Painsley Catholic College was proud to hold its annual Presentation Evening on Wednesday 28^th March. Students received awards that celebrated academic progress and special endeavour, as well as sporting colours and music awards. The prizes were presented to students by Dr Steven Rayner, Phyisicist and Admissions Tutor, Somerville College, Oxford University.  Special subject awards were presented to Year 11 as well as many other awards. Parents packed the school hall to see their children receive recognition of their efforts and join in the celebrations. Of special note were the awards to Emily Scarlett for Work in the Community; Daniella Clee and Katie Jones, Citizenship Award; Kirsty Morrey, Diana, Princess of Wales Award and PTA Award for Charitable Works; Madalaine Forrester for Contribution to Life at Painsley; William Pickford, School Spirit Award and Rhianne Sutton, Chaplain’s Award.

Another special award for Outstanding Achievement was awarded to Emma Robinson. Emma is polite, conscientious, meticulous, well presented and highly motivated. Emma is always keen to improve her work to the highest standards. She is working at A* grades in all subjects and if there were a grade higher than the A* Emma would achieve it. Emma has completely fulfilled her role as senior prefect this year and is a model student in every way. Emma has accepted the offer of further study at Moorlands College next year, and whoever sees Emma’s name on their register will be exceptionally pleased to be receiving this calibre of student. Emma is a very modest and humble student and fully deserves the recognition of this award

Guests of honour at the ceremony were: Mr A Gadsby, Vice-President of Cheadle Lions, Councillor Stephen Ellis, Vice-Chairman of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, Councillor Ian Whitehouse, Mayor of Cheadle and Mrs Whitehouse, Mr J Pennington, Chair of Governors, Rev Peter Bowyer, Deacon of St Filumena’s Catholic Church and sponsors and governors of the school.

Painsley were also delighted to welcome Mr Ray Wood, husband of the late Liz Wood who served as a teacher at Painsley between 1978 until her sudden and untimely death in January of this year. Liz’s sons, Alex, Stuart and James and best friend Adele also attended. Ray Wood collected the Staffordshire Phelila award which was given to Liz for her contribution to Modern Foreign Language teaching in Staffordshire. Mr Wood gave a moving speech thanking the college for its support during this difficult time.

The U13 girls’ cricket team from Painsley Catholic College entered the North Staffordshire County Tournament this month.

The team won all their games and retained the title of U13 North Staffordshire County Champions and now go through to the County Final against the winners of the South team. The girls have regained the title for the third year running and we congratulate them on this fantastic achivement.

The Painsley Catholic College Year 8 rugby team were crowned Staffordshire Moorlands champions after being undefeated in the tournament. The students played in a total of five matches, winning four and drawing one. The team started off slow in the first game but grew in character as time went on and achieved a draw. This appeared to boost the players and, as a result, they won all of their remaining four fixtures to finish in first place. It was a superb display by all of the students involved in the team.  

Students from Painsley Catholic College have designed an unusual project; to collect six hundred leaves to represent the six hundred areas of ancient woodland in the country that are in danger of becoming extinct. The cross-curricular project, entitled ‘Letters and Leaves’ have sent letters to notable people around the world to ask them to send a leaf and an accompanying prayer or reflection on the importance of our natural environment; in particular, our woodland. Letters have been posted to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Her Majesty the Queen, President Barak Obama and Sir David Attenborough, as well as to environmental academics and local people.

The Letters and Leaves team are welcoming contributions of a leaf and a prayer or thought from anyone who shared their enthusiasm for the beauty and vital nature of our woodland.

The work of the students is being entered into a competition run by the Royal Forestry Commission as part of their work in promoting the sustainability and protection of woodland.

Painsley Catholic College was transported back to 1959 recently with their school production of the American musical Grease. The story revolves around Rydell High School which is filled with rebellious, thrill-loving students. In the midst of this scene, Sandy Dumbrowski enters as the new girl in school. It turns out that she and the leader of the Burger Palace Boys gang, Danny Zuko, have had a brief love affair the summer before. While Sandy stresses to her new classmates the emotional attachment she and Danny had, Danny stresses the physical aspects of their relationship. As the show goes on, the students at Rydell High have to deal with love, raging hormones, gang violence and friendship. In the end Sandy and Danny resolve their differences and end up happily together.

Performed over three nights, audiences were amazed by the singing, dancing and acting skills of students from Year 7 to Year 13. Mrs Tara Thorn, Head of Creative Arts, commented, “This show truly has been a fantastic team effort by members of the Creative Arts Faculty and of course the many other departments throughout the school who have always strived to support the school’s annual productions. The students worked incredibly hard to create an excellent rendition of the years at Rydell High. Well done to everyone involved.”

Painsley Catholic College and the Federation of Catholic Primary Schools were delighted to welcome His Grace the Most Reverend Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham to the College on the first anniversary of the unique federation of the seven Catholic schools.

His Grace first enjoyed meeting the headteachers to talk about the progress over the first year of the federation and then toured the college, actively engaging the students in a variety of different topics which they were studying. The Archbishop was joined by local priests and deacons and staff, governors and pupils from our federation of schools for the celebration of Mass, involving the feeder schools in the bidding prayers and Year 7 students giving a communion reflection in the form of a mime.

Many of the guests were able to join the Archbishop for lunch and the representatives of other churches were particularly pleased to have time to speak with him. In this octave of prayer for unity, Painsley were happy to welcome guests who represent the wider Christian family.

A spokesperson for the College commented “Our federation helps us to have a larger vision for our mission than can be expressed in any one school or parish, and together we prepare our young people to go into the world with the highest ideals and a sense of how best to discover and express the many gifts God has given us.

Our excellent schools ask for God’s guidance and encouragement as we look to the future. We believe that we can help and inspire each other and ensure that all children receive the highest quality education.”

On Friday 6^th January all students at Painsley Catholic College participated in a Pastoral/Citizenship day focusing on key areas of the PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education), Citizenship and work related learning curriculum.

Year 7 students explored issues of discrimination and diversity in terms of ability, gender, sexuality and race. Students participated in a carousel of activities and workshops related to the different diversity themes. Painsley Catholic College would like to thank Kara Ellis for spending the day with them and sharing her personal reflections on disability.

Year 8 students looked at slavery issues in the world today and the work of the ‘Sachin’ project. The Sachin project stands for Save a child in India and is the charity for Year 8. Students explored slavery in a historical context and also in the modern world by looking at issues including trafficking, child labour, and child soldiers.

Year 9 students studied issues surrounding crime and punishment. They looked at features of the criminal justice system and British legal system. Year 9 were supported in their work by the police and officers from the Werrington Young Offenders.

Year 10 students focused on health and well-being, particularly exploring stress management and relaxation. They had the opportunity to participate in some practical suggestions including yoga and Pilates.

Year 11students received their mock examination results in the manner which they will receive results in the summer. This enabled them to focus on preparing their student progress files and writing CV’s and personal statements. All Year 11 students were interviewed by a member of staff regarding their progress, targets and aspirations for the future.

Money talks for students at Painsley Catholic College, Cheadle, after volunteers from Britannia - part of The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) - became teachers for the day, bringing experience of the financial sector into the classroom and helping students make sense of money matters.

On Wednesday (14 December), a team of eight volunteers swapped the banking-hall for the classroom to deliver its award winning Fit4Finance programme to the school's fifteen and sixteen year olds.

Interactive sessions and financially-themed board-games engaged more than 170 students on the day, using real-life examples to simplify the financial issues that young people face.       

Jenny Kinson, education manager at CFS, said: "We are delighted to have helped the students at Painsley Catholic College develop a greater understanding of financial matters. The Year 11 students are at an important age when attitudes to money and saving are being formed.”

"By co-operating with education providers we can build skills, knowledge and confidence in money matters, giving young people a head-start in planning their financial future. Fostering positive attitudes to money management has lasting benefits, raising levels of financial capability that will serve them well in the years to come.”

Mr Clifford Challinor and Mrs Vicky Allen, Work Related Learning, Enterprise and Careers Co-ordinators at Painsley Catholic College, added: "Britannia's support has played an important part in our planned programme of personal financial education. The creative and engaging ways of teaching financial matters encourages a motivation for money management, helping ensure our students leave school with the skills and confidence to manage their money well.”

As part of their Citizenship and PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) programme this year, Year 7 students at Painsley Catholic College have been taking part in the Salvation Army Christmas Present Appeal. This appeal aims to collect presents to be distributed to children in the Stoke-on-Trent area who otherwise would not be receiving gifts this Christmas. Students, either individually or with a friend, chose a gift tag which gave the age of the child for whom the gift was for and then bought a present for that person. From the moment the letters and gift tags were sent home the response was fantastic. Gifts came into school everyday. Amongst the offerings were a guitar, footballs, teddy bears and colouring books. Soon it wasn’t just Year 7 who were contributing; Mrs Brown and her Year 11 students were so touched by the appeal that they had a collection and bought a selection of toys to donate.

On Tuesday 13^th December, Neil Denyer from the Salvation Army came to collect the gifts and met some of the Year 7 students who had worked so hard on this appeal. He was impressed with the response and said that it would make a lot of children very happy.

Behjat Omer Abdulla, an artist and asylum seeker from Iraq worked with Year 9 students, who have chosen art as an option, at Painsley recently. They spent 2 days drawing portraits of themselves and others in the group, investigating the theme of identity. They were each given a number and experienced what it must have been like to be considered, not as a person with his or her own identity and personality, but purely as a statistic.

The students thoroughly enjoyed the 2 days and made exceptional progress with drawing using graphite powder, producing amazing results.