Pope Benedict XVI

The Pope's Christmas message concentrated on the 'light' that God shines into the world. Quoting St. John, he said ‘When the light of God shines in us, there can be no shadows.' Benedict addressed the crowd from the balcony of St Peter’s basilica, and the whole of St Peter’s Square was illuminated with bright sunshine!

Addressing the crowd of around 150,000 people, the Pope gave Christmas blessings in 63 languages which started in Italian and ended in Latin. Unusually, he also included a blessing in Mandarin and Guarani, an effort to reach out to people in China and the South American country of Paraguay.

Pope Benedict prayed for peace around the world and called for an end to terrorism. He appealed for 'just and lasting solutions' to be found to end suffering.

To see a video of Pope Benedict's Christmas address in Rome, click here

Peter Pan delights us all

Today's visit to the Pantomime was wonderful!

Two coaches took excited children, teachers, parents and grandparents off to Nottingham to see Peter Pan. Some of the children (and some of the grownups) had never seen a Pantomime before so it was especially exciting for them.

The inevitable 'are we nearly there yet' queries started a full 12 minutes after we left school! And by the time we reached the theatre all the children were eager to tuck into their packed lunches.

The theatre was jam-packed with school children and the atmosphere was sizzling with anticipation. Boys and girls everywhere were yelling their cheers for the 'goodies' and their 'boos' for the baddies! It was a high energy production that included dancing, singing, slapstick comedy, acrobatics and tons of audience participation. Peter Pan, Wendy, Michael and Peter all took off and flew around the theatre whilst Captain Hook was both menacing and hilarious.

Tired children returned home after a fabulous day out, eager to tell their families all about their trip to the Pantomime.

If you were there today, let us have your comments. What did your children say about today's trip? Would you like this to become an annual treat for the children?

A huge thank you to all those grownups who organised the trip and helped out today - and yes you were all spotted cheering, clapping and booing with gusto!!

Roll up, sign up, stay in touch!

It's a busy time of year and it's easy to neglect this corner of cyberspace. Sometimes it's easy to forget to come and visit the FEM Blog to see what's been happening - but it would be such a shame for you to miss out on all the things we're doing.

So to make things a little easier for everyone, you can now receive all the latest updates to the Friends of English Martyrs Blog straight into your inbox. Look down the right hand column and you'll see a 'subscribe via email' area, just pop your email address in the box and click on 'subscribe'. And that's all you have to do - updates to the Blog will automatically be sent to your email inbox for you to read at your leisure.

So don't delay, sign up and keep in touch with all the news from the Friends of English Martyrs Blog!

Christmas Nativity

A quick reminder for everyone....

The English Martyrs Christmas Nativity will be held tomorrow night (Wednesday 19th December) at 6.30pm at St.Joseph's Catholic Church in Oakham.

Those of you who have children starring in the production need to arrive by 6pm.

It will be a wonderful evening and the children are all very excited about it - hope to see you all there!

Christmas Disco a Huge Success!

Last Friday evening's Friends of English Martyrs Christmas Disco was a huge success and we were especially pleased to see such a large turnout from current and ex-pupils, friends and parents.

Our wonderful DJ, Steve, kept the dance floor packed with eager children all showing off their talents for singing and dancing. Who knows ... perhaps English Martyrs will produce another budding Hannah Montana or Corbin Bleu!

A huge queue formed outside Santa's Grotto and all the children were delighted to meet our visitor from the North Pole (see photo). Santa had lots of super presents to give to everyone that came to see him. He told us later that he was delighted to meet such lovely children who were all so well behaved and had such nice manners - he's looking forward to returning to Oakham on Christmas Eve!

A staggering £229.00 was raised throughout the evening, making it a wonderful success.

A massive thank you to everyone who volunteered their services and to those of you who donated prizes for the Raffle. We were overwhelmed by your support - you made a tremendous contribution and made a lot of children very happy!

FEM Christmas Disco

The children are all getting very excited and

are really looking forward to a fun evening.

We need your help to make it a huge success!

Please donate a prize for the Raffle or get in touch if you'd like to help on the night

So come and join us

Friends of English Martyrs Christmas Disco

Friday 7th December

6.30pm - 8.00pm

Raffle, hotdogs, mince pies, sweet stall, glowsticks, Santa's Grotto and surprise presents!

Christmas Shopping Specials

During the run-up to Christmas, we'll be featuring some very special offers from a number of the hand-picked stores that we feature here on our Blog - remember your shopping raises money for our school at no extra cost to you.

You'll have to sign up to our 'Exclusive Shopping with FEM' E-Newsletter to get all the latest special offers.

Don't forget to tell all your friends and relatives about our Blog!

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We Need Your Support

‘Friends of English Martyrs’ host a variety of fundraising events for our school throughout the year.

We are a group of parents and parish members some of whom are on the committee and others who offer their help when they can.

Without more support we cannot continue to help our school.

There are 2 ways you can help us next week:

1. We need helpers for our Christmas Disco which is on Friday 7th December 6.30 – 8.00pm

2. We need donations for the FEM Christmas Disco Raffle – donations can be left in the marked box in reception (i.e. bottles, gifts, chocolate, toys etc.)

Which one you can you help with?

Please speak to Joanna Sayers or any of the FEM committee members if you can help - alternatively use the contact form on this page to get in touch.