St Mary's Catholic College

Please click here for the Newsletter version of this letter

The Diocesan Trustees have recently agreed to the co-location of St. Mary’s Catholic College and Christ the King Primary School on the St. Mary’s site. The plans, actively supported by Blackpool’s Children & Young Persons Department, will see a capital investment of just over £22.5 million pounds with a brand new primary school, extensive new secondary and sixth form facilities and the refurbishment of the remaining parts of the College. The iconic frontage of the College, the oldest part of the Layton Hill Convent and the Chapel, will be retained but two different consortia are currently developing a range of ideas for what the rest of the site and the buildings might look like.

In one of the most radical parts of the plan the trustees have given agreement in principle to the relocation of Christ the King Parish Church and associated accommodation onto the St. Mary’s site. This will provide possibly the only new Church to be built in Lancaster Diocese in recent times and for a number of decades to come! It is intended to provide a powerful message to the Grange Park community of the Catholic Church’s ongoing commitment to it. The plans will produce a learning and faith campus that will be one of the first of its kind, anywhere in the country, consisting of a secondary school, primary school and parish church all co-located on one site.

The plans currently being developed by the consortia are unfortunately highly confidential due to their commercial sensitivity. However, the work done during the middle of the year with groups of staff and students about what they would like to see was written up into a design brief and is now at the centre of discussions and the planning process.

The build is planned to start in January 2011 and the College is already developing plans to ensure that students’ learning continues to be of the highest quality throughout the building programme.

To reassure parents and students our provisional value-added figures for 2009 shows the College has a contextual value added (CVA) of 1021 for this summer’s GCSE results. This will place it amongst the best schools in the country and we intend to continue on this upward trend over the coming years! These results will be officially reported later this academic year.

When the buildings are finished, I am sure that students and staff will have the most outstanding buildings and facilities in which to learn.

Hello from Lou and Chris

Samuel from Cadoso Catholic Community College

Hey everyone,

Thought you might like this photo - it's of Samuel - the youngest student in the school at Cardoso catholic Community Secondary School, Ajegunle, Lagos.

He's a bit of a star and small enough to fit into one of the Y7 PE shirts. We gave the school posters as gifts from our Y9's. We also gave: a football, school tie and PE shirt and St. Mary's PE bag . They gave us hand made african shirts.

We're all well, hope you are too.

Lou

Sixth Form Applications

Students are now invited to submit their applications for the sixth form. These can be handed in at the main office, emailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or submitted by post (please mark envelope FAO Mrs. E. Murray). The interview process will include guidance and advice on subject choices, which remain flexible until September 10. Applicants will also have the opportunity of talking in detail to students studying subjects they are interested in if they wish to. The first phase of the interview process runs until December 11th.

Any students who were unable to attend the Open Evening and require a prospectus should contact Mrs. Murray, or can view it on the 6thform link.

Christmas Reward Trip 2009

The Christmas reward trip this year is to the cinema.

The film for Years 7 and 8 will be the animated adventure "Planet 51" featuring the voices of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Gary Oldman, and for Years 9 and 10 will be "Nativity" a comedy starring Martin Freeman.

All monies to be in for 2nd DECEMBER 2009. Letters will be issued to form tutors by the end of the week. Click the Read More Link below to watch the trailers. Thanks, Mr Gillespie