St Mary's Roman Catholic High School, Chesterfield
Encyclopedia
- For schools with a similar name, see St. Mary's Roman Catholic High SchoolSt. Mary's Roman Catholic High SchoolSt. Mary's Roman Catholic High School may refer to:*St Mary's Roman Catholic High School, Chesterfield*St Mary's Roman Catholic High School *St. Mary's R C High School, Croydon...
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St Mary's Roman Catholic High School is a Roman Catholic, co-educational, comprehensive school
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
in Upper Newbold
Newbold, Derbyshire
Newbold is a village north of Chesterfield, a market town in the English county of Derbyshire. In 2001 in had a population of just under 8,000....
, Chesterfield
Chesterfield
Chesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
, Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
, that specialises in the teaching of languages.
It received a School Achievements Award for the third time in 2003 and has approximately 1260 pupils attending, including 254 sixth form students (as of 2006).
The Headteacher of this school is currently Mr S McClafferty, after the retirement of Mr T Moore OBE who has won awards for his involvements in the school's charity work, particularly the funding and building of a school in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...
, Africa. He received an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in December 2006; this was mentioned on the local BBC News programme Look North.
The school is voluntary aided and holds many fundraising events in order to aid itself financially.
St Mary's performance is considerably higher than the local and national average , and was recognised as 'particularly successful' by Ofsted
Ofsted
The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills is the non-ministerial government department of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England ....
in 1993-4 and 1997-8 .
However, the School has no specific geographical catchment area (like other schools in the area) and so can choose students from church Parishes in Chesterfield, though all Catholic applicants are generally accepted; regardless of academic ability.
The school adopted the song "Let us build a school" as their official school hymn in 2006. Former Australian international cricketer Jason Gillespie
Jason Gillespie
Jason Neil Gillespie is an Australian cricketer who formerly represented Australia at international level, in both Tests and One Day Internationals, and South Australia, Yorkshire and Glamorgan at first-class level. His primary role is as a right-arm fast-medium bowler, but he is also a competent...
has visited the school, and there is a picture of him in the sports hall to commemorate this.
Beginnings
The school was first opened on 8 January 1856. It was part of The Church of The Annunciation, a Roman Catholic church in ChesterfieldChesterfield
Chesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
, built by the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
(Jesuits) and completed in 1854. The church at the time was also known as St Mary's. The school later moved to a site on Cross Street, also in Chesterfield, around 100 metres from the church. The buildings on Cross Street are now home to St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School, a feeder school
Feeder school
Feeder school is a name applied to schools, colleges, universities, or other educational institutions that provide a significant number of graduates who intend to continue their studies at specific schools, or even in specific fields....
to St Mary's Roman Catholic High School. Both schools are closely linked with the Church of The Annunciation.
In 1997 the school adopted the motto that now adorns the school badge, 'Gaudium Et Spes, ' meaning 'Joy and Hope.' The motto was chosen by the Governors and Sixth Form Council, after an open call for contributions. The successful motto suggestion was submitted by the erstwhile Mr Shirley.
Present Campus
The present campus was the brainchild of Canon David Ryan. He worked tirelessly, for fourteen years, from the time of his arrival as Parish Priest at the Annunciation, to raise funds for the new school campus. The present campus was officially opened in 1982, one year after its completion. In 2000 a new building was built to house the school's ICT facilities. This was dedicated to Canon David Ryan and was named 'The Canon David Ryan Building'.In the summer of 2002, work in building an all-weather astroturf sports pitch was completed. The pitch has facilities for football and hockey, and is floodlit for use during the evening, particularly for after-school sports fixtures and also the local hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
club.
In September 2003 work on a Sports Hall was started, the building was completed in June 2004. The building was dedicated and blessed in the same month.
In 2004 work started on building a new building to house the school's English Department, this was completed in the summer of 2005.
Sesquicentennial
The school celebrated its sesquicentennial (150th Anniversary) in 2006. One of the main celebrations involved the building of a school in Burkina Faso. Fundraising started in 2005, in order to reach a target of £30,000.The school is now complete and footage of lessons were recently shown on the local BBC News programme Look North in December 2006, in the same article announcing that Mr. T. Moore will be receiving an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
School houses
St Mary's has six school 'housesHouse system
The house system is a traditional feature of British schools, and schools in the Commonwealth. Historically, it was associated with established public schools, where a 'house' refers to a boarding house or dormitory of a boarding school...
' which compete in the school's various inter-house events (primarily sport). The house names reflect the school's Catholic ethos:
- AlphaAlpha (letter)Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
- The house symbol is the Greek letterGreek alphabetThe Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
alpha - OmegaOmegaOmega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
- The house symbol is the Greek letter omega - PaxPaxPax may refer to:* Pax , the Roman goddess of peace- Organizations :* PAX Association in Poland* Pax Forlag, a Norwegian publishing house* PAX Network, a U.S. television network now known as ION Television...
- Sign of peace and the house symbol is a dove - Chi RhoChi RhoThe Chi Rho is one of the earliest forms of christogram, and is used by Christians. It is formed by superimposing the first two letters chi and rho of the Greek word "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ" =Christ in such a way to produce the monogram ☧...
- The symbol is the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ (chi = ch and rho = r) superimposed. - IchthysIchthysIchthys, from Koine Greek: , is the Greek word for "fish"....
- The house symbol is a fish. - PneumaPneumaPneuma is an ancient Greek word for "breath," and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul." It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible and in...
- The house symbol is a flame, signifying the everlasting flame of Christ.
The house symbols appear on the students badges. The colour of the picture shows which year group they belong to and the colour is retained until the student leaves the school.
Pupils can be rewarded with merits for repeatedly achieving good work. These merits count towards the points scored by the pupil's house for the year.
Choir
The School has its own Male Voice Choir, formed after the Chamber Choir ended in summer 2007. The Male Choir made its first appearance at the 2007 Crooked Spire concert, singing 'Gaudete' and 'A La Ruru Nino'. 2008 saw Manflesh sing at the Winding Wheel, and then in July, along with the other school choirs, tour Venice singing at St Mark's Basilica and San Giovanni.School Status
St. Mary's is a DfES designated Language CollegeLanguage College
Language Colleges were introduced in 1995 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The system enables secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, modern foreign languages...
and a designated Beacon School
Beacon School
Beacon School was a government designation awarded to outstanding primary and secondary schools in England and Wales from 1998 to August 2005. The Beacon Schools programme identified schools that were examples of good practice and funded those schools to enable them to build partnerships with each...
.