Bellerive News For Parents, Carers, Parishes and Community
April 2013 Welcome to our newsletter It has been a busy few months for all at school and we hope you enjoy reading about the students and their many achievements. We are particularly looking forward to the imminent opening of the Elmfield extension which will provide more state of the art facilities for all our students. We are also now on Twitter at @ BelleriveFCJ. Follow us to keep up to date with the school over the months ahead. Happy reading!
Lent Services We have just had the season of Lent, the forty day period leading to Easter. Lent is the time for us to prepare ourselves to remember the death and resurrection of Our Lord. All of our pupils have taken part in a reconciliation service to help get themselves ready for Easter. Using the account in Mark’s Gospel of Peter denying Jesus, we explored the times in our lives that we have turned away from behaving in the way that we know we should. These services have all taken place in our beautiful school chapel, which is a place of calm and prayer.
The new look Elmfield site – “nearly there” Parents and students, current and prospective, will be thrilled to see that our building work on the Elmfield site is almost complete. Work began in August 2012 to complete an additional 5 teaching spaces to support our growing school community. Our contractors are now putting the final touches to the state of the art classrooms, and all signs indicate that they will be a proud addition to Bellerive. These pictures will give you some idea of how things are progressing. Further updates will be posted on the school website and through our Twitter feed.
Nugent Care During Lent we raise funds for the Nugent Care’s Good Shepherd Appeal. Bellerive pupils always make great efforts to help this local charity and therefore always raise a generous amount of money. To help with our fundraising this year, Nugent Care have given us a very cute and fluffy Build-A-Bear called… well, we don’t actually know her name! Sixth Form students are running a competition to name the bear and pupils can pay 50p to have a guess at her name. The person who chooses the correct name will win the bear.
Open Evening Year 5 Open Evening Tuesday 9th July 6pm - 8pm We look forward to welcoming prospective parents and students to see what makes Bellerive an 'outstanding Catholic college'
Taster Day
What's my name?
Monday 24th June
NEW! Please follow our Twitter page for the latest news: @BelleriveFCJ www.bellerivefcj.org
Specialising in the Sciences, Applied Learning, Maths and Computing
Word Education Games Pupils answered hundreds of thousands of questions during the World Education Games that took place between 6th and 8th March. Congratulations to Olivia Walsh, Jade Owens and Aisling Barron who answered the most correct questions in English, Mathematics and Science respectively.
A Young Making?
Leader
in
the
Elizabeth Wallace from our Sixth Form attended a training weekend for VIDES an international Catholic organisation of volunteers. Young people around the country are invited to attend this training weekend with a view to leading a summer camp for children and teenagers during the summer holidays. Elizabeth said “the VIDES weekend was not only a heartwarming experience, but was also very informative. My next step is to go to the summer camp in Oxford. It was such a great experience”.
Year 9 Pupil Found Guilty! A Year 9 pupil was found guilty at Mold Magistrates’ Court on Saturday 9 March 2013! Fortunately, the ‘guilty’ party, Megan Savage, was only playing her part in a mock trial, as our pupils competed in the Citizenship Foundation’s “Magistrates Court Mock Trial” Competition.
Maths and Science Trip to Paris 2013 In February, a group of Year 13 students took part in a Maths and Science Trip to Paris. We travelled very early on Sunday morning by coach and ferry, excited and looking forward to our time together. The first day was our visit to the city of Paris. We started by visiting the shrine of the Venerable Marie Madeleine D’Houet, foundress of the sisters, Faithful Companions of Jesus. Sr Lynne fcJ who joined us for this trip led us as we took some time to light candles and pray for our loved ones and our school community. It was a wonderful moment, made even more special as we were privileged to be the first international FCJ group to visit this shrine since the mortal remains of Marie Madeleine were brought to France from England. Then the sightseeing began. We visited Notre Dame Cathedral, walked over various romantic bridges, took photos by the pyramids outside the Louvre museum, and of course saw the Tour Eiffel! All had a great time attempting to speak French, drinking coffee in French cafes, taking photos, letting our hearts be lifted by the beauty that we saw all around us.
The second day was given to the annual Royal Institution Science Experience at Disneyland Paris. We attended a series of lectures delivered by experts in their fields. The topics ranged from working with radar images in ten thousand dimensions to the way our brain constructs meaning from sensory inputs. One focussed on the rules for designing a robotic companion; apparently the trick is to make them grow old gracefully, gradually getting a bit slow and grey rather than suddenly crashing. Between the lectures, the group had the chance to explore the Disneyland and Disney Studio parks. As the teachers grew old gracefully in a number of cafes, the students experienced some sudden crashes on the Tower of Terror and Space Mountain. University level science, the culture of a very beautiful and romantic city, combined with the Disneyland experience made for an intriguing and exciting few days. Special thanks go to Mrs Hayward for organising such a memorable trip and we are looking forward to next year!
Mr Keeley & Sr MaryAnne fcJ
15 pupils took part in the competition, taking the roles of magistrates, lawyers, witnesses and court officials, as they went up against three other schools from the region, including a ‘head-to-head’ with fellow FCJ school, Upton Hall. Other star performers included Isabelle Bailey and Nicole Salcedo, as opposing lawyers and Julia Miloszewska as the Legal Adviser, while ‘magistrates’ Niamh Owens, Michelle Olchowski and Abbie Rendell-Mooney were praised for their observant and even-handed performances. The competition pits local schools against each other to act out prepared but unscripted legal cases. Although neither Bellerive nor Upton Hall managed to progress to the next round, Mr McGrath was full of praise for the Year 9 girls. “They have worked very hard since December and were a credit to themselves and their school,” he said.
Visiting the Louvre … and upside down pyramid … very mathematical!
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Music
French
Religious Education
Success at Wirral Festival of Music, Speech and Drama
The girls in Years 10 and 11 have been putting their hard work to the test in Controlled Assessments. Despite some last minute nerves, it is a joy to see those girls who have performed to their best come out with a smile, and not only because of the promise of a crêpe au chocolat cooked by our French Assistant, Mademoiselle Gatineau. There appeared to be enough to feed the five thousand!
Easter cards for the Holy Land
The Senior Choir consists of about 30 girls from Years 8 - 11. The Choir rehearses once a week and plays a major role in the liturgical events during the year. They also perform regularly at Prizegiving ceremonies. Our programme consisted of two pieces; a two-part arrangement of the song “You Raise Me Up” and a two-part arrangement of “The Lord’s Prayer” taken from “African Sanctus” by David Fanshawe. The adjudicator was very complimentary about our choir and described the performance as “real choral singing”. She also commented on how well the voices blended and how well they captured the mood of both pieces. The Choir was delighted to win first place in the Youth Choir Class and we are extremely proud of their achievement.
Mission Days with Year 8 and Sixth Form Year 8 and Sixth Form each took part in a mission day, led by Animate Youth Ministries, the youth service for the Archdiocese of Liverpool. We were very proud to welcome back a former Bellerive pupil, Rebecca Wall, who now works for Animate. Year 8’s day focused upon being made in the image and likeness of God and throughout the day pupils explored ideas around what is important in our lives who inspires us and how we can remember that we’re made by God. Pupils took part in a fashion show in which they designed and made clothes out of bin bags and cardboard boxes and there were games, video clips, songs and drama to bring the theme of the day to life. As this is the Year of Faith, the mission for Sixth Form focused upon faith. Students were given the opportunity to take part in some games and discussion work to help them to consider the importance of faith in their lives. Both year groups really enjoyed their mission days and were sad to see the Animate Team go! Many thanks to the team for leading us so well through those days.
More hard work will be necessary now to achieve those positive results in remaining coursework as we begin the final journey towards the GCSE exams. Keep up the hard work girls!
Science Young Analyst 2013 On Saturday 9th March three intrepid Year 12 chemists visited the new Central Teaching Laboratories at Liverpool University to take part in the North West heat of the Schools’ Young Analyst Competition. This competition is run by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
As part of the Easter preparations, the RE Department joined the Archdiocese in linking up with schools and parishes in Jerusalem to send some warm Easter wishes. During their RE lessons, all Year 7 and 8 girls worked hard with their teacher and fellow class mates to design and hand make Easter cards. The girls thought carefully about the meaning of this special time in the Liturgical Calendar and showed this in their designs. Not only did these cards make their way to a parish in Jerusalem, chosen by the girls, but they also entered a competition for the best Easter design. Each RE class taking part competed amongst themselves to be awarded a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize for their designs. The 32 form class winners went into a bigger draw when Mrs Woods selected ‘Best Easter Card in Year 7 and 8’ and the winners were Lauren Griffiths in 7M and Rebecca O’Brien in 8J.
The students carried out titrations to calculate the concentrate of citric acid in various fruit drinks and the amount of iron in IRN-BRU. They were also able to use infra-red spectrometers that cost thousands of pounds, to identify organic compounds. They obtained very accurate results in their titrations and were one of the high performing teams in the competition. They had a very interesting day, enjoying a lovely lunch and a fascinating talk on gold nanoparticles.
Art Year 7 and 8 made Easter Egg packaging designs for Science week. They were asked to base their designs on topical issues and the completed designs were excellent. Winners from each Form class were awarded prizes. Year 9 have just completed a selfportrait using a number of different themes and starting points and the work completed will be on display in the Art Room after half term. Well done to all Year 11 GCSE pupils for successfully completing their Art Exam recently. The girls worked really hard and the work will be on display in the Art room in the Summer term.
Open Evening Year 5 Open Evening Tuesday 9th July 6pm - 8pm We look forward to welcoming prospective parents and students to see what makes Bellerive an 'outstanding Catholic college'
Taster Day Monday 24th June Open to Years 4 and 5 , to apply email: tasterday@bellerivefcj.org
NEW! Please follow our Twitter page for the latest news: @BelleriveFCJ
PE
Irish Dancing Feet (Feat!)
Netball Success
MATHS PUZZLE
During a Year 8 assembly on the theme of ‘Gifts and Talents’, two very talented young ladies, Olivia Chadwick in Year 7 and Emily Earley in Year 8 gave us a display of Irish dancing, in anticipation of St Patrick’s Day on Sunday 17th March. The two pupils who attend Bolger Cunningham School of Irish Dance made a wonderful impression on staff and pupils.
Well done to a Year 11 pupil for getting our February puzzle correct. The answer was 30 minutes. Try this one!
The Netball season has finished with success for the older pupils of the school. The City Championship Netball Tournaments have been taking place this half term on Monday evenings. On Monday, 25th February, the Year 11 Netball team entered their last tournament together in their current school colours. They played a series of round robin matches against the other schools in the Championships and achieved a pleasing 2nd place overall. The Year 10 team played the following Monday. They were entered into a ‘pool’ system which saw them winning all but one of their matches. As the runner up in our pool, the girls were entered into the semi-finals and had to play the winning team from the opposite pool. Unfortunately our team was narrowly beaten and went on to play for the third and fourth place play-off. This was again, a tough match but in the dying seconds we scored the winning goal to gain third place overall. The Year 9 team played through extreme weather conditions in their tournament on Monday, 11th March. One minute the shooters were struggling to take aim in blazing sun and the next minute they were playing in blizzard like conditions with the snow being whipped into their eyes by the strong wind. The girls remained unfazed and played as though their life depended upon it. They won their pool without any defeats against the other schools in the pool. In the semifinal they played Belvedere which was a close run match but when the final whistle blew the Bellerive team had won and were through to face St Edward’s College in the final. These two teams have faced each other in the same final for the last two years with St Edward’s usually managing to take the Championship title but this year our girls were more determined and focused than ever and it showed in their play and hard work ethic. The final score was 3 – 2 to us – a fantastic achievement! Congratulations to the City Champions – Year 9 Bellerive FCJ Catholic College. The Year 7 and 8 teams are soon to play their City Championship Tournaments. We wish them lots of luck!
The girls danced beautifully by performing a reel and a treble reel. They looked most elegant in their Irish Dancing costumes and were complimented by pupils and staff. We thank the girls for highlighting the importance of celebrating our God given gifts and talents. We wish them well in their forthcoming Feis (Irish Dancing competition).
The Tournament Bellerive Y7 netball team takes part in a knockout tournament of 16 teams. How many games will be played in total to find a winner? How many games would be needed if there were 20 teams, some of whom would get a bye in the first round and proceed straight to the second round? Put your answer (make sure you include your name and form) in the box at the main Bellerive reception by 4.00pm on Friday 26th April 2013. The winner will be the first correct entry drawn by Mr White.
Diary Dates Hamelin Matinee 2.00pm Hamelin Evening Performance 6.30pm - 8.30pm Hamelin Evening Thursday 25 April Performance 6.30pm - 8.30pm Bank Holiday Monday 6 May Monday 27 May - Friday 31st May Half term Pupils return to school 8.45 am Monday 3 June Wednesday 24 April Wednesday 24 April
Our website is being continually updated. Please visit us at www.bellerivefcj.org to see what our pupils have achieved and for advice and guidance on learning.
NEW! Please follow our Twitter page for the latest news: @BelleriveFCJ