February 14 is not only associated with young love, hearts, roses and such like but did you know that in addition to his romantic association, St Valentine is also the patron saint of beekeepers?

Here at St Bon’s, we have a well-established colony of very happy bees so it’s Happy Valentine’s Day to our very own beekeepers, Mr Young and Mr Halliwell and thank you for all that you do harvesting the honey and looking after the hives ensuring the bees are healthy all year round.

Mr Robinson is out with our Year 8 indoor athletics team today, February 12,  at Crystal Palace where we have just heard  the fantastic news that they have qualified for the London finals.

Well done team.

Our Year 7 HeadStart champions organised a series of Dodgeball games in school last night after school finished, February 11, to raise money for charity.

Matthew Burnett from the Newham service came in to oversee the matches and liaise with Head of Year 7, Mr Robinson and Kolbe were crowned the winners.

£70 was raised too which was brilliant.

Some lucky Year 9 students today, February 5,  took part in a robotics workshop in school and an expert from PrepareRobo Ltf came in to help them build and programme robots.

Ms Haastrup arranged for the exciting lesson and reported that the boys really enjoyed the morning. She added: “They really loved being engineers for the day and Karol, who came in, inspired them to be adventurous with their designs.”

The robots they built look cool.

Mr Firth’s Year 9 football team played Epping St John’s School yesterday, January 30,  and won a magnificent 3 – 2.

It was the quarter final of the Essex Cup and it was a very exciting match with excellent performances from Ainis, Mekhi, Divin and Zinnell.

Divin scored one of the goals and Man of the Match, Zinnell, got two.

The team has progressed to the semi final stage and Mr Firth is understandably elated.

The photo shows a happy  Zinnell and Divin.

Mr Jarvis and Mr Templeman took a group of thirty Year 11 boys to leading accountancy and financial giants, EY (Ernst Young), at their London Bridge offices on Friday, January 25.

The workshop looked at employability and the students learned interview techniques, presentation and team working skills as well as hearing about the qualities major employers look for in potential employees.

Former St Bonaventure’s student, Derek Jose, spoke to our students and told them when he found out they were coming in he put his name forward to speak to them which was a lovely gesture.

Mr Jarvis said the students gave very positive feedback after the workshop and they all felt more confident afterwards.

Mr Onireti is beaming today after his Year 7 basketball boys secured a double win at Rokeby school yesterday, January 24.

Our team played in the Junior NBA League as the Indiana Pacers against Rokeby School who were the Milwaukee Bucks and won 42 – 23.

They also played against Barking Abbey School who played as the Cleveland Cavaliers and won an amazing 66 – 7.

That’s brilliant news!

Twenty one Year 13 students underwent first aid training this afternoon, January 21, from Derek Causarano from the British Red Cross.

Derek came in delivered an excellent workshop and the students gleaned essential knowledge and skills how to deal with a variety of emergency situations.

The students came away feeling confident and reported that it was a really useful session.

Director of 6th Form, Wayne Templeman, added: “I’m certain the students will remember what they learned today for a very, very long time and it will give them the confidence to help out in future if they see someone in distress.”