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2016/17– Issue 1

October 2016

Church Street Boston Spa

S T J OH N’ S C A TH OLIC S C H OOL

F OR TH E D EA F

Phone: 01937 842144 Fax: 01937 541471

A SEN Specialist School www.stjohns.org.uk

Paul Bennett, who was part of the British “Men’s 8” rowing team at this years Olympic Games in Rio, brought his gold medal into school and told us all about his wonderful ex-perience. Full story and more pictures inside.

Welcome back and hello new students

We are joined this term by Haider in Year 7, Julian in Year 9, Jack in Year 10 and Jack in Sixth Form. It’s lovely to see so many new faces around school, welcome!

2016 Rio Olympic Gold Medallist Visits School

Paul and Lukas with their gold medals

Leandro’s First Communion

Page 2 COM MU NITY V OI CE

Local Olympic Gold Medal Winning Visitor Paul Bennett

In October we were lucky enough to have an Olympic gold medal winning visitor to school. Paul Bennett was part of the British ‘Men’s 8’ rowing team that sped to an unexpected victory at this year’s games.

Paul, a past student from Roundhay School, spent some time talking to the pupils about how he became so good at rowing having never even picking up an oar until he went to university. He said that you need to try lots of new things to find out what you are good at. Perseverance is the key to success; don’t give up just because you are tired, or you are finding it hard.

The pupils asked a lot of interesting questions about his training schedule, his diet, and what the experience of Rio was like. It sounded like Paul worked extremely hard for many years, but it was worth it as his experience of the Olympic Games, and of Rio, was amazing.

Paul was very generous with his time, and met pupils from all year groups. The primary students had made gold medals of their own, which they proudly wore and compared to Paul’s own medal, and Ellie from transition showed off her Olympic torch.

The highlight for many students was seeing Paul on the rowing machine and then trying to see who could get nearest to his time for 100 metres. This got quite competitive with lots of student wanting to see if they could get anywhere near. John was the nearest, he showed grit and determination, and though he still has a few sec-onds to knock off his time before he become an Olympic hero, there is potential.

The overall message that our pupils got from the visit was that if you are brave enough to try something new,

and work hard, you might achieve greatness - or at least have a lot of fun trying!

Exciting News on Our Sensory Garden Project

Page 3

Fundraising for Macmillan Nurses

COM MU NITY V OI CE

Once again, the pupils and staff made a fantastic effort to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support by holding a coffee morning on Thursday 29th September. Mrs McAleer and the Y10 and 11 girls held a cake sale and a huge raffle

We raised a fabulous £236.13, a great amount and more than last year. A huge thanks to everyone in whatever way you contributed and helped.

Exciting news! Our sensory garden project has been selected as one of the regional finalists in the Tesco / Groundwork ‘BagsofHelp’ scheme. This scheme offers community groups in each of Tesco’s 416 regions across the UK a share of the revenue generated from the 5p carrier bag charge.

St John’s will win either £8,000, £10,000 or £12,000!

The amount we win will depend on votes cast in the Collingham Tesco Express store from 31 October to 11 No-vember. Every shopper will be given a token which can be used to vote for St John’s.

So if you are in the area and are able to visit the Tesco at Collingham during the voting period please vote for us! The money will be used to fund sensory equipment and further planting in the garden. You can also follow St John’s on twitter (@stjohns4thedeaf) and ‘like’ and retweet … there will be plenty of tweets about this in the next couple of weeks. Please share this with friends and family – it would be fantastic to win the £12,000; we could really put that money to good use.

For more information about the Tesco scheme, visit www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp

20 16 /1 7 – ISS UE 1 Page 4

Tag Rugby at Headingley

Year 10/11 represented St Johns at the Tag Rugby festival. This year the event was run by Leeds Rhino Foundation and involved the pupils taking part in training drills, fun games and coaching before playing a mini tournament in the afternoon. St John’s team won three of their four games. Well done!

Cross Country at Derby

The annual National Deaf Cross Country competition took place in Derby in October with a bigger

then usual turnout. In a tough competition our senior girls Lily Fairbank-Taylor came 12th and

Hollie Wallbank came 13th with the senior boys, Macauley Lee-McIntyre (10), Alex Fletcher

(14),Mqhele Ndebele (20),Tyler Lee-McIntyre(26),Ryan Craggs(31) and James Downes (37).

Page 5 COM MU NITY V OI CE

West Yorkshire Playhouse get Deaf Aware

After a meeting with Aoibheann Kelly, the Creative Education Man-ager from The West Yorkshire Playhouse, a plan was developed to give Arts Award students from St John’s the opportunity to help shape the way the theatre caters for the deaf community.

Through a series of theatre visits and workshops, our students will be able to feedback to the team at the theatre about how they found the experience, and give advice on how to make it even better for deaf children and adults.

Our first visit will be on the 12th January where Arts Award students

will watch a performance of Roald Dahl’s ‘The Witches’, and then

take part in a tailor made workshop in the afternoon. More infor-

mation will be sent out about this trip shortly.

Maths Star of the month

Our first Maths Star of 2016/17 is John Soutward who has been doing some fantastic work in Maths. Well done!

Arts award students year 10MC have been looking at different aspects of art. In media, photo files in media, 2016, arts award Viki saved some pics of them printing. They looked at the work of Andy Warhol to inspire them before printing on canvas 's and paper.

Arts Award

Aspects of Art

Leandro’s First Communion

Congratulations to Leandro who made his First Holy

Communion. A big thank you to Leandro’s family for

supporting him and joining us in school.

20 16 /1 7 – ISS UE 1

Page 6

Post 16 News

Care Council!

Sixth Form students had a fundraising event by making pancakes, they raised £30 for Martin House and had a “flipping” good time doing it!

Following an Election on 29th September, Josh Mitchell became Sixth Form Rep.

Thomas set himself a challenge to run 10K last year and trained for it over the year. We were very proud when he completed the York 10K in August - especially as he also raised £152 through sponsorship for the Disability Football team he trains and plays with on a Sunday. He also com-pleted the St Gemma's 5K Colour Run at Hare-wood this weekend. Well done Thomas.

To James Crellin for passing his driving test—Well done!

Congratulations!

Also to Folarin Row-land for passing his GCSE Maths, a lot of hard work went into achieving this, thank you to everyone who helped Folarin over the last year.

Tia had a trip to the Horse of the Year show at Birmingham with Asham Bryan College, a long day and night, but well worth it.

Horse of the Year Show

20 16 /1 7 – ISS UE 1 Page 7

Updates From Some Past Pupils

Over all I enjoy working as an apprentices joiner. Lots to think and do. I get on well with other people and share tools with them. First, I worked in Gem Construction, for 12 weeks so far. It was so hard as I have to get up so early and drive to site. The site is north of York and I work on the second fix and painting part. From time to time. I move to a new site on ground works. My site manager says that my work is good quality and at the right speed. My wages mean I can buy more tools to fill my toolbox and go out with my friends at the weekend. Missing all the staff at St John’s, Louis.

Ex Pupil Exhibits at The Winter Gallery Show—Dean Clough

Ex puipil, Adam Summerscales (above) is a 23 year old, Barnsley-based photographer who has just completed a BA at Huddersfield University (on top of an extended diploma in Digital Media at York College) and given that he is frequently to be discovered in a wheelchair—it’s no surprise that he is interested in promoting disability awareness. Some of his work is currently in an exhibition called “Human Forest” in the Winter Gallery Show at Dean Clough Mill, Halifax. A number of staff have been to see Adam’s work, which is on for the next three months and say it’s worth the visit. What a great achievement. http://www.deanclough.com/arts/whats on.asp

My Life so Far by Louis Faithful

Chloe Lockey Police Deaf Champion

Chloe Lockey (left) was a residential pupil at St John’s between 2002 and 2008. Chloe works as an administrator for West Yorkshire Police and has been identified as a Deaf Champion by the force. As you can see, Chloe is fronting a poster campaign. What a positive role model.

Dates for your diary

FUNDRAISING Christmas Fair 26th November

It’s that time of year again, when we have our annual plea for helping the Friends of St John’s raise money for extra trips and treats for the pupils.

Can we ask for donations of bottles for the tombola and hampers (alcoholic preferably) and raffle prizes please.

We will also be selling our luscious Christmas and sponge puddings again. They make a lovely gift and are priced at £6 each or 3 for £15. Available to buy from the Christmas Fair or contact the office.

St John’s Catholic School

for the Deaf,

Church Street, Boston Spa

Christmas Fair Come along to our Christmas Shopping event on

Saturday 26th November 2016

10.00 am – 1.00 pm

We have a wide range of stalls selling handcrafted and unusual gifts, including

Luxury Christmas Puddings , homemade jams and cakes

Jewellery, Health & Beauty Gifts,

Christmas decorations, Christmas cards and stationery

Home wares and Hand Knitted gifts

Raffle and Bottle Tombola

You can enjoy just browsing, or relax with a bacon sandwich, homemade soup and a roll or coffee and mince pies,

whilst the children are entertained with craft activities

@stjohns4thedeaf

Thank you

To the ladies of Scarcroft WI for another donation of £32 from their “Secret Kitchen” sale., that’s £464 received in total, we will put this towards developing our Sensory Garden, thank you!

21st October - School closes for half term holiday

31st October - School reopens

25th November - School closed for TRAINING DAY

26th November - Christmas Fair

16th December - School closes 12.30pm for Christmas Holidays

3rd January - School reopens

27th January - School closed for TRAINING DAY

17th February - School closes for half term holiday

27th February - School reopens

7th April - School closes12.30pm for Easter Holidays

24th April - School reopens

1st May - School closed for May Day Bank Holiday

26th May - School closes for half term holiday

5th June - School reopens

23rd June - School closed for TRAINING DAY

21st July - School closes 12.30 pm