easter 2007

Easter 2007 newsletter

A Specialist College for the Arts S T M A R Y ’ S C AT H O L I C C O L L E G E

SPRINSPRING G ACTIONACTION

S T MARY’S has been springing into action on behalf of farmers in the developing world.

And now our efforts in selling and promoting Fairtrade products have been recognised. It’s official: We are now a Fairtrade School! The honour was bestowed at a special event held in conjunction with our partner primary schools and Upton Hall School when Fairtrade coffee producer Mr Samuel Magona of Uganda came to explain the benefits to his community of farmers and workers being paid a fair price for their crops. STOP PRESS...STOP PRESS! ANOTHER NEW STATUS! WE ARE NOW A NATIONAL HEALTHY SCHOOL. See 3 FOR DETAILS

‘Fairtrade School’ honour‘Fairtrade School’ honour

SEE BACK PAGE

OUR THREE PAGE

PICTURE SPECIAL INSIDE

DON’T DON’T MISSMISS

Spectacula!Spectacula!

St Mary’s Newsletter Easter 2007

Flying Flying the the flags flags

Twin banners for ‘twin’ schoolsTwin banners for ‘twin’ schools

Fr Moses on his recent visit

Bags of Bags of fun!fun!

YEAR 8 students have been busy making bags to send to Maryland School as part of their Key Stage 3 Art project with Mrs McWatt. The colourful designs are based on op art and will be filled with art materials. A small selection of the 250 bags are pictured left. Art teachers Mrs McWatt and Mrs Hopwood are to run a sponsored half marathon to raise money for materials.

IN A SPIN FOR MARYLAND! This is the new addition to the school’s M1 corridor where it is proving to be a real attraction. All those spare coins will now be put to good use at Maryland School.

A SPECIAL banner is now being proudly displayed in a Nigerian school...and we have its ‘twin’ here in St Mary’s. Plans are underway to further cement the special relationship between

Maryland Secondary School, Chito, and ourselves. Hundreds of books and classroom equipment have been sent by air freight to the Nigerian capital of Abuja where they will be picked up by Fr Moses Igba (left) and taken 600 miles to St Mary’s Parish, Chito, in Benue State. The 18 boxes also contain a series of posters designed by Sixth Form Child Care students for Maryland Primary School. They include wall friezes of the alphabet, number work, shapes and colours. The partnership was launched after an initial visit to Nigeria last year. St Mary’s is also currently preparing an application for funding from the British Council in order to organise further visits.

Moneyspinner: Moneyspinner: what a winner!what a winner!


LEISURE and Tourism students spent three months organising a Year 7 disco event as part of their coursework in Mr Archer’s class and raised £187 for two charities. They split the money between Oxfam for their fight against Aids and other diseases and to help our partner school in Nigeria, Maryland Secondary School. The students want to thank all the Year 7 students who made the night a success, and also St Mary’s teaching, caretaking and cleaning staff.

L&T students disco theL&T students disco the night away for charitynight away for charity

Well, well, Well, well, that’s not that’s not boring at allboring at all

S TUDENTS at our partner school in Nigeria and their families won’t have

to walk as far to get their daily water supplies thanks to parishioners at St Alban’s, Liscard. They have raised £5,000 to pay for a well which will serve the village of Chito and the bore hole has been drilled in the last few weeks. They decided to raise the money after meeting Fr Moses (pictured on opposite page) who has acted as a relief priest for Fr David Long. Many of the Chito villagers walk miles each day for their essential water.

ST CATHERINE’S GIFT PARISHIONERS at St Catherine and St Martina’s, Hoylake, have made the kind donation of £1,000 towards the building fund at Maryland Secondary School after St Mary’s sixth formers wrote to tell them of our joint project.

Wirral’s Mayor Coun Peter Johnson

School of fair tradingSchool of fair trading

Coffee grower Mr Samuel Magona

W E are now a Fairtrade School ~ it’s official! Thanks to volunteer students and staff, Fairtrade products are regularly available in school and at

special events. The honour was bestowed at a Fairtrade festival held in St Mary’s and attended by our partner primaries and several other Wirral schools. The Mayor and Mayoress of Wirral, Councillor and Mrs Peter Jackson presented the certificate and Ugandan coffee grower Mr Samuel Magona gave a presentation on the effects of Fairtrade contracts in developing countries. Students from Upton Hall School ran a refreshment stall.

Below: A chocolate fountain proved a great success...made with Fairtrade chocolate, of course!

Below: Pupils from St Peter & Paul’s Primary School with Mr Magona and Fairtrade representative Ms Alison Mawdesley

Y ou could never call Ray Maher a retiring sort of character...but unfortunately for St Mary’s, he is

now! Our great friend and regular SVP organiser is stepping down after a magnificent 30 years of dedicated charity work and fundraising. Ray, who will reach his 70th birthday in July, is a familiar face to hundreds of St Mary’s students as a result of his weekly visits. But how many of us have been aware of what an amazing life he led before settling down to be a family man...? Ray, pictured opposite, started his first career as a projectionist with the ABC cinema group in 1952, when most of the films were still in black and white! But soon his considerable and varied talents were spotted and he

progressed to managing cinemas and later bingo halls all over the country. In the early 60s when pop music transformed the lives of millions of young people, Ray was right at the heart of the budding industry. Whereas TakeThat and Kylie Minogue now play to huge crowds in massive arenas, back then it was live concerts at cinemas and theatres in places like Birkenhead and Chester. As manager of cinemas in Manchester, Wigan, Glasgow and Walsall, Ray met many of the stars, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Cilla Black, Gene Pitney, Roy Orbison, Gerry and the Pacemakers and many, many more. When the Beatles performed at the Wigan ABC in 1964, Ray was an essential part of the organisation, and besides looking after the Fab Four in their dressing room, he also had to keep away the screaming fans (see picture). He remembers the Beatles as ‘young gentlemen’. Said Ray: ‘They had very good manners, and always said please and thank you’. His memories of the Rolling Stones were less

favourable: ‘They lived up to their image of the wild pop stars!’. Then there was the day Gene Pitney and Cilla were in the same show, also at Wigan. Pitney had laryngitis and had to rest his voice, so Cilla stepped in ~ possibly her first time as top of the bill. When the heady days of the 60s pop scene were over, Ray met his wife Joan and settled down to work for the Post Office (now BT). He

joined the St Vincent de Paul Society and with Joan’s support has worked for the charity for 30 years, raising funds, helping disadvantaged families and organising children’s camps at the Ozanam Centre, North Wales. A lifelong supporter of Liverpool FC, Ray now looks forward to a busy life devoting more time to parish duties at St Alban’s, Liscard.

Ray’s star turnRay’s star turn

Below right: The day in 1964 when Ray became a minder for the Beatles and had to return at least one screaming fan to the right side of the barrier

PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: The day Ray met the Rolling Stones

Gene Pitney and Cilla headed the same bill at Ray’s cinema

Left: Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers was another of Ray’s top billing stars in the days of Merseybeat

‘The Beatles had very good manners’


Left: Ray with some of St Mary’s Youth SVP volunteers

T he St Vincent de Paul Society was founded by a French teenager in 1833. Frederic Ozanam was a 19 year old student at the Sorbonne in Paris when he and a group of others decided to put their

Christian and socialist beliefs into action. They named themselves after St Vincent de Paul, a 16th Century French priest who became a saint because of his work with the poor. Frederic and his friends carried out their work among the needy people of Paris and other French cities, and their influence spread throughout the world. There are St Vincent de Paul Societies in the UK, US, Australia (where they call themselves the ‘Vinnies’) and 137 other countries. Frederic qualified as a lawyer and

he soon became famous, but while he was visiting the sick and elderly in 1853 he had a fall and died from complications at the early age of 40. But his work goes on. Fundraising, helping the sick, homeless and families on the breadline...all this happens thanks to the ‘Vincentians’, ordinary people who give up their time and effort on a regular basis to make Frederic’s dream a reality.

Teenager Teenager changed changed the worldthe world SVP: What it stands forSVP: What it stands for

St Vincent de Paul

Frederic Ozanam

S AY SVP to most people and they probably think it’s all

about Christmas hampers for pensioners. And that is a big and useful part of what the society’s volunteers actually do. But there is so much more to the St Vincent de Paul Society ~ like organising holidays for people in difficult circumstances at the Ozanam Centre in North Wales and running Youth SVP groups in schools. More than 10,000 young people have joined Youth SVP in England and Wales during the last seven years and take on community projects of their own. Ray Maher has worked for the Wirral Vincentians for 35 years and has been the regular organiser of activities in St Mary’s for the past ten years. Thanks to Ray we have a small but very active group of volunteers who meet each Thursday. If you want to join, please see Mr Webster. And to find out more, just visit the website:

www.youthsvp.org.uk

Youth SVP Youth SVP at SMCat SMC



Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards

Oliver Bond, Simon Brear, Sarah Breen, Matthew Brown, Rachel Bruce, Daniel Cull, Katia Duggan, Paul Gregory, Greg Haig, Fleur Hobro, Matthew Hollis, Myles Hunter, Nikki Johnson, Christopher Jones

Matthew King, Lewis McDonald, Callum McKenna, John McNicholas, James Minnis, James Murray, David Noone,

Liam Parsons, Faye Stuart, Sean Vinten, Shaun Williams, Naomi Wise, Bob Jones

Hannah Aldridge, Maria Andrews, Christian Berry, Abbie Brace, Katie Brown, Rachel Campbell, Keiran Comer, Rebecca Corkill, Ashleigh Downes, Daniel Foulkes, Anna Geggie, Niamh Gregory, Jamie Harrison, Jack Harrison,

Jasmine Horton

Daniel Howe, Natasha Johnson, Chloe Keenan, John Kenwright, Nicholas Lawton, Jack Leckey, Olivia Mason, Emily Merrall, Hanna Moses, Samuel Munt, Jack Murray, Liam O’Neill, Karl Plant, Daniel Randall, Matthew Ridge,

Mark Ridgway

Matthew Ryland, Luke Sanford, Michael Saunders, Harry Stewart, Lucy Scanlon, Michael Skeggs, Grace Smith, Bryan Solomon, Martika Taylor, Jonathan Varney, James Warren, Rose-Marie Williams, Rachel Williams

Tom Saunders, Paul Saunders, Jonathon Box, Steven Barr, Josh Braid, Paul McDonagh, Sophie Foulkes, Thomas McHale, Mike Craven, Harriet Bessems, Lisa Salisbury, Rachel Mercer, Mark Currigan, Danny Corser

St Mary’s students complete their Gold Award final expedition in Snowdonia

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme is organised in St Mary’s by Mr Colin Archer


Nick draws on Liverpool’s Nick draws on Liverpool’s slave historyslave history

I T WAS a tall order, but Sixth Former Nick Munn proved he was up to the job! He drew on all his artistic skills to

produce a faithful representation of a famous Liverpool sculpture which depicts the city’s historic links with the African slave trade. The real sculpture, in the doorway of Barclay’s Bank near the Pier Head, is more than ten feet tall so Nick had to take photographs and sketches to produce a scaled down version as part of his A Level Art studies (right). The carving shows Neptune, god of the sea, and two African children with clear details of slave chains and shackles. It was designed for the building, then Martin’s Bank, in the 1920s and is part of Liverpool’s large collection of slave memorabilia. Said Nick: ‘I went on a Slavery History Tour to find out all about the buildings in Liverpool where the slave trade is shown. There is so much you just don’t see unless you know what you’re looking at. It was really fascinating’.

200 years this month since 200 years this month since slavery was abolishedslavery was abolished

In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, Liverpool was at the centre of the world’s slave trade. Young African men and women were captured and taken by ship in brutal conditions to America and the West Indies where the survivors worked mostly on cotton plantations. The cotton was taken on the empty ships back to Liverpool where it was made into cloth in Lancashire mills. Many countries grew wealthy because of the slave trade and it underpinned the Industrial Revolution. But the human costs were great, and a movement grew for it to be banned. A Parliamentary Act for the Abolition of Slavery was signed on March 25 1807, but it was another 30 years before the trade was finally stamped out.

Year of Year of red hot red hot ChileChile S IXTH FORMER Shaun Coyle is all set for

a South American adventure when he leaves St Mary’s this summer. He plans to spend a year in Chile teaching English as a volunteer with Project Trust, an educational charity which specialises in gap years for students. In order to make his dream come true, Shaun has been organising various events, one of which was Unplugged, an evening of special music provided by staff and students in the Drama Studio. Performances from Mr Lally, Mr Dolley, Mrs Hopwood and Mr Thomas all helped to make the event a great success, raising £360. Shaun is pictured centre with his own group, comprising (from left) Joe Castiglione, Phil Donoghue and Jon Almond.

Visit: www.projecttrust.org.uk


THE performances were frightful, but that’s meant as a compliment! Dracula Spectacula, our third major production, played to packed houses on four nights. Audiences were simply stunned by the talents on show. Congratulations to cast , crew and St Mary’s Orchestra!

Fright Fright Fright Nights!Nights!Nights!

DraculaDraculaDracula

Spectacula!Spectacula!Spectacula!

MEIN HOSTS Right: Olivia Mason and Jack Murray were the rather unsettling Transylvanian innkeepers Frau Gretel and Herr Hans

PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY MRS COGLEY AND MISS HERAGHTY

MUSICAL DIRECTION BY MR THOMAS

Our own virtuoso Matthew Rylance was the show’s lifeblood as the one and only Count Dracula.

Sean Jones as Genghis, the Count’s right hand ghoul

Thrills and spills with Matthew Ridge as Master Landau


When When our our hero hero got got thethe ghoulghoul (sorry, (sorry, girl)girl)

Luke Bennett and Hannah Thompson were the love interest as Professor Nick and Miss Nadia Naive

Below: Molly Gartland provided the comforting mother figure of Countess Wraith GhoulsGhouls

GaloreGalore!

Right: Jack Lecky in good faith as Father O’Stake with altar boys Stuart Dunlop and Dylan Brannigan

Above: Scary moments for Keith Bond as Elvis, Stephen Pollard as Marvin and Elisha Carter as Julie Right: Taking to the skies with Transylvanian Airways

The Count proved what a heart throb he is...with the Brides of Dracula


Out for the Count...Out for the Count...Out for the Count...

DraculaDraculaDracula

Spectacula!Spectacula!Spectacula!

And yes, it was our own Mr Brown, showing another of his many guises. This time: Singing Aviator

The Producers: Mrs Cogley and Miss Heraghty

The love story...or was it?

The Dress Rehearsal

Fear not...Prof Nick is here Magnetic

performances


Former student wins Former student wins his Green Berethis Green Beret

A FORMER St Mary's student has joined the ranks of the most highly trained soldiers in the British Army and won the much-

coveted honour of wearing the Green Beret. Peter Dunning, now 22, left school in 2001 and is currently involved in active service with the Royal Marines Commandos. A number of Peter’s family and friends travelled from Wallasey to enjoy the Green Beret Presentation and King’s Squad passing out parade at

the Commando Training Centre, Royal Marines, Lympstone in Devon. The Royal Marines are an elite commando force, trained to fight on sea and land. The 32 week initiation is the hardest military training in the world. Marines wearing the Green Beret are presently deployed around the globe in support of the United Nations, NATO and British interests in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq. Hollywood made the Green Berets famous with the film of that name starring John Wayne. The US Army adopted the distinctive headgear for their Special Forces as a tribute to their links with the Royal Commandos in World War II. Right: Peter at his passing out parade.

**

E NTERPRISING Year 10 students used their

language skills to help promote an international modern art exhibition at the Tate Gallery, Liverpool. They took part in a competition organised by careers organisation Springboard UK and the Mersey Partnership as part of the run-up to Liverpool ‘08 Capital of Culture. They introduced themselves in German to the five judges and came close runners-up. Mrs Louise Mulhearn, Head of Languages, said: ‘We are extremely proud. The project has highlighted how vital language skills are in the world of international business.’

* Translated, it means ‘Progress through Business’

Mr Stuart Cragg of Springboard UK (centre) presented certificates to our talented team of modern linguists. Mr Heitzman and Mrs Mulhern are pictured left and right.

Vorsprung durch GëschaftVorsprung durch Gëschaft


Making a Making a career of itcareer of it

I T was another rip-roaring success for St Mary’s Careers Fair when local, regional and national

employers converged on our Sports Hall to provide many interesting stalls and displays. There were opportunities for students to ask the questions they always wanted to ask of experts from industry, retail, Police and the Armed Services.

Knitting blankets for LionsKnitting blankets for Lions

KEEN knitters have won recognition for their efforts in helping to send 40 blankets to needy people through Wallasey Lions International. Pictured is Mrs Joan Elliott of the Lions (centre). The project is organised by Mrs Mossman through the Bosco Centre.


S t Mary’s has just been awarded the accolade of National Healthy Eating School Status...thanks

to all the hard work of staff and students. Now you will see the distinctive logo (left) in school and on school stationery to prove to all how good we are at choosing healthy food options. Meanwhile our annual Healthy Eating Week had us all munching away - and not feeling guilty in the slightest!

There were subsidised smoothies and fruit galore each breaktime and extra healthy options available in the canteen at lunch. And throughout the school, special activities were taking place with a Healthy Eating theme: in DT students redesigned cereal boxes; in ART they painted still lifes of fruit; in DT FOOD there was an all-day roadshow; in GEOGRAPHY students considered the environmental implications of eating exotic fruit (carbon footprints!); in MATHS Year 7 and 8 students looked at smoking and the percentages of poisons; and in ENGLISH they learned to spell correctly the names of fruit and vegetables.

Fruit of their laboursFruit of their labours St Mary’s St Mary’s winswins National National Healthy Healthy Eating Eating Status!Status!

L ATEST figures from school caterers Sodexho reveal the real effects of our Healthy Eating policy. St Mary’s students (and staff!) used to devour no

fewer than 160 huge catering boxes of chips a week. With our new preference for pasta, rice and baguettes, this has been reduced to just six boxes a week! The sale of hot wraps has gone up from eight a day to 75 and pasta pots from 125 a day to 200, while main meals have increased from 50 a day to 175. There are now eight different sauces available for pasta and much more choice in other fillings. Water and fruit juice are now our beverages of choice. Farewell to fizzy drinks!

Above: Pizza workshop in the DT Food Roadshow

Making a meal of the statsMaking a meal of the stats

Much better than a bag of crisps! Sampling the pizza


EAGLE EYE COMPETITION

Eagle-eyed readers of this Newsletter will be able to answer the following question to win £10. What do Australian members of the SVP call themselves?

Answer: ........................................... Name….…………………................ Form............................................... Post your entry into the ‘Eagle Eye’ box in the foyer on MONDAY! Please do not remove this coupon before you have taken the Newsletter home for your family. Prizes will be given on the last day of term to the first three students with the correct answers. Good luck!

Politically speaking...Politically speaking...

I T was a very uncommon day for this group of

Government and Politics students who visited the House of Commons and met Wallasey MP Angela Eagle. First they toured Parliament before enjoying a lively q u e s t i o n - a n d - a n s w e r session with Ms Eagle. Then it was back to the Commons Public Gallery to hear a debate on the NHS (notable speaker: David Blunkett). Sixth former Hannah Catherall said: ‘It was surreal, walking around in the room where the Prime Minister takes part in political debates. Angela Eagle had a lot to say and was very sure of her answers to our queries’. The trip, organised by Mr Bird, rounded off with a visit to the National Portrait Gallery.

Sixth formersSixth formers give London give London the eyethe eye

Science OlympicsScience Olympics

H ow would you construct a tall structure to support a Walnut Whip using nothing

more than dry spaghetti and jelly babies? Or an electromagnet out of wire, a nail and a battery? It was a tough challenge, but our Year 10 Science team managed these and other tasks to win a place in the AimHigher Merseyside Science Olympics Final in July. The Science Olympics are held annually at Liverpool University and taking part were Declan Riley, Jack Harrison, Rachel Williams and Rachel Webster. They were accompanied (but not helped!) by Miss Kilbane.

WIN £10!


F AIR play to Marylebone Cricket Club! St Mary’s has been knocked for six by a generous offer to

the school of £5,000 to help pay for new cricket facilities. The grant, from the home club of the English cricket team, will be a considerable boost for our Sports Appeal which, after a year’s fundraising, now stands at nearly £50,000 ~

just £10,000 short of the target. Regular readers of St Mary’s Newsletter will know of our Two Sheilas’ Sports Appeal launched by Bursar Mrs Sheila Moyes and Examinations Secretary Mrs Sheila Crockford to improve our general sports facilities. A number of events, including two Fun Days and a Sports Auction, have swelled the coffers. And a special grant of £30,000 to resurface the ‘gra’ and the yard at the rear of school is on its way from Wirral Borough Local Education Authority.

We don’t like cricketWe don’t like cricket (we love it!)(we love it!)

Sporting Sporting SantaSanta

FATHER Christmas made a special visit to St Mary’s for the Christmas Sports Fun Day and sleighed us by helping to raise nearly £1,000 for the Sports Appeal. He kindly agreed to be photographed with visiting children and these eager volunteers (left). Rumours on the day circulated that the great man himself couldn’t make it and had asked Mr Charles to stand in. But we have it on very good authority from Lapland that this was just unkind gossip and Father Christmas would never do such a thing.

Some of St Mary’s keenest cricketers who are members of our after school club

G OLF enthusiasts at St Mary’s have followed in the footsteps of Tiger Woods and the world’s other best golfers at the Annual Wirral Schools Golf Tournament held at the

Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake...home of the 2006 Open Golf Championship! And they came a very respectable third out of 15 schools. Teeing off were Josh Morris, Nick Miney, Elliot Wakefield, and brothers Mike and Nick Madden, who range from Year 7 to Sixth Form. WOULD BE golfers are invited to take advantage of FREE tuition at the new Planet Golf 2000 facility in Wallasey Village, courtesy of the owner.

If you are interested, please see Mr Killoran.

Open opportunity for our golfersOpen opportunity for our golfers


ST Mary’s scored a hit with the Sports Leaders Football Festival which involved 130 pupils from four of our partner primary schools. Year 10 students ran the festival with Mrs Snelson and earned credits towards their Sports Leadership Level 1. An Everton scout attended the event at Leasowe Recreation Centre and spotted one possible future star. And great fun was had by all!

Getting a real kick Getting a real kick out of footballout of football

Sports Leaders show way to soccer successSports Leaders show way to soccer success

easter 2007

Documents

maryland school

partner school

nigerian school

maryland primary school

maryland secondary school

st marys newsletter

upton hall school

national healthy school