1. education
2. school

23/10/14
Quotation of the week
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,”
Muhammad Ali, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion
INSIDE THE ISSUE:
Artsmark Gold Award
One of the things that we especially value at Holy Family is the wider development of students’ talents and abilities. We
don’t simply focus on academic success, we also value and promote the arts (music, art, drama, dance, performing arts) as
both academic subjects in their own right and as cultural opportunities. We encourage students to sing and play an instrument, we promote drama across the whole school and we have art and photography clubs, as well as extra-curricular
dance opportunities. The high quality and breadth of our work across the arts has been recognised this week with the
prestigious award of Artsmark accreditation. This has been awarded to the school at Gold level, the highest possible accreditation. Congratulations to all the teachers and students involved in arts education at Holy Family.
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Gold Award
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Enrichment Day
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Progression Evening
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Akala Visits
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Caucasian Chalk Circle
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Unicorn Theatre Trip
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Sixth Formers Assembly
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Virginia Fawcett
PTA final meeting (or not?)
You, our parents and carers, will decide if the meeting on Tuesday 4th November at 7.30pm in the Headteacher’s Office on
the Walthamstow House site will be the meeting at which we close down the PTA, or the re-birth of a new committee to
lead our fundraising. Hopefully it will be the latter – please come along and take a lead to keep the PTA going.
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Spoken Word/D of E
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Mario Kart Competition
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Sports Round-up
Thanks to our Chair of Governors
On Tuesday evening Fr Maurice celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving for the service to the school community of Mrs Virginia
Fawcett our retiring chair of governors. Story continued on page 3...
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Rowing Club
Caribbean Evening
Saturday evening saw a packed Walthamstow Hall enjoy a wonderful Caribbean Evening with delicious food, sparkling
entertainment and cultural presentation. A great mix of people of all ages enjoyed each other’s company and our thanks
to all involved and especially to Mrs Lazarus who was the inspiration behind the event. I know many people are already
looking forward to the next one!
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Prayer
Enrichment Day
Tuesday this week saw our first enrichment day of the year when we collapse the timetable and put on a programme of
different and interesting activities. Students were involved in all manner of activities from participating in game show
style quiz competitions to young enterprise and mock interviews from a range of volunteers from the world of business.
The X-Factor
I have to confess, I’m not a regular viewer though I know many people are, but you may not be aware that one of the
finalists (who needs your votes) is former Holy Family student Fleur East. Fleur’s younger sister Keshia was also a Holy
Family student and was, in fact our Head Girl a few years ago. She came in last week to ask if we would encourage
Holy Family students and parents to vote for her sister so I hope that you will!
Headteacher Commendations
This week we recognise Weronika Matczuk, nominated by Ms Millen her music teacher, for her “unfailing dedication
to music. Her homework and classwork are always exemplary. She puts in outstanding effort to all her extracurricular work. She attends orchestra and glee club, and regularly helps out at lower school glee club to support the
younger students. She has also completed a large percentage of her homework twice, once in English and once in
Polish to help another student in year 11.” Our congratulations to Weronika.
Half-term
Enjoy the half-term break and we look forward to seeing everyone again on Monday 3rd November at the usual time.
Parents’ Surgery
Parents’ surgery is every Tuesday 4pm to 5pm on the Walthamstow site. If ever I am not available a member of the senior
team takes my place.
Please continue to remember us in your prayers.
Dr Andy Stone
Headteacher
Enrichment Day
Come & Say Hello
Click the logo to visit our
website. Or visit: Holy
Family Catholic School
Walthamstow.
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Twitter page. You may need
to sign up if you’re not a
member. Or search:
HFCSWaltham/twitter
Gold Award
We have recently received the prestigious Artsmark Gold award. The award is the Arts Council of England’s
flagship programme enabling schools to evaluate, strengthen and celebrate their arts and cultural
provision.
The Artsmark is delivered by Trinity College London and 10 regional organisations. We applied based on the
quality and breadth of our arts curriculum and fortunately won. We were then paid a validation visit
whereby we had to provide evidence demonstrating the quality of outcomes and the impact of our arts
curriculum.
The Arts Council was very impressed with our funding and management we offered to music, drama, dance
and the arts.
Headteacher, Dr Stone, said that, “We really value the quality and breadth of the school's arts curriculum
and I am delighted that the efforts of our talented students and staff have been recognised in this award.
To achieve it at Gold Level is a tremendous achievement for the school”.
Head of Music, Mrs Corlett, entered the school for the award as she felt very confident that our support
and funding to the arts within the school would not go unrecognised. After the successful validation
visit ,we were told that it is very rare for a school to receive the Gold Award on its first application. There
will be performances of ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ for the Christmas production on the 10th and the 11th
of December. Tickets are now available at the Walthamstow site reception.
Enrichment Day
Tuesday 21st we had Enrichment Day. Our students had a day off normal timetable with everyone getting involved in a variety of activities and subject sessions.
Some of the activities included; games, quizzes, tent building, Young Enterprise interviews, martial arts and many more. The Young Enterprise Business Pitch
activity was judged by three snarling dragons: Ms. Hodges. Ms. Cesario-Ziten and Mr. Murphy. It was all very competitive with each student completely
immersed in the challenge, but there had to be winners and the prize of a ten pound gift voucher was awarded to each student from two groups; 9R who invented the D Watch and 9S for their spell checking pen. Well done on such innovative designs!
Other innovations included; Smartwear– sports gear to keep you cool, Polystyrene Cups
which had been exquisitely decorated, the unbreakable lockers, and Yum Yum Gum
which allows you to rhyme lyrically.
Lochlan Houlihan (Yr 9) was voting for Yum Yum Gum and he said,
“Anyone who raps during a business pitch gets my vote.”
It was a wonderful first Enrichment Day. There was a great sense of achievement and our
students showcased The Holy Family Way brilliantly. Well done to all involved!
Progression evening
Our sixth formers visited Frederick Bremer for its Year 11 Progression Evening .
The students did a fantastic job in proudly promoting our 6th Form.
Mrs .Wilbraham said,
“They all did an excellent job! They were very enthusiastic and keen to talk
about the school”.
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Akala Visits
All week we have had groups of students performing in assemblies to highlight
the fact that it is Black History Month. Friday 17th October we invited famous
rapper and poet ‘Akala’ to visit, within the hour he spoke about 16th-century
explorers, Biggie Smalls, the universities of 13th-century, Timbuktu, tai chi, the
Black Wall Street of Oklahoma, the African city portraits of Olfert Dapper,
Eminem, peanuts, Napoleon's generals, traffic lights and golf.
History teacher, Ms Mennear, announced “it was very special as we learnt many
stories that are not usually taught in schools”.
Rehearsals
Enrichment
day also gave
our students
chance to
rehearse our
Christmas
performance–
The Caucasian
Chalk Circle.
Tickets are
now available
from the
Walthamstow
Site.
How Nigeria Became
Farewell
Mrs Fawcett filled this role with distinction for
seven years and made a tremendous
contribution to the development of the school
as a foundation governor for seventeen years.
Both her children attended the school, as did
she in its former incarnation.
Our thanks and our prayers and good wishes go with her for the future. Thanks
too to the staff of the music department, Mrs Corlett, Ms Millen and Mr Merrett
and to the wonderful students in the choir and the orchestra who participated
so beautifully in the Mass.
Extra Curricular.
The extra curricular clubs are as successful as ever. The Spoken Word club
(pictured left) perform their brilliant poems in the hall to one another and the
club mentor. They then review each others’ performances and watch
professionals perform on the large projector screen.
The DofE Bronze participants are now planning routes and preparing their
orienteering skills and all are very excited about the next steps.
Mario Kart Tournament Final
Friday 17th and Year 8 R and E went to London Bridge to visit the Unicorn
Theatre to watch ’How Nigeria Became’ by Gbolahan Obisesan. The poignant
play has been nominated for Best Production for Young People in the OffWestEnd Theatre Awards.
The Mario Kart tournament has finally come to a close. The tournament was set
up by some of our wonderful sixth formers to raise money for the Christian
Kitchen. Here are the results:
1st Koah
The lucky year 8s also had the opportunity to take part in a question and answer 2nd Rudey
session after the film. Above shows a picture of Nathan John Baptiste with the
3rd Jerome
cast after the session had finished.
4th Carl
5th Giom
6th Geradean
prizes to be given in their assemblies
Koah -£28 (He admitted that he didn't pay the £2 initially)
Rudey- £20
Jerome- £10
Carl- £5
Giom- £3
Sixth Formers Assembley
Well done to Head Boy, Jeffrey Acheampong and Head Girl, Chelsea
Addai-Yeboah and Deputy, Vanessa Davis, for a collaborative assembly with Mr
Delf. They gave an inspirational talk to year 11 students who will begin the
process of applying to our 6th Form very soon.
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Sports Roundup
Netball: Yr10 HF A Team 14—7 Willowfield| Yr10 HF B Team 1—7 Walthamstow School for Girls|
Basketball: National: Yr8 boys 72—16 Heartlands High School
Borough X County Team: Yr 7: Cora Slack, Dali Ryatt, Djamila Conceicao, Faye Curley, Jan Micheal, Kaylan Bancroft,
Kylie Liberty, Mobolaji Farombi, Stefan Srinavilns. Yr 8: Aji Jacob, Angela Davis, Lois St Lois Porter. Yr 9: Darren
Ainembabazi, Kym Colada, Sean Curley, Tia duval. Yr 10: Lauren Joyce
So you want to be - An Architect
Ex Deputy Head boy Kieran Murray was kind enough to give an excellent talk on Architecture to an audience of Year 12
would be architects. He explained the different types of courses available, the qualifications needed and displayed examples
of his work.
All the students really enjoyed the talk and are now determined to get the grades required for pursue a career in architecture. Thanks to Kieran for a wonderfully inspiring talk!
Our next so you want to be session will be - So you want to be a Midwife/Nurse on 5th November.
Half Term Rowing Club
What time: 10:00 to 11:30am
Contact:
October Half Term Rowing
Nearest Stations:
joyce.guthrie@walthamforest.gov.uk OR
Sessions for Waltham Forest
Stratford
Winston.reid@walthamforest.gov.uk
Students!
Hackney Wick station
to register. For information Tel 07971 107 305
Where: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park,
Free for any ability ages 11-18.
Under Knights Bridge by the Velodrome
Places allocated on a first come,
When: October Half Term (27th – 31st October)
first served basis.
The Lord is compassion and love. Psalm 102.
The Lord is compassion and love,
Slow to anger and rich in mercy.
He does not treat us according to
our sins
Nor repay us according to our
faults
As a father has compassion on his
children,
The Lord has pity on those who
fear him;
For he knows of what we are
made of’
He remembers that we are dust.
Be assured of my prayers. Michael Georgiou (Lay School Chaplain)
As for man, his days are like
grass;
He flowers like the flowers of the
field;
The wind blows and he is gone
and his place never sees him
again.
But the love of the Lord is everlasting
upon those who hold him in fear;
His justice reaches out to children’s
children
When they keep his covenant in
truth.
Alternatively you can now scan the barcode to
access our website using your QR scanner on your mobile.
Publisher: mr.frewin@holyfamilycatholicschool.co.uk
07466599448
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