Dear Parent and Carers
As ever the Spring Term has been busy with a wide range of enriching experiences available for our pupils both within school and beyond. Our College show, the Wizard of Oz, received rave reviews from the more than a thousand people who attended the performances with many postings on Twitter and Facebook celebrating the wonderful show.
You may have read about many events already on our College website with our regularly updated Twitter feed capturing the essence of the vibrant life of our College. The next bumper edition of our College Newsletter will provide fuller detail and pictures of the many events. Please look out for it.
I know you will want to join me in thanking all the staff who give so generously of their time to plan and deliver these wonderful opportunities for our pupils to Be More.
Spring break and Easter dates reminder
As you might remember a few years ago the decision was made to take the first two full weeks of April as the Spring Break to avoid the disproportionate length of the different terms depending when Easter Sunday fell. 2019 is a year when Easter Sunday falls outside of the two week Spring Break.
College finishes at the normal time of 2.50pm on Friday 29th March and we return on Monday 15th April at 8.30am.
With Good Friday being the 19th April, College closes at 2.50pm on Thursday 18th April and reopens on Tuesday 23rd April at 8.30am.
May Day Bank Holiday is Monday 6th May.
Public examination preparations
As is always the case at this time of year, preparations for public examinations are taking place in earnest with extra sessions being offered over the Spring Break.
Our internal data, quality assured with our outstanding partner school SJP, is telling us that our Year 11 pupils will achieve an excellent set of results this year. We wish them well at this crucial time in their St Mary’s careers.
Bus timetable update
Those of you whose children come to and from College on a bus service need to be aware that from Monday 29th April there are some changes to the service providers but not the routes and times.
Morning
616 Seacombe to Wallasey Village – Operator: Selwyns
655 Gayton to St Mary’s – Operator: Selwyns
656 Hoylake to St Mary’s – Operator: Als Coaches
658 Saughall Massie – Kingfisher Way to St Mary’s – Operator: Als Coaches
Afternoon
606 St Mary’s to Seacombe – Operator: Selwyns
655 St Mary’s to Gayton – Operator: Als Coaches
656 St Mary’s to Hoylake – Operator: Selwyns
658 St Mary’s to Saughall Massie- Kingfisher Way – Operator: Selwyns
The full details, including the route maps, are on our College website.
Parent Governor Vacancy
As part of our Governing Body, who undertake vital unpaid work in supporting and challenging the work of our College, we have two Parent Governors. One of the Parent Governor roles has become vacant and I have attached some further details. In the first instance, we would invite expressions of interest and where there is more than one this would then proceed to a ballot. Pleasegivethisrole serious consideration.
Improvements becoming embedded
The changes we have introduced are becoming embedded in our College with the positive impact being evident in the quality of work that our pupils are producing.
As part of our quality assurance processes we regularly look at the work that our pupils are producing in their books in response to our carefully planned learning programmes. You will have seentheLearningProgrammesinpupils’booksandalsopostedontheCollegewebsite. These book scrutinies are telling us that the quality of work our pupils are producing is now significantly better.
ClassCharts is continuing to celebrate the positive behaviours of the vast majority of our pupils with over 93 000 positive points having been awarded by staff this year.
Our pupils are thoroughly enjoying the Aspire curriculum. This week our Year 7 pupils had Oracy Days culminating in a number of speeches being delivered to the whole year group of their peers in the presence of Dame Lorna Muirhead. She told me afterwards how impressed she was by the confidence and eloquence of our speakers and that we should be proud of our College and what it is developing in our pupils. We are!
Yours sincerely
Mr A Boyle Mr T Quinn
Headteacher Executive Headteacher
