EASTER 2016
CELEBRATING CHINESE NEW YEAR
PRIMARY LINKS
CONTENTS In this issue... Page 3
Easter Reflection
Page 4-5
PE News
Page 6
Other News
Page 7
Science in Industry Day
Page 8
Chinese New Year
Page 9
Aspire News
Pages 10 & 11
Educational Visits
Pages 12,13&14
Primary Links
Page 15
Easter Service Times
EASTER REFLECTION...
We have all been working hard helping our students to achieve their very best, not just academically but also in their wider lives. Providing this balance in our school is at the heart of our Christian mission, we are helping our students to experience, in Jesus’ own words “life in all its fullness”. Of course Easter is a time for us to think about the fullness of life and a chance for us to reflect on the new life offered to us through Jesus. As we commemorate his death and celebrate his resurrection we are celebrating the new life he has gained for us and the freedom he has won for us. We look to a world restored to God and a relationship renewed, which allows us, together, to share in the life of Christ. This message; the call to be children of God, underpins everything we do at St Chad’s. It helps us to nurture our talents, build our relationships and bear our challenges with patience. Whether PE or history, languages or gardening, English or Aspire, we are all called to develop our gifts and use them to build our own portion of the Kingdom of God. All of this is possible through what Jesus achieves at Easter.
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Let the risen Jesus enter your life—welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life! If up till now you have kept him at a distance, step forward. He will receive you with open arms. If you have been indifferent, take a risk; you won’t be disappointed. If following him seems difficult, don’t be afraid. Trust him, be confident that he is close to you, he is with you, and he will give you the peace you are looking for and the strength to live as he would have you do.
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As Easter rapidly approaches it is important to take time to stop and pause for breath. It has been another busy term at St Chad’s with plenty going on, both in and out of the classroom.
Have a happy and holy Easter.
Perhaps this Easter we should take notice of the words of Pope Francis:
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PE DEPARTMENT NEWS EVERTON V NEWCASTLE
On Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Miss Pemberton and Mr Smith took 17 pupils from Year 8 and 10 to Goodison Park to watch Everton FC beat Newcastle United 3-0. The trip rewarded Year 8 pupils who won the year group’s football tournament created to raise and maintain standards of behaviour. Other pupils on the trip were rewarded for their 100% attendance in school and their excellent attitudes to learning. The 17 pupils acted as fantastic ambassadors for the school and were complimented by the staff at Goodison Park for their exemplary behaviour. The staff are extremely proud of our students and we are glad that all pupils enjoyed their experience at Everton FC.
UNITED V WATFORD Miss Pemberton, Mrs Russell and Mr Coyle took a group of Year 8 and 10 students to Old Trafford on Wednesday 2nd March to watch Manchester United V Watford. The game had the students on the edge of their seats as Manchester United’s Mata scored their winning goal in the 83rd minute. The trip was a reward for the student’s excellent behaviour and contribution to St Chad’s High School. All of the students were a credit to our school and acted in a mature and responsible manner. Well done and we hope you enjoyed your visit to Old Trafford.
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YEAR 10 SPORTS LEADERS Four of our Year 10 sports leaders attended a young leaders boccia coaching course before Christmas.
YEAR 9 SPORTS LEADERS A group of our Year 9 students organised a sports event for 26 Year 3 students at Halton Lodge Primary School. The Year 9 students have been completing the UK Sports Leaders Level 1 course in their PE lessons with Miss Pemberton and Miss Carroll and for their final assessment they decided to run a sports day for primary school aged pupils.
Charlotte Hulme, Jess Mangan, Shaun Grindley and Sean Rowe assisted in coaching and leading at a Primary and Secondary school Boccia tournament as part of the Halton Games competition. They worked with many students with a variety of disabilities. The Year 10 students were a credit to St Chad’s High School and were complimented by the sports development officers and teachers for their professional attitudes. Well done!
The Year 3 students took part in activities such as wheelchair basketball, football penalty shoot outs, boxing pad challenges and obstacle races. Our Year 9 pupils at St Chad’s acted in a very mature and professional manner and both the students from St Chad’s and Halton Lodge had an enjoyable and memorable morning. Well done to all who participated in the sports day!
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It has arrived: the maths department’s website, with announcement of the first tutor groups to be top of their year groups in the tutor time numeracy ninja competition. They are... Year 7 - 7AMW Year 8 - 8DC Year 9 - 9VB Year 10 - 10HF Year 11 - 11BW This will be run every week with the winners being published on the website and through our Twitter account @Chadematics. At the end of each half term, there will be a Grand Master, which will be the top performing tutor group. The website will also have the Latest News of the achievements of the pupils along with Hints and Tips on how to do different skills within maths. The Hints and Tips area is in development and more will be added to it over time, along with the Revision area. You can find the link to the website on the front page of www.st-chads.co.uk under ‘Students’. I hope you find it useful and informative, and if you have any feedback on the site please contact us.
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HISTORY CLUB Eve, Katie & Grace, members of our Year 7 History Club, decided that they would run a history story writing competition to coincide with the annual BBC 500 word competition. They created a poster to advertise the competition and this was shared with all the pupils in Year 7. The winner, chosen by Katie and Eve, was Grace who so impressed the two judges with her story about the tragic consequences of the volcano at Pompeii in Ancient Rome that they decided to award her the prize and enter her story for the BBC competition itself. In the picture Grace is receiving her prize from Mrs. White, Eve and Katie. Well done girls on all your efforts!
SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY DAY @ THE CATALYST MUSEUM
A group of 21 pupils from St Chad’s visited the Catalyst Museum in Widnes for the day and took part in a series of workshops with scientists who currently work in local industries, and an informative “hands-on” Explore the Universe talk which looked at the scientific world from the smallest particles in atoms to the largest stars in the Universe. The ten Year 9 and eleven Year 8 pupils along with Dr McNeill and Mr Burke enjoyed being filmed using an infra-red camera, doing experiments with a Van der Graaf generator and making slime and non-Newtonian fluids. The pupils also learned how studying STEM subjects at school could help them get an interesting and rewarding career in the future.
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The annual Chinese New Year celebrations were very successful once again this year at St Chad’s. We held workshops and invited visitors, and primary school pupils as well as our own students from all year groups to come and join in the fun. Four Chinese artists from mainland China demonstrated the traditional Chinese folk art skills to our students including eggshell painting, Chinese knots, dough figurine and embroidery. Master Chen led the Kung Fu and lion dance workshops where students were totally amazed by the beauty of the Chinese martial art. Most impressively, our Year 10 Chinese students sung sweetly one of the most popular Chinese folk songs “Jasmine Flower” to welcome the Year of the Monkey.
The celebrations ended by watching a Chinese national level acrobatic show in the assembly hall, joined by our feeder primary school pupils and Chinese students, who all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was a fantastic day and all the students appreciated the spectacular activities. I hope the Year of the Monkey brings many opportunity and that achievement can flourish at St Chad’s.
Once again, Year 11 ASPIRE students used the opportunity when completing their COPE GCSE Citizenship Module, to turn it into a fundraising event. As a group, they planned and took part in a sponsored walk, mapping their route, training for the challenge and ensuring they were well-equipped beforehand.
chosen charity which, this year, is Macmillans. Particular praise must go to Kieran Bushell who raised the bulk of this sum on his own. We shall be presenting the cheque to the staff at Macmillans in the coming weeks at their local office. Well done to all involved!
Their route took them to the summit of Moel Famau which is a physically demanding challenge and the group worked really hard to raise the sum of over ÂŁ200.00 for their
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MARY
POPPINS
LASER
QUEST
On Tuesday 23rd February 60 Year 8 pupils who had achieved above 97% attendance or above for the previous half term went to Laser Quest at Cheshire Oaks to battle it out against each other. The trip was a reward for those pupils that have continued to work hard to improve or maintain their attendance and appreciate the importance of attendance to progress and achieve in school. The pupils behaviour was exemplary and the company who ran the activity said they were one of the best school groups they had had at the venue for the way they listened and behaved throughout the activity. Well done Year 8 and keep up the good work with your attendance.
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On Wednesday 24th February, 12 Year 9 pupils studying BTEC Dance travelled to Manchester to watch the world famous musical ‘Mary Poppins’ at the Palace Theatre. The pupils have been studying the choreography from the well loved song ‘Step In Time’ from the musical. They will be performing the choreography for their forthcoming assessment, so in preparation they watched the professionals performing the piece. The pupils were amazed by the production and can now apply the performance skills needed in their own assessment for their interpretation of the dance. The behaviour and maturity of the pupils was outstanding as always and they were a pleasure to take on the trip. Good luck in the assessment girls!
JEWISH MUSEUM On Monday 14th March, Mr Tither, Miss Cox and our chaplain Niall Hammond took thirty Year 9 students to visit the Manchester Jewish Museum.
On Wednesday 9th March a group of very excited Year 7 pupils and those involved in the school production of Annie headed to see the professional tour of the musical at The Liverpool Empire theatre. Even though the show was delayed all pupils behaved maturely whilst waiting for the curtains to go up. It was great for the students involved in the school production to gain some inspiration (and practise their lines), whilst the Year 7 students enjoyed their treat trip due to great attendance and behaviour throughout the year. It was a late but very entertaining evening, both teachers and pupils alike can’t wait until the next theatre trip.
The purpose of this visit was so that the students could learn about the Holocaust and hear survivor’s stories. During this visit they were privileged to be spoken to by Chaim Ferster, a 93 year old Holocaust survivor who spent time in Auschwitz concentration camp. His testimony was thought provoking, emotional and enabled our students to gain an insight into such an existence. Rebecca Corless commented, “I have learned about the Holocaust in school but I never thought that I would meet someone who had actually experienced these events. I was touched by what Chaim said but also shocked at the horrific stories which he spoke about.” Jack Lunt reflected “I felt honoured to speak to someone who had survived so many concentration camps. The way Chaim spoke allowed me to really think about the impact that these events had on normal everyday people like us.” I am sure that this experience will be one that our students will never forget.
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The pupils participated in a carousel of fun activities including model-making, parachute games, story-telling and computer games. Every pupil visited the French café, where the menu offered delicious crêpes, croquemonsieurs, baguettes and fruit drinks. All the activities were planned and delivered by our Year 10 Language Leaders or by visiting associate teachers from John Moores University. This workshop is part of our programme of support that we offer to encourage young pupils to develop a love for language-learning. Every week teachers from St Chad’s visit local primaries to assist in the teaching of French, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. 12
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Many thanks indeed for such a successful and stimulating event today. Our trainees benefited hugely, being able to prepare and practise new material with very cooperative and enthusiastic children, all supported by your school and organisation. I received some great photos of the event, from James Nevens, which will be circulated around the University here. We value our long and fruitful association with St Chad’s, and we especially appreciate the effort you go to to welcome our people and show them innovation and enjoyment in language learning.
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St Chad’s hosted a French workshop for 100 Year 5 pupils from St Mary’s, St Clement’s and Halton Lodge Primary Schools.
Natalie Seeve-McKenna and Gillian Peiser Liverpool John Moores University MFL tutors said:
SPORT TASTER DAY On Monday 23rd February Year 5 students from our feeder school St Mary’s took advantage of a fantastic opportunity to visit St Chad’s and sample the incredible sports facilities available here. An exciting program was put together by staff in the ASPIRE department who made use of not only our state of the art facilities but also drew on the expertise of both the PE team staff, primary links coordinator and Year 12/13 volunteers. This combination of facilities and staff meant that the students form St Mary’s were able to experience sessions in indoor rock climbing on our 10 metre state of the art climbing wall and wheelchair sports sessions on our 15 custom made sports wheelchairs. There was even a dance session which was delivered by highly experienced Year 12 dance student Lucy Mcgrellis/Louise Griffiths. These sessions are a great opportunity for St Chad’s school to connect with our local primary schools and for potential future St Chad’s students to get a taste of what is on offer if they decide to join us at some stage in their academic journeys.
WHEELCHAIR SPORTS Throughout February and March members of the ASPIRE team responsible for disability sports and primary links within St Chad’s have been transporting our sports wheelchairs to two local primary schools and delivering after school sessions. This has allowed primary students who may not have had the opportunity to experience wheelchair sports to take part in some taster sessions. The sessions have been really well received by the primary schools and the students have been delighted with the opportunity they have been given. At St Chad’s we feel that it is extremely important for students to get the opportunity to engage in as many sporting activities as possible and to be able to access the facilities that they need to follow their sporting interests. St Chad’s ASPIRE staff would like to take to opportunity to commend the students from St Martins and Allsaints on their mature and considerate attitudes during the sessions.
PRIMARY LINKS CONT...
Gardening Club members have been busy in recent weeks, and have been out in the local area to litter pick. This was part of the national campaign ‘Clean for the Queen’ in celebration of the Queens 90th Birthday. Saturdays in school are normally quite quiet yet this was not the case on 6th February as Year 5 pupils from our partner primary schools, attended a challenging day of activities; working around the theme of Architecture and Art. Mrs Parker introduced pupils to the history behind graffiti art and pupils made their own stencils and completed some spray graffiti art of their own to take home. Pupils working with Mr Merryweather considered the Kobe earthquake in Japan and designed their own structures for buildings; thinking about safety, strength and protection in the construction. Some healthy competition between the groups working on the construction was noticed and ideas were shared between pupils. Preparing their own ideas of who they would like to see open the new Mersey Crossing in 2017, pupils researched the history and renaming of the old ‘Transporter Bridge’ to the reasons of the change in name to the ‘Silver Jubilee bridge’. The task set by Mrs Fox was for pupils to create posters and put forward their ideas of who they feel would be the most suitable person to come along to celebrate the opening of the new Mersey Crossing. A big `thank you` to everyone involved. We look forward to welcoming our year 5 pupils in May for our 3rd and final Stretch and Challenge day of this academic year.
Gardening Club staff have been busy organising our new storage area for our gardening resources, just in time for the Spring months. As we have had a slightly milder winter, our spring bulbs have bloomed and are looking pretty in the school garden. We all look forward to starting the club up again after the Easter half term. The students will be busy propagating, sowing seeds in the mini greenhouses and making bug houses. We will also be growing herbs so watch this space...
EASTER SERVICE TIMES Saint Martin’s: Maundy Thursday 7pm Easter Sunday 9am Our Lady’s: Good Friday 3pm Easter Sunday 11am
The Divine Saviour Easter Day Service Easter Day Service
Holy Spirit: Maundy Thursday 8pm Mass of the Lord’s Supper Easter Sunday 9.00am Service Saint Edward’s: Good Friday 3pm The Lord’s Passion Easter Saturday 12 noon Blessing of Baskets of food Easter Saturday 7pm Paschal Vigil Easter Sunday 10.30am Service Saint Mary’s:
Maundy Thursday 7.00pm Good Friday 2.00pm Easter Sunday 9.30am
Service Last Hour Service Easter Day Service
Christ Church:
Easter Sunday 11.15am
Easter Day Service
St Chad’ School:
Good Friday 11.00am
CTR Service
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I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
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St Chad’s Catholic & Church of England High School Grangeway, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 5YH Email: admin@st-chads.halton.sch.uk Tel: 01928 564106 Fax: 01928 572902 www.st-chads.co.uk