won!

Mrs Johnson

We have 5 places remaining for our 35th Anniversary Evening Abseil taking place on Friday 12th July between 5pm & 8pm at the ArcelorMittal Orbit, situated in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Stratford. This challenge is a fantastic way to experience the most spectacular views of London, whilst dangling in

free space 80 metres above the ground and raising much-needed funds for our work with children and families. In order to secure a place, participants will need to pay a £50 deposit and agree to raise a minimum of £150 in sponsorship (before Gift Aid). For further information please visit http://www.bccs.org.uk/fundraising-and-events/all-events/abseil-down-arcelormittal-orbit or contact Julie jabbott@bccs.org.uk / 01268 784544 / 07912277413.

THURROCK EDUCATION AWARDS 2019 ATTENDANCE & MEDICAL

U15 FOOTBALL

BRENTWOOD CATHOLIC CHILDREN’S SOCIETY – ABSEILING OPPORTUNITY!

Last Friday saw our annual 5am departure for the Year 9 visit to the Ypres area of Belgium. Girls were very excited at the prospect of seeing where some of the most notorious World War One battles took place. We visited the trenches at Hill 62 where girls took the opportunity of exploring the system in old trainers, walking boots and plastic carrier bags! At Tyne Cot crosses were laid before we went to the very eerie German cemetery at Langemark, in Passchendaele. At Essex Farm Cemetery Miss Coughlan read the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ at the site where it was written all those years ago by the medic, John McCrea. Then for the town of Ypres, the wreath laying ceremony at the Menin Gate and a time for reflection, led by Rev Barlow. This was followed by the ever popular visit to the ice cream parlour and the chocolate shops, before returning to Blighty. Another great day with a group of enthusiastic students; these three pictures were taken by Abigail Cosgrave, Jodie Fullerton and Morgan Henry

A Very Special Gesture… Niamh Dennis will remember her day in Ypres very fondly, I am sure. She was able to visit the grave of her great, great, great uncle James Sunderland of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He died on the 18th August 1917. Niamh said ‘His story is very sad, and I feel very fortunate to have seen his final resting place as I am the only one in my family to have been there.’ Thank you for involving me, Niamh, it was very special for me too.

Mrs M Smith

Over the course of this half term, students in Year 7 will be using BBC micro:bit computers in lessons to help them learn how to code. The micro:bit is a handheld, fully programmable computer. This tiny device has a lot of features, like 25 LED lights that can flash messages. There are two programmable buttons that can be used to control games or pause and skip songs on a playlist. The BBC micro:bit can detect motion and tell you which direction you’re heading in, and it can use a low energy Bluetooth connection to interact with other devices and the Internet. It can be programmed in both block based and text based programming language. We are teaching your daughter how to program it with the high level programming language Python. Your daughter can purchase this device online. Prices start from £12.59 or the start kit from £15. They can also be found on Amazon and eBay. Useful websites: http://microbit.org/ https://www.rapidonline.com/bbc-micro-bit-pocket-sized-codeable-computer-starter-kit-75-0116

Mr Burr

YPRES 2019 COMPUTER SCIENCE

Last month Fiona Hutchison and Zion Ballou entered the Essex Schools Combined Events trials in Brentwood to compete for a place on the Essex Schools team. Both girls demonstrated talent across the five athletic events that they competed in, which ultimately impressed the selection team. Subsequently they were both invited to represent Essex in the East Anglia Regional Finals as guest athletes. This meant that they were competing for a place on the Essex Schools team should Essex progress through to the National Finals. On Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd June, Fiona competed for Essex in the Inter girls Heptathlon in Chelmsford which comprised of 80m Hurdles, High Jump, Shot Put, 200m, Long Jump, Javelin and 800m over the two days of competition. It was a tough round competing against the top athletes from Essex, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire. At the end of a very successful and tiring weekend Fiona finished 14th place overall with a score of 3458! Over the course of the weekend she achieved personal bests in 5 out of the 7 events and set 3 new school records in the 80m Hurdles, 200m and High jump. This is an outstanding achievement and it was an honour to watch her grow in confidence throughout the competition. Zion’s competition took place on Sunday 23rd June as she was competing in a one day Pentathlon for Essex Junior girls’ team. Again the standard of athletics was extremely high across the counties but Zion looked strong throughout the 5 events – 75m Hurdles, Shot put, High jump, Long jump and 800m. By the end of the day she had achieved a personal best in High jump with a 9cm increase on her previous score to clear 1.56m, setting a new school record in the process. She also set personal bests in her Shot put and 800m. Her final points score was 2657, which was a massive improvement of 193 points from her trials and left her in 9th place in the Region. Essex won the team competitions in all the age categories, securing their place in the National Finals in Exeter in September. Zion’s impressive performance left her just 21 points short of being selected for the National Finals team. To give some perspective on how

close this was, 21 points is the equivalent of 2 seconds in the 800m, 2cm in the shot put or 200th of a second in the hurdles! She is now first reserve for the Essex Schools National Finals team, again an outstanding achievement! I would like to congratulate both girls on their success at such a high level of Athletics; well-done you are amazing athletes and should be very proud of yourselves!

Mrs Bailey

National mathematics competitions have existed in the UK for several decades. UK Mathematics Challenge is one of these national competitions which is run by Leeds University. There are three main challenges, the UK Junior, Intermediate and Senior Challenges. The junior challenge is aimed at Years 7 and 8 and the Intermediate Challenge aimed at Years 9 and 10. We enter the top sets of each year for their respective challenges every year. The following girls obtained bronze and silver certificates in the junior category:

Silver:

Inaaya Uddinkhan Anya Kabanetz

Aoife Wood Roshana Lokesh Nayah Chanda

Wairimu Makena Evie Newman

Bronze:

Maddison Britchford Connie Hicks

Mahdeia Rasuli Matylda Lochowska

Ana Banda Kaylan Teague

Wania Raza Samela Tollja

Alishia Heluszka Christin Mohanakumar

Emily Wood Lara Balan

Khamila Busari Well done girls!

Dr Mardanpour

RECORD REGIONAL RESULTS! UK MATHEMATICS CHALLENGE

11 students from Year 8 and 9 took part in a Youth Training Programme which was run in school over 6 weeks by Bruce Kettle, Youth Lead from the Prevent and Support Service from Thurrock Council. The students covered topics such as Mental Health/Teen Issues/Gangs. The students participated in a group discussion and they were complimented on their participation and conduct. As reward, the students were taken to Grangewaters Outdoor Activity centre on Tuesday 25th June for a few hours of fun and pizza. The students involved were:

Year 8 Year 9 Elyon Abraham Dakota Green

Ellie Lee Jasmine Wakelin-Steele

Amanda Wilson

Elizabeth Akande Laura Chirchir

Elena Costache Sarai Newsam Atkinson

Ellie Oswald Delcie Wood

Mrs Bishop

On Wednesday this week, 9L led a mass on the theme of Friday’s Feast of the Sacred Heart. Fr Brian told us about his recent visit to Rome and very kindly gave each one of us a silver cross of Jesus the Good Shepherd which had been personally blessed by Pope Francis!

Mr O’Hanlon

The Rotary Club of Grays Thurrock has a limited amount of funding identified for the children and youth of this area. This could be assisting children from families that are financially challenged, attending residential courses that they may not otherwise be able to participate, or assisting talented youths in sports that require specialized

equipment or training. Likewise, families and children that are struggling with specific burdens that create barriers to achieving their full potential, and where a small financial boost might make all the difference. This funding is available for the benefit of youth and children, and we welcome the opportunity to distribute this as widely as possible. If you feel you may be able to benefit from such funding then please visit the Rotary Club’s Community Services Committee at their website: www.graysthurrockrotary.org.uk.

Congratulations to the following students who have reached in excess of 200 Achievement Points. These students will receive the Assistant Headteacher’s Bronze Award:

Grace Taylor 7D Aisha Ferdous 7L

Timi Ogunbanjo 7L

Moncia D’Aguiar 8D Ana-Isabela Banda 8M Roma Naqshbandi 8M

Natalia Wawrzynczak 9M

Tunu Oguntimehin 10L

We have had the highest number of students receiving the Deputy Headteacher’s Award this week. These students have reached in excess of 400 Achievement Points:

Emis Haklaj 7D Nahl Abbas 7E

Macey Kruppa 7E

Jennifer Byatt 8E Agata Paluch 8E

Ella Polley 8E Kateshalom Banahene 8L

Aliyahh Edward 8L

Sian Arkan 9D Jodie Fullerton 9L

Olivia Lovett 10E Nawal Mirza 10E

Congratulations to all of these students.

Mrs Bishop

YOUTH TRAINING SCHEME

9L LEAD MASS ON FEAST OF THE SACRED HEART

ROTARY CLUB OF GRAYS THURROCK

BRONZE & SILVER’S

Please see Miss Hill for entry forms and enter by 9th July. Good luck everyone!!

Miss Hill

In celebration of their 35 year anniversary the Brentwood Catholic Children’s Society is

looking for 35 ‘Fearless Fundraisers’ to join #TEAM35 and undertake a thrilling 80 metre free-fall abseil from the ArcelorMittal Orbit, situated in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Stratford. The Abseil will take place on Friday 12th July between 5pm & 8pm and is a fantastic way to experience the most spectacular views of London, whilst dangling in free space 80 metres above the ground! In order to secure a place, participants will need to pay a £50 non-refundable deposit and agree to raise a minimum of £150 in sponsorship (before Gift Aid) to support the work of bccs. For further information please visit the website: http://www.bccs.org.uk/fundraising-and-events/all-events/abseil-down-arcelormittal-orbit or contact Julie jabbott@bccs.org.uk / 01268 784544 / 07912277413

Brentwood Catholic Children’s Society also has several charity places remaining for the London to Brighton Bike Ride on 15th September 2019. Riders are asked to pay a registration fee of £55 and make a commitment to raise £150 for ‘bccs’. For more information, please visit our website www.bccs.org.uk/GetInvolved/Events or call Julie Abbott on 01268 784544/07912 277413.

100 WORD WRITING COMPETITION BCCS

BCCS CHARITY EVENT

L.S.U. stands for La Sainte Union des Sacrés Cœurs de Jésus et de Marie The Holy Union of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the mother of God. TODAY IS THE FEAST OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS and tomorrow is the Feast of the IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY. These 2 feasts are very significant for our school, as we are called to imitate the loving union of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Their hearts were united in the pain of the cross, as Simeon had foretold the pain for Mary seeing her son dying in agony on the cross was like a sword piercing her heart. We are called to have compassion and share one another’s burdens.

9L MASS OF THE SACRED HEART This week 9L prepared a lovely Mass to celebrate the love of The Sacred Heart of Jesus. There are many names and titles of Jesus that express his great love for us. Fr Brian gave everyone who attended the Mass a very special gift: it was a Good Shepherd cross, blessed by Pope Francis, in the same design that he wears, to remind us to follow Jesus the Good Shepherd who saves, guides and protects us and who loves us so much that he laid down his life for us on the cross. Jesus is risen, he is alive and with us, but we wear a cross as a reminder of his great personal love and

sacrifice for each one of us.

This Sunday is the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the pillars of the Church. PRAYER: We pray that the Holy Spirit will fill us with courage and all the graces we need to follow the example of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, to witness to Jesus by our example, attitude and choices we make in our daily lives. May the Holy Spirit enable us to think as Jesus thinks and to say and do what he would do; to have the same attitude, mind and heart of Jesus. Help us to imitate the holy union of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. We make our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Happy Feast Day! God bless you,

Miss Carson

WE CELEBRATE 3 FEAST DAYS THIS WEEKEND

1st to 4th July Year 6 into Year 7 Transition Week Year 6 into Year 7

Tuesday 2nd July William Morris Textiles Trip Year 10

Friday 5th July Sports Day Whole School

6th/7th July Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Qualifying

Expedition - Great Waltham, Chelmsford

Tuesday 9th July Awards Evening – 7pm Years 7-10

Thursday 11th July Aylesford Day Year 7

Friday 12th July Year 10 Mock Interview Day Year 10

Wednesday 17th July Rewards Trips Y7-10

Thursday 18th July House assemblies

Friday 19th July Last day of term

School Closes at 12:15pm Mass P3/4

Monday 22nd July to Tuesday 3rd September 2019

School closed for Summer Break Whole School

Wednesday 4th September School returns at 8:25am Whole School

PE EXTRA-CURRULAR TIMETABLE – SUMMER 2019

KEY DATES, TRIPS & EVENTS

COUNTY LINES – INFORMATION FOR PARENTS