St. Ambrose Barlow Weekly Newsletter Issue 17

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MAY 13th 2016 Issue 17

Our Aim

In accordance with our Mission Statement the School’s aim

60

Faith and Worship

To help us to grow spiritually as followers of Christ and as members of a C community: to make prayer, worship and liturgy central to school life.

School and Community

Celebrating Years of Celebrating 60 Years of60Outstan Outstanding Learning 1955 - 2015

To encourage and develop relationships between home, parish, school and the wider com in order to prepare our pupils to become responsible, I love comingcaring to workcitizens. here each day.

Often it doesn’t feel like work. We are a Catholic co privilege to see our young people flourishing, to sp Malham Tripwatch them grow in confidence.

20th - 24th ways and They a To develop system of communications and relationships June which is based Year 7 Parents’ Evening an effective May 18th every lesson great adventures and stories unfold bor care and understanding towards all member New Intake Parents’ Evening June 22nd Gospel values of mutual respect, tolerance, and creativity. Our equally inspiring staff are dedica Year 11 Leavers’ Mass May 23rd school community. person in their care. They may July get outstanding re Year 11 Prom 1st School closes for half-term May 27th brings so much more to the education of our studen Individual Support and Development Y7 Conway so tripthat every child can July 4ththeir - 8thgifts a differently realise School re-opens June 6th they are. Doing this means that we are bringing to Year 10 Plas Menai July 11th - 15th ethos of to theencourage school.

To celebrate the unique nature of each person and their development as indi Year 9 Retreat June 7th - 10th

Communications and Relationships IMPORTANT DATES & FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Year 10 reviews

June 13th -15th

School closes

July 15th

There is great spirit and energy in this school. You c Curriculum School Day Consultation Outcome curricular activities, the and array of research The Governors met lastinweek decided to retainprojec Y6 Transition Days June 16th - 20th the creativity that flows through our learning.

There the current start time of 08:45, adding ten minutes to A National Teach To introduce all pupils to a broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum and t the so thatno-one it finishes oneschool is leftday behind, is at left15:25 out.from Visitors Sports Presentation Evening June 16th A National often School o September.

Athey letter find has been issued. pupils with the necessary knowledge, skills Christian values required a rapidly ch ofand purpose in the school; in this comes fro

SCIENCE PROJECTS Ever wondered what zombies eat or whether or not you can make plants grow by talking to them? Thought not.

But our Year 9s have been doing just that kind of wild and crazy thinking with Miss Moore as part of a research project with the University of Manchester.

A group of pupils have each taken on a different topic for scientific research and will be seeing through their enquiry over the next few months. The work is already advanced and shows just how tenacious and inquisitive our pupils can be.

PSHE SUPER DAY Our most recent PSHE Super Day saw a wide range of activities running across the school. Year 11s completed their Records of Achievement, while other pupils learnt about issues such as homelessness with charity Coffee for Craig

6th form Volunteers A group of our sixth formers worked with the charity Disabled Living on their Kidz to Adultz Exhibitions project the other day.

The charity provides impartial advice on equipment and services for adults, children and other people with disabilities.

Our students have been working in their Wednesday afternoon enrichment time to help with mailing out event tickets to build awareness amongst those who may benefit from attending.

Assemblies We have enjoyed a week of assemblies from various groups of pupils, led by Miss Byrne and Mrs. Grindley in Geography, on the topic of the forthcoming EU Referendum. The assemblies presented very detailed and unbiased information about the referendum to raise awareness in pupils about the choices facing those of voting age.

Robots A group of Year 9 girls have been working with Mrs Taylor to design, develop and build robots. This is part of a collaboration between the school and the University of Manchester called Tinker, Tailor, Robot, Pi. It explores the use of code in creating robots and brings together skills in a number of areas of the curriculum.

The robots that the class have created each have a unique design based on insects. Mrs. Taylor is also creating musical instruments using the same process for a Robot Orchestra.

Waterstones TRIP We are well on our way to establishing the school library and this week we took a big leap forward. Already we have huge numbers of books donated by pupils, staff and families to augment our existing stock. We added to that on Thursday when the pupil group leading the library development were taken by Mrs. Feay to Waterstones on Deansgate, Manchester, to select stock for the library. They came back with hundreds of volumes and very fired-up about the next steps which include bespoke, pupil-designed artwork for the space. Mrs. Feay commented: ‘It was a lovely day at the book shop and staff were very help and friendly commenting on how excellent our pupils were. I can’t believe it’s my job to get to do something like this!’

Creativity Conference On Thursday we hosted a conference on the creative industries for pupils from St. Ambrose Barlow and Failinge High School. The conference was entitled Next Generation and encouraged pupils to consider the ways in which they could be part of the creative industries (which are worth £8bn to the UK economy) in the future. Speakers included representatives from the worlds of music, journalism, digital design, marketing, fashion and much more.

Next week we will feature the pupils who attended evaluating the day.

Charity We’ve raised quite a lot of money for various different charities over the past few months. The totals are as follows: Autumn Term: Spring Term:

£1782.69 £1683.43

Total:

£3446.12*

OUR SCHOOL THIS WEEK above: the robots made by year 9s in mrs Taylor’s class; below: mrs taylor’s impressive robot drum powered by code.

OUR SCHOOL THIS WEEK hungry? you should be. this was made by roisin in year 7. A future bake off champion surely.

OUR SCHOOL THIS WEEK Years 7 & 8 leading assemblies about the Eu referendum; sixth formers helping out disabled living.

OUR SCHOOL THIS WEEK the pshe day. top: year 11 pupils leading activities through drama; middle: the office girls perform to year 8 and year 9; bottom: working with coffee for craig on homelessness