Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Our New Marketing Manager!

  Thu 30 May 2019
  Paula Powell, Marketing Manager from our partner school, St Gregory’s Catholic School in Tunbridge Wells, has joined the team at St Simon Stock and will work across both schools, to support marketing and publicity strategies. This is part of our on-going work for our two schools to develop closer links, and especially so that the two schools can support and learn from each other through our respective strengths

  

• Year 12 Southwold Trip

  Mon 27 May 2019

  A level geography students travelled to the beautiful setting of Southwold in Suffolk with Mr Jenkins and Mrs Rodell-Jones, for 3 days to complete invaluable planning and data collection for their coursework, worth 20% of their grade.
  
  The town offers the perfect location for geography fieldwork with its range of human and physical issues as well as working on a manageable scale due to it being a small seaside town. Such as the 70% second home ownership leading to a decline in the local population which then leads to lack of funding for public services, unaffordable house prices for families and a “ghost town” type feel. Despite this, tourism continues to be a booming industry with its famous Adnams brewery and distillery which owns considerable assets in the town and the town has largely been able to avoid the inevitable deterioration of many historic UK coastal resorts leading to excellent environmental quality. As well as this, students had the opportunity to explore physical themes if they wished, such as coastal management and its effectiveness including a local resident that took coastal protection into his own hands that lead to many local social and environmental conflicts. Not only this but students could study classic geography themes like longshore drift and measure beach profiles that are associated with the coastal processes at work by the North Sea.

  The students were a real credit to the school and had a fantastic time as well as gaining priceless knowledge and data for their coursework. It was a real bonding experience for teachers and students alike and many have said that they will be going back.

  

• Afternoon Tea

  Fri 24 May 2019

  On Sunday May 12^th an Afternoon Tea fundraiser was arranged by Mrs Pilcher and Mrs Bev Newton to raise Funds for The Heart of Kent Hospice and Prostate Cancer UK. The weeks of planning were well worth it as the event was well supported with in excess of 80 people seated. Many members of Saint Simon Stock Staff, friends and family enjoying an afternoon of quizzing, music, food and laughter.

   

  The Tea proved a great success with numerous raffle prizes being won, the sale of raffle tickets contributing to the overall sum of £1320 being raised. This will be distributed with £1000 to the Heart of Kent Hospice and £320 to Prostate Cancer UK. Thank you to all who attended and those who bought raffle tickets and a special thanks must be given to Mrs George for her baking and to Mrs Share who excelled at keeping the teas coming, also to Mrs Tilby for photographing the event. Congratulations also to Mrs Ellesmere and Mrs Bartlett’s team who won the quiz.

  

• Saint Romero Fundraising

  Mon 20 May 2019
  

• Eurohockey Club Trophy 2019

  Mon 20 May 2019

  During the Easter break Holcombe Hockey Club in Rochester were hosting the EuroHockey Club Trophy. We had been planning for this event since last year and as a Club.  Teams came from Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and England.  I was the Team Liaison Officer for the Belarus team, Victoria HC Smolevichi. My first duty was to meet the team at their hotel on arrival from the airport and ensure that they were all settled in before taking them to Holcombe Park for a training session. On the 18^th April, the tournament started in earnest. With the chance of relegation to the EuroHockey Club Challenge 1 league for the team finishing last, there was all to play for. With many of the previous tournaments having more volunteers, officials and organisers we were thankful that the weather was going to be lovely and warm and hoped that this would bring in the crowds. The first match of the tournament pitted Victoria HC Smolevichi against the Waterloo Ducks from Belgium. As the players warmed up we could hear the sound of beating drums getting closer, it was a large group of spectators who were coming to watch the hockey. There was a collective sigh of relief from the management team as at least we had spectators.  Little did we know that following on from this match we would have around 500 spectators every day! There was a festival style atmosphere throughout the tournament with music being played from each of the competing countries, dancing in the stands and lots of cheering taking place; not to mention the copious amount of ice cream eaten. As a volunteer, it gave me a greater understanding as to the planning of such a large event and has resulted in me looking at more opportunities where I can volunteer in sports.  Who knows maybe I’ll end up volunteering in the Commonwealth or Olympic Games. Mrs Hobbs

   

  During the period of 17^th-22^nd April, I was asked by Mrs Hobbs, to translate for the EuroHockey Tournament at Holcombe Club in Rochester. During that time, I mainly assisted Mrs Hobbs with the delivery of information for the Belarus Victoria HC Smolevichi team’s transport, game times, field trips and other tasks as a Russian-English translator. The experience was truly exciting, it gave me a good understanding of some of the rules of hockey, as well as an update for both my Russian and English word banks. If were asked to do this again, I would agree without hesitation, the team reminded me of my roots and inspired me to potentially pursue the area of a translator.  Martin Timofejevs Year 13

  

• Ypres Photography Competition

  Fri 17 May 2019

  On 9^th November 2018, the History Department took Year 8 students alongside Year 9 GCSE History students to Ypres Salient to mark the centenary of the end of First World War. During the visit, students had the opportunity to visit a range of sites including Essex Farm Cemetery, which was the inspiration for John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields’, and the German cemetery at Langemark. In preparation for the trip, all students had researched a soldier who was buried at Tyne Cot Memorial in Passchendale, which is the biggest Commonwealth cemetery in the Salient. On arrival, students then located the resting place of their soldier and laid a commemoration poppy cross at his grave. The trip ended with visits to Sanctuary Wood trenches and Ypres Town whereby students bought copious amounts of Belgian chocolate! Finally, Miss Bassett led a memorial service at the Menin Gate where a wreath was laid on behalf of the school. Throughout the day, all students were encouraged to enter a photography competition led by Miss Livermore and Mrs Tilby to create a memory diary of the trip. The photographs entered into this competition were all amazing and the students should be congratulated for their efforts in this. The skills they each demonstrated deserve great praise too. The photos have been judged and the winners have all received a prize. The winning photographs have been put onto a collaborative display to be celebrated in school. The winning entries were Rhiannon Barber (Year 9), Katie Burt, Michael Folan-Young, Bradley Hughes-Jones, Tiegan Knight, Natalia Sharp-Martin, Johnny Sparrowhawk and Euan Timms all from Year 8. Well done to all.

   

  Melissa King (Subject Leader of History).

  

• Heart of Kent Hospice – Easter Challenge

  Thu 16 May 2019
  Miss Duffy’s form group 7BO2 raised a total of £70 in their recent Easter challenge for Heart of Kent Hospice. A big thanks to all the Students and Staff of St Simon Stock who donated towards the raffle.

  

• Bournemouth Classic tournament runners up for football

  Mon 13 May 2019

  My team, “Castle Colts under 12 Girls”, went to Bournemouth for a tournament as we were the reigning champions from the previous year. On the first day of the event we won the first three games and drew on the last game 1-1. On the second day we won all three games and finished top of the leader board, 3 points ahead of the other team who were in second place.

  We faced this team in the final and unfortunately they beat us 1-0. Everyone on the team was understandably disappointed. This disappointment was also felt by the parents and the members of the teams we had faced in the tournament earlier that day. The reason for this disappointment was the fact that a number of our players were injured in the final due to questionable football tactics in the final.  We put this disappointment aside and later that afternoon we went to the presentation for the awards – the celebrity presenter was Ledley King (a former Spurs defender), who we all privileged enough to have our photos taken with (last year it was Glen Hoddle). What made my day was the fact that when we stood up on stage to receive our ‘runners up medal’ and the audience erupted; everyone standing up applauding and cheering and when the winners arrived the place went silent and there was faint dissent from the other team’s parents. It was really touching and we felt as a team that is was almost better than winning as it showed that public opinion felt we’d won that tournament fair and square through sportsmanship and fair play, qualities that should be encouraged in the field of sport.

  Alice Marshall Year 7

  

• 12U Kent Tennis Winter League – Luke Ogden Year 7

  Fri 10 May 2019
  Congratulations to Luke Ogden in Year 7 who won the 12U Kent Tennis Winter League on the 17th March 2019. What an incredible achievement! After training hard 6 days a week, his dedication really has paid off. He continues to play all year round and we wish him all the best of luck in his next county and regional tournaments.

  

• Maidstone and District Rugby U14 Cup Final

  Thu 09 May 2019

  St Simon Stock 21 – 33 The Malling School.

  Stocky had to play catch up…

  With the fixture moved to St Augustine’s Academy, due to waterlogged pitches at Aylesford RFUC and last minute withdrawals Stocky started slowly. The Malling School accelerated out of the blocks and scored four converted tries over a 30-minute period, without Stocky really even touching the ball.

  This territory and possession dominance from TMS did bring about some notable defence from Stocky. The half ended at 28-0 and with heads down it would have appeared that the boys were already defeated. However, the second half was a completely different affair and from the opening whistle, Stocky put in some super attacking rugby, which was now asking questions of TMS defence.

  Through an inspirational performance from Captain and MoM Dante Wong, Stocky found themselves only a converted score down and really were pushing TMS all the way. With Dante scoring a hat trick and Joe Brooker converting all the try’s we were in for an excellent last 10 minutes, with Henry Smith pulling the strings at fly half.

  It was not to be though as TMS school scored a breakaway try and Stocky ran out of time and steam.

  An excellent game of rugby with excellent performances from all the players who took part, but it was not our day and congratulations to TMS on being crowned champions.

  PE Department