Ellipsis…, our Young Enterprise team, have won through to the Regional Final of the national competition, having won the County Final in Buxton this week. The team, comprising 11 members of Poetry (Year 12), hit on a market-leading strategy when they decided to sell personalised hooded sports tops.

So far, they have achieved a turnover of £5000, with more orders in the pipeline, and everyone is hoping that they will achieve further success in the next stage of the competition, in Leicester on 19th June. Their success is also remarkable because it is only the second time that the Mount has entered the competition.

Mr McKell said: “We are delighted that our pupils have shown such enterprise and team spirit to reach this stage of the competition.”

The Bishop of Hallam, John Rawsthorne, confirmed eight Mount St Mary's students during Pentecost week, in the College's Memorial Chapel. In a Mass attended by the friends and families of the candidates, along with the boarding community, Amira and Aisha Ibrahim-Alfa, Rosemary Inegbese, Gabrielle Watts, Sophie and Alex Strongman, Josef Ayleno-McCarthy and Luke Allwood stated their faith in God and received the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

It was the culmination of months of preparation led by Ed Pike (college chaplain) and Ms Helena Gonzalez (Head of Modern Languages). The Confirmation candidates had spent a day on retreat in Crich, where they reflected on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and how it would make a difference to them in their daily lives.

Mount St. Mary's appreciates the help of the families of the candidates and would like to echo the thanks of Bishop John offered to them for their support.

Mount St Mary’s hosted its first Jazz Night recently and raised £1210 for the Rotherham-based charity Safe@Last. The event, held on Saturday 26th April in the college Theatre, was a sell out and featured a range of big band and swing numbers performed by the college Swing Band.

The Swing Band is the most advanced instrumental group in the music department and features many of the college’s music scholars. The Safe@Last charity, which provides a refuge for children at risk of running away, is connected to the college as one of our parent governors, Mrs Hilary Massarella, is the Founder Trustee.

Even the weather co-operated to bring the Mediterranean closer to our shores when we held a Salsa Night in aid of the Lourdes Pilgrimage. Miss Gonzales, Head of Modern Languages, put on her dancing shoes to give parents, staff and pupils expert tuition in the art of salsa. Tapas and sangria all added to the experience, and over £620 was raised towards the trip this summer.

Rudiments, Grammar and Syntax (years 9, 10 and 11) had the chance to dress up on Friday evening, when they arrived at school for their annual Ball. They sat down for a formal dinner in the ref before dancing the night away.

Chess: Trent Megafinal

Amer Qaiyum (Rudiments) proved he’s the champion in a recent top chess competition.

Along with five other Mount pupils, he made it through to the regional Megafinal of the UK Chess Challenge, and Amer won four of six games to win himself a place in the North of England Megafinal at Manchester University.

Our other players all did well in the competition featuring over 300 top players from the region. Sam Wilford, Charles MacGregor, Alex Simpson, Isaac McDonald and Amer  were invited to play for Derbyshire in a combined U18 inter-county tournament, but due to prior commitments are unable to play. Sophie George won 2 of her 6 games in the Under 13 girls’ category.

Our performance, both individual and collective, is testimony to the growing strength of chess at the Mount, and all six pupils did the College proud. Well done.

Parents and supporters enjoyed a taste of the Antipodeans when they attended a Sports Dinner in aid of this summer’s Rugby and Hockey tour to New Zealand and Fiji. The New Zealand-themed dinner was served to guests by pupils who will be going on the tour.

During the evening, guests were also able to enjoy a speech given by Tim Stimpson, the former England full-back and a friend of the college’s Head of Games, Mr Wareham. In his speech, Tim shared anecdotes from his sporting past and encouraged pupils to make the most of their talents – echoing the school’s own philosophy.

The fundraising dinner, together with an auction of sporting memorabilia, raised over £1700 towards the three-week tour.

Mount St Mary’s was delighted to host a Preparation Day recently for the Hallam Diocese.  Young people from all over the diocese met at the school for a day of preparation and reflection led by Sister Marie Lavin from the Diocese, as part of the lead-up to their trip to Lourdes in the summer holidays with the diocesan pilgrims.

For our seventeen volunteers and the accompanying staff it was a chance to meet everyone else and enjoy some sessions that focused on “trust”.

 Afterwards, the group, along with our boarders, was privileged to share in the celebration of Mass with Bishop John Rawsthorne in the College Chapel.

Congratulations to one of our Poetry (Year 12) girls, Megan Stevens, who has qualified for the British National Trampoline Finals, to be held at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham this summer.

Megan (16) is a member of the Abbey Flyers Trampoline Club in Sheffield and has trampolined competitively for many years. She has progressed through the ranks so that she now competes at the top level, Grade 1, on a national circuit. Megan has also been selected to compete against the Irish in Northern Ireland in May and to participate in an international competition in Prague in September.

We wish her good luck!

Congratulations to our new Captains for 2008-2009, who were elected by staff and their fellow pupils. We congratulate them on their success and wish them well over the coming year.

Captains 2008-2009

Top Row: Rebecca Hoyes,Rahul Ravi, Heather Booth, Luke Longthorne, Sarah Phillips, Brandon Hannam, Lucy Potts,

Rebecca Rusby, Emma Nevin, Adam Gaskell

Bottom Row: Tony Chen, Daniel Young, Tom Ward,

Dominic Kavanagh

Our pupils going on the summer sports tour to New Zealand and Fiji are not only sporty, they’re also good at baking. That was the conclusion of everyone who sampled the goodies on offer at their cake stall in the Ref.

In just 20 minutes the hockey and rugby players raised £194.75 towards the tour costs. Mrs Powell, Head of Girls’ Games, said: “The tour members all did really well, but special thanks must go to Alex Pollard, who did most of the organising.”

Our Deputy Headmaster, Mr Frank Thompson, will be running in the Great Manchester run this year. He and his wife, Tara, are running in aid of Kidney Research UK. They have a personal interest, as Martha, the three-year old daughter of a close friend has been chosen to front the campaign for research into serious liver diseases. To find out more, or if you wish to sponsor Mr and Mrs Thompson run the Great Manchester run, please click the following link: www.justgiving.com/frankandtarathompson

BATTLEFIELD TOUR

A group of boarding staff visited Belgium during the Easter holidays to pay tribute to Mountaineers who fought and died in the First World War. Travelling by College minibus, the group stayed in Ypres and employed a professional guide to ensure that they understood as much of the history as possible in a relatively short visit, making sure that what was seen was linked to the experiences of Mountaineers. As well as visiting general sites, such as Hill 60, Tyne Cot cemetery and the Hooge Crater Museum, the party also had the chance to visit recent battlefield excavations and handle some of the finds. The most important element of the visit, though, was to track individual Mountaineers and the group was privileged to place memorial crosses at a number of burial and memorial sites. The visit was planned by former serviceman Mr M Powell who, alongside his wife Mrs Powell, runs Pole House. They were accompanied by the Head of Boarding, Mr Haslehurst, Mr and Mrs Toerien, Mrs Gabbitas and Sister Gibson. Mr Lucas, the Facilities Manager, joined with the party at the Menin gate where, during the nightly act of remembrance, the party was proud to lay a wreath in honour of all the Mountaineers who fought and died in the Great War. More details of the visit will appear in the next Newsletter and The Mountaineer.

The staff are pictured at the grave of Second Lieutenant Maxwell Henry Williams, who died aged 19 in 1917. He started at the Mount on 9th January, 1908, aged 10.

PILGRIMS' PROGRESS

This is a special year for Lourdes, 150 years since the first of 18 apparitions to Saint Bernadette. 17 of our pupils will be sharing in the commemorations when they travel to the world-famous shrine in the French Pyrenees as part of the Hallam diocese pilgrimage this summer.

Their visit can not be described as a holiday- they will be caring for the sick and handicapped pilgrims who make the trip in the hope of receiving a cure. 67 recognised miracles have been attributed to the town’s grotto, where many bathe in the waters in the hope of being cured, or simply following Our Lady’s instructions.

The trip requires a lot of preparation, both to raise funds to fund the visit, and to allow pupils to prepare for the challenges of the week. During the Easter holidays, the group, together with Mr McMillan, Mrs Owers and Mr Pike, went on a six-mile sponsored walk from the Mount to Rother Valley Park and back. The six miles were significant, each representing 25 years in Lourdes’ history. Thanks to their efforts, they raised in excess of £1000 towards the trip.

In the afternoon, the group enjoyed a trip to a bowling alley – all part of the bonding experience.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in supporting this important part of our school’s life, that shows our commitment to the Jesuit principle of “Men and Women for others”, the next fund-raising event will be a Salsa evening on Thursday, 8th May. See the section on the Salsa evening for more details.This Thsi i

Our familiar blue uniform was replaced by a swathe of green when pupils came to school in their own clothes on “Green Casual Day”. The reason?  Mount St Mary’s is launching a new recycling project that will see paper recycling bins in every classroom and office, as well as in all the boarding houses.

The project began with a special assembly led by Deputy Headmaster Mr Frank Thompson, who provided some startling statistics about the amount of resources used in this country every day. Did you know that if everyone in the world lived as we do, we would need three planets to cope?

Mr Thompson said: “It’s remarkable how much is recyclable. We’re encouraging pupils to take the initiative in finding ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.”

Sixth form pupils will be responsible for organising the collection of used paper once a week.

Six of our pupils camped out in the Peak District recently, and are getting ready to do the same again at the end of April.

The pupils, all in Grammar, are hoping to gain their Bronze Award in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme, and spent a weekend having a practice session before they are assessed on 26th/ / 27th  April. The expedition is one of four sections that the participants must pass, the others being Service, Skills and Physical Recreation.

For the practice, our pupils walked from Baslow to Over Haddon, with an overnight stop at Birchover where they had to erect their tents for the night and do all their own cooking.

Pupils are encouraged to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme from Grammar onwards. We wish our Bronze recruits well when they walk from Little Longstone to Friden next weekend.

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

Have you seen our new newsletter yet? Click on the link on our home page to read the latest news in the spring edition of our school newsletter.

Congratulations to our Young Enterprise team, who have passed through two stages of the annual national competition and booked themselves a place in the next round, the County final, to be held in Buxton in May.

Ellipsis… consists of 11 Poetry (Year 12) pupils, who won the North Derbyshire Area Final during the Easter holidays. They were hoping for success, after managing to sell personalised hooded tops to more than half of their fellow pupils last term.

At the area final, held at the Winding Wheel Hotel in Chesterfield, the pupils were questioned on their new company report and then made a presentation based( with the pun fully intended) on the Top Gear programme. As well as the overall award, they also won the prize for the best presentation.

The picture shows Lucy Potts (Managing Director) and Adam Gaskell (Sales Director) modelling the profit-making tops.

Everyone’s talking about books at Mount St Mary’s as the 100 + book challenge enters its third week. Launched on World Book Day, the challenge encourages pupils and staff to read over 100 children’s books that were originally published in an article by Michael Morpurgo in the Daily Telegraph.

Among those that have signed up for the challenge are two of our German boarders, Philip Ehlers and Lukas Perka. They leave the school at the end of term to return to Germany but are hurriedly trying to read as many as possible of the books, which range from “The hungry caterpillar” to  “Wuthering Heights”. Between them, they have already read more than 30 books on the list. How many have you read?

The CCF at the College is celebrating the aviation success of one of its members. Luke Longthorne (Poetry), an RAF cadet for 3 years, has been awarded the coveted Gold Wings for gliding. He is the first Mount pupil to gain this qualification, for which he performed 5 solo take-offs and landings in a winch-launched Viking glider. He has been attending RAF Syerston on Sundays to gain the prestigious award, as well as participating in the school’s usual CCF activities every week.

Luke has also been awarded an RAF flying scholarship, granting him 12 hours of flying tuition on a light aircraft at a flying school during the summer holidays. Only 50 such scholarships are awarded annually.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Luke hopes to go into the RAF, either as a fast jet pilot or a multi-engine pilot. For just now though, his ambition is to become a gliding instructor, which would mean that he would fly the cadets that go there every weekend- including our own CCF pupils, who visit Syerston once a term.

All was quiet in the library when 17 pupils competed over a period of 7 weeks in the internal round of the UK Chess Challenge.

Overall, Sam Wilford finished 1st, Amer Qaiyum 2nd and Gagan Shiralagi 3rd in what Mr Toerien described as the “strongest field yet”.

Now the three top players, along with Alex Simpson, Isaac McDonald, William Goodwin, Gagan Shiralagi and Sophie George, will be going on to the Area Megafinal to be held next term.