News and Events

Herts Kitemark Award

St. Michael’s has a new achievement to add to its success over the years – The Hertfordshire ‘Kitemark Award’. Hertfordshire is committed to improving the mental health and wellbeing of children, young people and staff in schools and colleges which is why they introduced The Healthy Young Minds in Hertfordshire Mental Health Kitemark. This was introduced by the Strategic Leads for Mental Health in Schools, in partnership with schools' representatives and partners from across the system. Schools and colleges can achieve kitemark status for their contribution to supporting mental health and wellbeing by completing a self-reflective document which encourages them to reflect on how their school manages mental health and wellbeing in 11 key areas.

By completing the self-review document, schools review and reflect on their current interventions, provisions, resources, practice, and tools they have in place, and ask themselves questions like “are we doing enough?” and “what improvements can be made?”. The document is then reviewed and discussed in a multi-agency panel with representatives from Public Health, Public Health Nursing Service, School representatives, Educational Psychologists, Herts for Learning and Strategic Leads for Mental Health in schools. For a school to be awarded with the Healthy Young Minds in Herts Kitemark they need to demonstrate reflective practice with clear actions on how to develop their good practice and have a clear plan about how to address any gaps. We are delighted that the panel ‘had great admiration’ for all the school is doing to improve the mental health and well-being of our children, staff and whole school community and we continue to be committed to keep this at the forefront of our thinking.


Be sure to look at the newsletters for more information about the fantastic things we do!

More fun at Playtime

Reception, year One and Year Two got together for a playtime session. They talked about all of the different ways they could make their playtimes both safe and happy, including drawing up their own playtime rules. As part of the session they also learnt four different games which they can play together.



Owl Visit

The whole school have been treated to a visit from some owls. They were told all about these creatures and their different features and were then entertained with some flying demonstrations. Each child had an opportunity to have their photo taken with the barn owl Willow.


Maths Challenge Champions!

Mrs Pickering kindly organised a SCEMA Maths challenge for local year 6 children to allow them to pit their maths brains against each other! As well as estimating the distance a toy car would cover, and which dinosaur won the race, they had to solve tricky fraction and problem solving questions. 11 teams from 9 schools competed in a tightly fought battle for top place and we were delighted to win first and joint second places!

Last half term Mrs Pickering also took a team of year 5 children to a similar competition, organised by the Hertfordshire Maths advisors, and they competed at a very high level.

Activities such as this give our children a chance to meet children from other local schools and allow them feel real pride in their abilities.


Whole School Prayer Trail Feb

Thank you to everyone who took part in our Prayer Trail. We enjoyed a lovely day learning about the centrality and different forms of prayer within a variety of faiths and even completed a prayer labyrinth!


Birchwood Sports Partnership Tri-Golf Competition

Our first BSP competition for this academic year was Tri Golf. Ten members of Year 4 took part in a 'Round Robin' style tournament involving putting, chipping and trying to get a hole in one! The children had a great time on a unusually hot and sunny October afternoon and all behaved impeccably once again being fantastic ambassadors for St Michael's.


The Daily Mile Friday May 4th

We had a fantastic turn out for the first ever whole school 'Daily Mile' including lots of parents, grandparents, friends and ofamily. We hope to make it a regular event so watch this space......the PTA has offered to provide ice lollies the next time!


Citizenship Tea March

School council and a few 'honorary school council members' (selected for setting a good example for others due to efforts in class and around school) enjoyed afternoon tea on Monday 26th with some very welcomed guests.

This was the first meeting (organised by School Council and with a lot of help from Mrs Halliwell using her Church links) as part of our project to create links between generations and was part of our celebration for 200 years of St Michael's School.

Our guests came prepared to speak about their schooling experiences, some of which were at St Michael's School, and to highlight how things have changed. The children delighted in the opportunity to draw comparisons and to ask questions.

Everyone enjoyed themselves and gained a lot from this opportunity.

Wellbeing Week

From Monday 19th to Friday 23rd February, St Michael’s will be running a Wellbeing Week. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to focus on the positive emotional wellbeing of each child in the school. We have successfully won funding from CAMHS (Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services) and the PTA have kindly donated some money, to ensure a jam packed and fun filled week! Not only will there be activities to promote positive well being, there will also be opportunities for children to consider their network of support and who they can talk to in times of need. Please look at our PSHE folder on the website for more information.

Parent Workshop

Wednesday 21st February 2018 2:40 – 3:15

Supporting a child with anxiety

What happens in your child’s brain when they are worried or scared?

How can you support your child to build resilience and cope with anxiety?

Sharon Lawton, Director of Natural Flair coaching will be running a lite bite overview of supporting children with anxiety. Sharon is a trainer in emotional health and well-being. This is a free of charge workshop.

RE Day January


An international triple-jumper - Daniel Lewis - visited us on Tuesday 23rd January!


Daniel Lewis, international GB and Jamaican triple jumper, visited St Michaels Primary School this Tuesday as part of a scheme run by the social enterprise company Sports for Schools. SPORTS for SCHOOLS encourage young people to live a healthy life by challenge, surprise and excitement. By giving primary school pupils an opportunity to enjoy pushing their physical limits, they help turn “I can’t” into “I can”.

Daniel started off the afternoon by running a fitness circuit for every class from Reception to Year 6 where the children were challenged to try star jumps, press ups, leg drives and spotty dogs.

Daniel then led an assembly where he talked about his pathway to becoming a top class athlete and encouraged the pupils to challenge themselves to achieve their goals in life and to persevere even when things don’t go to plan.

This was a sponsored event and our school will gain a percentage of all money raised for purchasing new PE equipment and also many athletes will receive financial assistance towards their future training expenses and development. We are very much hoping to replace our football goals and also to replace some of the mats for gymnastics to be able to maintain the high standards of PE we set in our school.



Anti-Bullying Week - All Different, All Equal

Monday 13th - Friday 17th November

Well done everyone who remembered odd socks! Thank you to the School Council and Miss Gibson for their assembly on the Anti-Bullying Theme of 'All Different, All Equal'.

The School Council talked about how we want to be able to express ourselves as individuals without fear of ridicule and appreciate everyone's differences. They also talked about direct and indirect bullying (leaving people out, talking about others, watching or standing by when someone is being treated badly and not doing anything) and cyber-bullying.

They created a short drama piece to illustrate these points and launched a competition to design an Anti-Bullying Superhero! All entries need to be in by Friday 24th November for the School Council to pick a winner and create a display. The winning entry will hopefully be able to be published on the website, too.



Fun in the snow Dec!