St Mary's Catholic School

On Thursday 8th October, the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle launched the new ‘Pope John Paul II award’ for young people of sixth form age. Through the award, young people will be enabled to take an active part in the life of their Church and in the life of their community and society.
Fourteen of our Year 12 students have registered to undertake the award this academic year and were invited to attend the launch ceremony at St Mary’s Cathedral. It was a fabulous occasion led by the Apostolic Nuncio for Great Britain, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, and Bishop Seamus Cunningham. We heard from the award founders, and students were given a blessing and commissioned for the award. Our school choir were asked to lead the music for the occasion. The sixty students that represented St Mary’s rose to the occasion and sang beautifully throughout. During the reception at ‘The Assembly Rooms’ afterwards many commented on the outstanding talent of our students. It was a fantastic event and a new exciting venture for our sixth form students. We wish them every success with the award.

On Friday 2^nd October Sixth Form Students and Staff took part in our annual Soup Kitchen.

(more…)

Check out our new Sports Portal on the menu bar of our homepage. This dedicated page will keep players and parents up-to-date with what’s on, where and when. You can also access it from the link below:

Sports Portal

8 Year 10 pupils attended a Climate Change Rally in London this week. During the visit, they met the three Newcastle City MPs (Catherine McKinnell, Nick Brown and Chi Onwurah) and were able to lobby them on behalf of CAFOD on the importance of addressing climate change to preserve the future of the planet.  The students enjoyed a tour of the Houses of Parliament, and were invited onto the balcony at Westminster, on the banks of the Thames, to talk over the issue with Nick Brown.  And, as a bonus, and the highlight of their day, the students got their picture taken with Ed Miliband in Westminster Hall!  A great day out was had by all and the pupils were an absolute credit to their Year group and the entire school.

Mrs Shields and Mr O’Connell

St Mary’s students enjoyed another successful visit to the Minors City Athletics Championship at Gateshead Stadium on 4^th June. Eighteen students attended the competition and participated in a range of events from 100m to Shot Putt. All of the students performed fantastically well and there were some excellent individual performances. Eight of the students finished in the top four for their event and have qualified for the County Championships at Gateshead Stadium on Saturday 27^th June. Standout performances were from  Josh Collinson (Year 7) who finished 1^st in the 200m and second in the 800m. Similarly, in Year 8, Ross Ward also qualified for two events at the County Championships, finishing in first place in both the 100m and 200m.  The results were as follows:

Well done to all the boys who participated in this event.

Mr Maughan

All parents and students are invited to a performance of ‘Kindertransport’ on Thursday 18th June at 6pm in the Main Hall.

Kindertransport is a play set during World War Two and follows a Jewish girl who leaves her family in Germany to live with a family in England. The sixth form students have been working hard on this since February, cutting and editing the script themselves and they would love as many people as possible to come and see the fruits of their labour! The performance is open to family and friends too, so please feel free to bring any guests along.

The performance is just under an hour long and starts at 6pm.

Tickets are free from the Finance Office.

Miss Stearman (Head of Drama)

St Mary’s took part in the Northumbria Schools Hardball Cricket Festival today. The school’s two teams took on St Cuthbert’s, with the Year 7 team up first to play. St Cuthbert’s won the toss and opened the batting, but were limited early on by Jack Pilling and Muizz Sheikh. St Cuthbert’s batted well and managed to make a total of 98 runs from their 12 overs. St Mary’s began well, but some good bowling removed Hashim Ali, Jake Davison and Jonjo Block. Despite strong play from Jack Pilling and Luke Ashcroft, St Cuthbert’s were comfortable winners by 54 runs.

The Year 8 team from St Mary’s won the toss and decided to bowl first. Ross Ward and Shazhib Saleem bowled brilliantly early on. St Cuthbert’s scored heavily in the middle part of their innings, but Ross returned to take a wicket in the last over. St Cuthbert’s finished on 102. Matthew Brown and Shazhib opened the batting for St Mary’s, and Matthew started well with some powerful hitting. Both were eventually bowled out, but their replacements, Tobin Togy and Ross Ward, formed a good partnership. Ross retired on a well-made 33* and Tobin followed shortly after for 16*. Unfortunately, wickets began to tumble as the run-rate climbed and, with the lower-order batsmen having too much to do, St Mary’s eventually lost by 19 runs.

Both teams acquitted themselves well throughout the day and were a pleasure to supervise.

The students involved were:

Year 7s: Jack Pilling, Muizz Sheikh, Luke Ashcroft, Mohammed Din, Jake Davison, Jonjo Block, Sam Lievesley, Pawan Martin, John Carr, Hashim Ali and Will Campbell.

Year 8s: Tobin Togy, Ross Ward, Shazhib Saleem, Asif Khan, Matthew Brown, Ghulam Mustafa, Lovedeep Sadhra, Charlie Kain, Nadi Ahmed, Isaac Kain and Tomass Prado.
Mr Hook and Mr Bone