Saint Paul's community celebrates its unique cultural and traditional link with Ireland. In preparation for Saint Patrick's Day on March 17th, students designed a variety of videos and presentations in BTEC Sport, demonstrating their experiences and partnerships made in Ireland. A final cut was then collaboratively produced and sent to the 'London schools St Patrick's day cultural competition'. Results are out on the 11th March.
With the 2012 London Olympics just a hop, skip and a jump away, National, European, Commonwealth, World, Olympic Champion and World Record holder Triple Jumper Jonathan Edwards came to officially open our wonderful Fitness Suite.
Jonathan, along with many Olympic officials, Councilor John Fahy, as well as colleagues and sporting friends of Greenwich schools and council all came to co- celebrate this magnificent day for St Paul's Academy.
Niall Mc Cann, the Academy Director of Sport, with the help of his Sport team planned the event which was to be a memorable occasion for the entire St Paul's community.
Jonathan gave an inspirational pep talk to a full auditorium of students and staff from year 7-11. “ Sport can have an impact on all young people's lives, not just the talented individuals and here there the capacity to do all that – a platform for sport for all and a means for facilitating a ‘Playground to Podium' elite programme. A magnificent facility!”
The £150,000 facility included, 10 rowing machines, free weight zone, steppers, cross trainers, exercise machines, top of the range spinners and thread mills as well as a variety of resistance machines.
The suite is trulely a unique spectacle one which gives students an experience that many never have the chance to endure.
“As a sports Academy we will continue to break boundaries, continue to be bold and challenge the status quo, continue to excel beyond expectations and enrich all those who, like the sport team continue to be excited about learning.” – Niall Mc Cann
Pioneers confirming our distinctiveness
9 December 2009
Another wonderful celebration of hope and commitment took place at the Academy, on Wednesday 9th December. Through the guidance of Niall Mc Cann, Assistant Principal and Rev John Lavery, they celebrated another inauguration of 24 Young Pioneers. The group are the second cohort of students to take the pledge of total abstinence from alcoholic drink and now proudly wear their pins on their Academy blazers.
As a Catholic institution, we are continuously confirming our uniqueness through the many collegial liturgical celebrations, magnificent community and international Charity work, Saint Vincent De Paul and now the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association (PTAA) is growing from strength to strength.
Mr Mc Cann would like to thank all those involved in this wonderful initiative and a special thanks to Father John Lavery, who not only is Spiritual Director of SVP of the Diocese of Southwark, but is also a Pioneer for 58 years. A wonderful individual and a great role model for us all.
Music Master Class
The Performance Arts Learning Zone recently organised an array of cultural events to celebrate Black History month. The Sports, Drama and Music teams continue to work tirelessly creating innovative and unique opportunities for the entire Saint Paul's community. From comedy nights, to master classes in guitar, to netball, to puppetry - the options are endless.
One of the highlights of this extra curricular prowess was a Gospel Workshop. Mrs Bond, Head of Music, organised for World Renowned Gospel Choir Master to visit the Academy with the hope of working with a few students. What an amazing event!!
Karen Gibson, is a very well respected, most noted and experienced gospel tutor. With over 25 years experience in choir direction and gospel education, and director of the Kingdom Choir, she was mesmerising. Her energy, love for music and inspiration was dazzling. Her sheer joy of singing reverberated throughout the Academy, even days after her visit. Stunning, astounding.
Excerpts from Year 7 pupils' reviews
"Yesterday the 5th of November Saint Paul's Academy had a Gospel Singing Day - a celebration. There were 2 special guests and their names were Karen(the singer) and Emmanuel(the pianist). I enjoyed it because Karen was a really good singer. "
Nimo Ali
"Karen Gibson taught us lots of songs that we didn't know before like 'Oh Mary, oh Martha' and 'Speak to me my Father'. She split us into groups of voices- high, medium and low. I was low. We had the hardest part as we did not have the tune. Some people wanted to sing solo however I was too frightened to. Busola and Tyler from my year sang. They sang ever so beautifully."
Donna Babu
"As a celebration of Black History Month Karen Gibson from The Kingdom Choir came to Saint Paul's. Her pianist was Emmanuel. They were really cool. We did lots of singing and it was so much fun because I love to sing. We sang 'I'm a believer' and 'Amazing Grace' in 3 parts. It was great."
Michelle Baker
Daniel meets the Irish and GAA President
The London U14 Gaelic football Dream Teams travelled to Nurney in County Kildare last weekend to compete in the All Ireland Feile. 10 Boys and 7 Girls from the Academy represented the London squads. 10 Boys and 7 Girls from the Academy represented the London squads.
All students from Saint Paul's were magnificent ambassadors for the Academy. The girls performed exceptionally well winning 2 out of the 4 group stage games. The boys on the other hand won their group comfortably yet met a very accomplished Kilkenny squad who defeated them in the Semi final.
The Boys were bitterly disappointed, and understandably so as they won so much this year - London Schools, London Club Championships, All Britain championship and South London Feile 2009...certainly an 'Annus Mirabillis'.
To top the weekend in Ireland Daniel Colpeh, Year 9 student and the teams had the opportunity to meet The Irish President Mary McAleese and the GAA President Christy Cooney.
Saint Paul's sports stars star on Irish TV
The victorious Under 14 Gaelic Football Team have been hitting the headlines recently. For the past month, Andrew Arkins, Daniel Conteh and the rest of the Saint Paul's boys are the real deal.
After their magnificently successful tour in Ireland and their emphatic wins in retaining the London title last Wednesday evening at the county ground in Ruislip, the boys are now preparing for the British Championships. So much has been remarked and admired of this special team that we have been approached by the local and indeed Irish media. The diversity in representation of this team has been the talking point from many political avenues here and across the water.
Two of our staff from our Sports Academy Laura Forte and Paula Henry went to Africa to our partner school. The school is so grateful for the resources that we sent - 13 boxes including 400 tee-shirts (logo designed by their students), basketballs , footballs, bibs, skipping ropes, pumps, cricket sets, etc.
So thanks to all who raised money especially Mrs Cooper for her fun run in Greenwich.
Our Year 7/8 Portuguese, who took language lessons with Laura and Paula prior to the journey has paid dividends as they were taking a language lesson and the good old Bingo went down a treat.
Success again in Ireland for Under 14 Gaelic Team
The truly talented Under 14 boys Gaelic football team have just returned from an extremely successful Gaelic football tour to Ireland. Boys from Year 8 & 9 travelled to the 'gateway to the west' Airport in Knock and travelled to stay with familites in the host club of Mr Mc Cann's in Irvinestown County Fermanagh.
The boys had the privilege of meeting Peter Canavan, a Gaelic football legend and playing a fixture against his school Holy Trinity College as well as playing games in Newry, Ardra and of course Irvinestown.
A superb tour, with our team winning 3 of their 4 fixtures, some excellent cross-curricular links including a visit to the Tickety Moo Ice cream Farm.
Our students were great ambassadors of our school and impressed the families that they stayed with. British Champions 2009??? Let's hope so!
Helena Kennedy Foundation's 10th Anniversary
Our reporters went along to interview participant and awards winners at an event to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Helena Kennedy Foundation; a charity helping to remove barriers to higher education.
Video report on building's progress
Mr Ramsland, our English teacher,
has been doing some extra-curricular work with pupils (Ieva Bruzgaite, Christopher Jones, Claudeya Imiachchi, Blessy Babu and Limuel Nil-Owusu)
to create a variety of different news-style reports including a video report on the new school building.
London Indoor Games
Nine club members competed In the first London Indoor Games held at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre on Sunday. Competing in the warm and dry whilst the snow came down outside was perfect and led to some great performances.
Olawale Okande running in his first race for the club since joining in the Autumn ran 7.13 in his first race over 60 metres but in the second round with a proper warm up ran 7.03 to not only win the gold medal for fastest time of the day in his age group but also go straight to the top of the UK rankings for the year.
Not bad for your first proper race!
'Raising the Bar' revision sessions
Mr Mc Cann - Year 11 Leader has invested a lot of time and resources into arranging a rather unique and individual programme of after school revision support lessons in preparation for the forthcoming Yearr 11 GCSE examinations.
In each session, classes are no more than 12 students. There is an array of subjects every week which will usually run between 3.30pm and 4.30pm except for Wednesday which begins at 2.30pm and ends at 3.30pm.
If students attend more than 25 sessions they will receive an incentive reward. The first sessions begins the week after half term commencing on the 23rd February 2009.
All students were given a copy of the timetable and a copy was also sent out to parents/carers, from which they can both see and then for individuals to identify the subjects they wished to attend for their 1-hour sessions over the next 6 weeks.
This is a great opportunity for them to get extra tuition to help them prepare for these important examinations. Of course it goes without saying that every student should attend their normal daily lessons and work to their full potential during these lessons. The extra tuition is NOT a substitute for normal school learning. If a student is not working to their potential in normal lessons they may be withdrawn from the revision programme and thus miss out on this important additional help.
It is so important that parents and carers support this project and that all students attend these sessions. Staff have invested a lot of their own time to offer this support. Mr Mc Cann and his Performance Arts team and the rest of the teaching community at Saint Paul's Academy are doing all they can to ensure that maximum opportunity is being given to all Year 11 students in order for them to succeed. They now need to put in the required work.
Mr Innocent leading the way, with colleagues Mr McCann and Mr Akif and a squad of very talented young men from Years 8,9 & 10 are training with the best this February Half term in Spain with Villa Real FC.
They have a packed itenary of events and are all really enjoying this once in a lifetime experience. More news to follow on their return.
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