Year 8 IP Conquer the Tower!

27 January 2012

thetower1 The young researchers got to the Top of the Tower this morning with their Heritage guide, Carl Carrington. The Year 8 class have been studying Blackpool and its history and this morning gave them a unique opportunity to see behind the scenes of the World Famous Tower. They were able to walk across the Ballroom, experience the 4D cinema and ride the nerve-racking elevator to the top of the Tower.
Carl explained the history of the Tower and why is so important today for locals. One of the class, Karol - was scared of the 'Walk of Death' due to his fear of heights. With support, he was able to conquer his fear and later called his mum telling her he is no longer afraid of heights!

Young Voices 2012

26 January 2012

On Wednesday 25th January St Mary's choir performed at the M.E.N arena in the world's largest choir. St Mary's joined over five thousand pupils to perform with the Irish folk band The High Kings and Britain's Got talent star Connie Talbot. The pupils got to perform alongside professional musicians in a lighting and special effects spectacular. St Mary's have been preparing the music including Katie Perry's 'fireworks' since September. They performed brilliantly on the night to an audience of six thousand parents.

If you would like to see the pop medley performance click here; http://www.youtube.com/user/youngvoice28

If you would like to order a DVD of this fantastic event. Please Click here. http://youngvoices.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/PARENT-DVD16.pdf

New Computing Club

23 January 2012

A new computing club is starting at St Marys. The club will be open to years 7,8 and 9 and will take place on a Tuesday, after school, in room 104. It will feature an introduction to computing and programming using Scratch and Javascript.

Click this link to watch Mr Jenkins advert for the course.

For more information please see Mr Jenkins.

Year 13 History Students’ visit to Auschwitz

20 January 2012

Last term, Amy Baxter and Matthew Cullen took part in the Lessons from Auschwitz project which involved attending two seminars in Manchester and a day trip to Poland to visit the site of the concentration camps. Run by the Holocaust Educational Trust, the programme is also supported by local Conservative MP, Paul Maynard (pictured). Amy said of her visit, ‘The most shocking part of the day was a room filled with two tons of human hair. It showed me the importance of ensuring that the atrocities of the Holocaust are never forgotten’. Matthew commented ‘The sheer size of Auschwitz 2 conveys the unimaginable amount of pain suffered there, and the destroyed gas chambers caused numerous emotions to be felt’. Amy and Matthew both agree that one of the most important aspects of the programme was the re-humanising of the victims; ‘The figure of 6 million Jews is no longer a mere statistic, but now evokes images of real men, women and children no different from ourselves.’

As the final part of their project, Amy and Matthew will be sharing their experiences with Year 9 students on Monday during their Dynamic Day on the Holocaust, while other St Mary’s students will be making their own presentation to the community on Holocaust Memorial Day at the Salvation Army Citadel.

Blackpool Schools' Cross Country Championships

12 January 2012

On a wet and windy Tuesday afternoon Years 7 to 11 took part in the Blackpool Schools' Cross Country Championships at Collegiate High School. St.Mary’s pupils did exceptionally well racing against, on average fifty other pupils. Special mention goes to:

Year 7 Boys
Ezra Dent-Watson – 3rd
Andrew Drake – 5th
Year 7 Girls
Rebecca Brownwood – 2nd
Years 8 & 9 Boys
Rory Anderson – 3rd
George Byrne – 6th
Years 8 & 9 Girls
Estelle Hulse – 8th
Ella Porter – 9th
Years 10 & 11 Boys
Marcus Shields – 5th
Years 10 & 11 Girls
Hannah Smith – 17th

Well done to all those that took part. Please follow the link for the overall results for each group.
PE Department

Moving On, Moving Up, Moving Forward

26 January 2012

The latest performance tables are more good news for St. Mary’s Catholic College following on from their “good with many outstanding features” Ofsted Report, in November 2011, and the recent fantastic Diocesan Inspection that will be reported to parents in February 2012.

Whilst the tables are loaded with even more information for parents to digest this year there are some simple headline figures. Students enjoy going to St. Mary’s to learn that is why attendance rates at the College are well above national average and continuing to improve. In turn rates of persistence absence are way below comparable national figures. One key issue in being a good school is to ensure students turn up and turn up ready to learn.

Gappers Get to Ghana

20 January 2012

Amy, Emma, Sr Ngozi, Sr Meggie, Christine, Kofi

Well here we are after an intense couple of days’ travel! Amy, Emma, Patrick and Christine started their epic Step Into the Gap trip at 8am at London City Airport.

After a quick touch down in Amsterdam, we arrived at the SHCJ convent in Accra, our home for the next two days, after 11pm that evening. But all that travel was definitely worth it! The Holy Child sisters welcomed us warmly and have put us up in style! We’ve had a couple of days of fun, friendship and food and are feeling really at home here. Today, we went to the memorial for Kwame Nkruma, the man who announced the independence of the Republic of Ghana in 1959 and went on to become Ghana’s first ever Prime Minister!

We were driven around Accra by our wonderful driver, Kofi. And tomorrow we move on! We are leaving at 5am (!!!) to fly to Tamale, followed by a 3 hour drive to Bolgatanga to meet a whole new community. We’ll be doing some teaching, sharing in prayer and (hopefully) having the time of our lives!

Follow the Gaplains in Ghana by visiting the Ghana blog link under the Chaplaincy menu above

DIOCESAN INSPECTION ANNOUNCED

16 January 2012

Our Diocesan Inspection will be on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th January 2012. The inspection will be focused on the Catholic Education offered by St. Mary's including standards and progress in curriculum RE. Today we will be sending out, with students, a parental questionnaire as part of the requirements of the inspection process. The responses to these questionnaires will provider inspectors with a parents' perspective of the work of the College. Please take a few minutes to complete the questionnaire and return it to the College with your child this week. During the inspection there will also be meetings arranged between groups of students and the inspectors plus inspectors will talk to students in classes and around College to gain a student's view about St. Mary's. The inspection report will be published during February 2012 and a paper copy will be provided for each family as well as appearing on the website.

Happy New Year 2012

03 January 2012

St. Mary's Catholic College and its Governors would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope that you and your loved ones will receive many blessings in 2012. We re-open on Tuesday 3rd January 2012 at 8:35 a.m. We hope you have enjoyed a great break.

We hope to keep parents even better informed about what is happening at St. Mary's during 2012 and will be using Twitter as one way to do this. If you want to keep up with what is happening at the College please follow @Head_stmarys.