Year 10 Young Leaders Shine at the
Annual Mount St Mary’s Senior Citizens’ Christmas Party

Our school’s annual Senior Citizens’ Party was a resounding success this year, thanks in no small part to the outstanding efforts of our Year 10 students. From start to finish, they truly embodied the spirit of community and care, ensuring that our guests had a memorable and enjoyable time.

Throughout the event, the Year 10 Young Leaders demonstrated exceptional hospitality, enthusiasm, and maturity. They worked tirelessly behind the scenes to prepare the venue, organise entertainment, and assist with serving food and drinks. Their attention to detail and warm, welcoming attitudes made a significant impact, ensuring that every guest felt valued and appreciated.

Many of our senior citizens remarked on how impressed they were by the kindness and thoughtfulness of the students. Whether it was engaging in lively conversation, helping guests find seats, or offering a helping hand where needed, the Year 10 students went above and beyond to create a joyful atmosphere.

Not only did the students display excellent teamwork, but they also showed incredible responsibility and initiative. They coordinated with staff, planned the event activities, and worked collaboratively to ensure that everything ran smoothly. Their dedication and effort were evident in every aspect of the event, and they truly proved to be a credit to our school.

We are incredibly proud of the Year 10 cohort for their hard work, commitment, and enthusiasm. They have set a high standard for future events, and their contribution to this annual celebration is something we will always remember. Well done Year 10 — your compassion and dedication to our community truly made this year’s Senior Citizens’ Party a day to remember!

For more photos of the event please click here to go to our photo gallery

Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility
(RERF) Year 9 Reward Trip

On 16 December a group of Year 9 students visited a local recycling facility, where they participated in a series of educational activities. Upon arrival, they were divided into small groups to engage in a task that required them to use their prior knowledge to sort recyclable and non-recyclable items. The exercise encouraged teamwork and communication skills.

One highlight of the visit was the famous living plant wall, which stands 28 meters tall and houses over 100,000 plants, including shrubs and trees. It also supports more than 700 habitat boxes for insects.

In the control room, students learned about the company’s operations, including how cameras monitor the sorting process and help decide when machines or manual labour is needed. They also had the opportunity to see how different machines function. The day concluded with a video on material decomposition and an activity sorting items based on their decomposition rates. The visit was both informative and inspiring, offering a hands-on learning experience.

Year 7 Pizza Party

At lunchtime on the 4th December 2024, we invited 10 of our brilliant Year 7 students to have a pizza and ice cream party to reward them for winning our ‘One of a Kind’ competition.

This competition saw our Year 7s display random acts of kindness around school which then earned them a nomination from a member of staff. In the end we had over 70 nominations across the year group, but our top ten winners were Isabella Rosa Feitosa, Zephan Cole, Aisha Senghore, Eryk Pasterczyk, Samuele Bonti, Gedna Mehari, Declan Binnington, Kesia Laweh, Mohammed Jaffar and Miley Cosgrove.

They gathered together to share pizza, make their own ice cream sundaes, and then played Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch. It was a close race, but Mr Rimoldi remained undefeated!

Year 9 Rugby
25 November 2024

WOW! WOW! WOW! What an evening that was!

After a shock, but not surprising, defeat against Cockburn in our first game, we displayed some good rugby but struggled throughout to get our heads in the right place to compete. Cockburn were a very well organised team who all play together outside of school. We never gave up and continued to challenge them whenever we had ball in hand. Unfortunately losing 4 tries to 1.

We then had a wait to play our final game against Leeds West. Thankfully this did not put out the fire that had ignited after our loss to Cockburn. The boys did not want to finish the evening after their first performance and set out to take the game to Leeds West as soon as it began.

In the opening minute James took the ball and ran around their entire team before straightening up to run in our first try. With some powerful tackling and impeccable discipline, we forced a handling error from Leeds West and regained the ball. With some fantastic plays and strong carries from Harry, Aleks and Emmanuel we got closer and closer to their try line before James again ran straight through their defence to score another try. From here the game evened out with strong runs from Leeds West seeing them cut through our defence and score twice to bring them level. We had a real fight on our hands. With our team’s grit and determination, they wanted to ensure Leeds West did not take victory after meeting them in the Campion Schools league earlier in the year.

We pushed up the field with several strong runs before Evan was tripped in a tackle resulting in a penalty 10 metres from the try line. Evan took a quick tap and ran it in, bursting through tackles and getting over the line himself. Finally, after receiving the kick off, we retained the ball and James was able to go on another of his wonderful, winding runs, beating defenders and eventually crossing the line carrying one of the opposition.

Our final game finished 4 tries to 3.

We WON!! WE ARE GOING TO THE FINAL!! (10th March so plenty of time to prepare)

As the game ended all of the boys began to celebrate like they had just won the World Cup. However, Harry went over and began to shake the oppositions hands, including their coach, thanking them for a great game of rugby. The others quickly realised and followed suit. Harry has really grown into the captaincy he has been given and leads by example both on and off the pitch.

Below are the names of the students that played this evening:

Harry Cawthorne (C), Aleksander Bogdanowicz, Ngaanue Nguvauva, Emmanuel Pelo, Chivuso Amoke, David Batista Neto, Riley Clark, James Kaba, Sekou Kourouma, Simao Marques, Evan Whitford, Chinonso Okunbor, Tiago Malu, Zoel Deji,Demi Awosanya
and Hayden Wright.

Mr S Cooper

Explore Languages
Workshop

On Thursday 14th November we saw the start of this year’s cohort take part in the Explore Languages workshop.

A group of 35 Year 8 students were involved in the workshop, delivered by Grace, a Student Ambassador from the University of Leeds. She spoke about Languages and University life and students took part in games and challenges.

There was a question and answer session where students could ask whatever questions they wanted about university. This year’s cohort are ready torise to the challenge of beating the opposition when we take part in the taster day and competition in February 2025.

On Monday night we won all the prizes when we went head-to-head against GORSE! No pressure Year 8 – ¡Vamos!

Year 10 Enrichment Festival at Wellington Place

A recent highlight for our Year 10 students was their participation in the Enrichment Festival at Wellington Place Business Park. This inspiring event provided our students with a unique glimpse into the modern working world, as they explored various office spaces and interacted with professionals across a wide range of roles.

Throughout the day, students were exposed to the features of contemporary workplaces, learning about different career paths and the skills necessary to thrive in them. The event also highlighted the importance of teamwork, leadership, and personal wellbeing through engaging activities tailored to enhance their understanding of finances, decision-making, and workplace dynamics.

Our students approached every challenge with enthusiasm and creativity, actively engaging in team-building exercises and problem-solving tasks. Their positive attitudes and willingness to engage were noted by event organisers, who praised them as a credit to our school community.

This enriching experience not only broadened their horizons but also left them inspired about future possibilities. It was truly an amazing day, and we are proud to have such an eager and motivated cohort representing our school.

Thank you to Wellington Place Business Park for hosting such a valuable and memorable event!

THE HALLOWEEN ESCAPE ROOM

On Wednesday, October 23rd, something terrible happened in the library. As if awakened by the approaching date of Halloween, the library’s infamous ghost appeared to

Ms Fennelly and Ms Bennasser. Brutally squashed many years ago under a heavy bookcase, the ghost demanded the best readers of Mount St Mary’s as vengeance for her literary demise. Under the ruse of a celebration, she trapped MSM’s top 34 readers in the library, threatening to absorb their reading skills if they did not find the four-digit code that would release them in under forty minutes. The task to be able to do so, however, proved itself to be quite arduous.

A great deal of clues were hidden everywhere in the library on that menacing day: keys delivering half messages resting on the bookshelves of the Horror and Fantasy sections; hieroglyphic codes to decipher; a code breaking sheet stuck between pages of a romance book; a mysterious letter written in invisible ink and requiring cranberry potion to be readable by human eyes; hints in the forms of book covers concealed in cups of jelly-like substance you would, trust me, rather not know the real origin of; a sentence written in various foreign languages right where Mount St Mary’s is on a map of England and underneath some library chairs, a sentence leading to numbers of major importance.

Under the perilous ghostly threat and the ominous ticking of the clock, the gathered remarkable readers had to use their brains, shared teamwork and cross-curricular knowledge to escape in time. All the remarkable readers demonstrated exceptional logical skills and notable enthusiasm.

Once the code was cracked the library doors reopened, to the great relief of all. Following this was the consumption of delicious treats, cheering and, in one group, exuberant celebratory dancing!

One of the three teams was particularly fast and efficient, getting out of the library with 11 minutes and 58 seconds to spare. The key to their success? Epic teamwork, patience and listening to one another. Well done to every remarkable reader who escaped the clutches of the library ghost … for now!

If you want to come to our next celebration, collect fifteen remarkable reader stamps by reading books and quizzing. You have until 12th December to earn your invitation!

Champion Schools competition with a win for
Year 9 Rugby Team

Well what a night that was!

We took 15 Year 9 boys to Allerton Grange, all up for finishing the first round of the Champion Schools competition with a win… what a win it was!

Captained by Harry, he led by the front and put in some fantastic tackles and scored our first try. This set an example to the other players and showed that if they ran with intent they could break through their tackles and make ground every time they carried the ball.

In the last 10 minutes of the first half Allerton Grange seemed to find their rhythm and responded to our first half performance with a couple of their own tries.

Feeling a little beaten after their comeback, we went into half time still holding our heads high but wondering how we would get back on top to prevent them from scoring more. With talks from Harry and others they worked out what they were going to do and were ready to put it into action.

The 2nd half began, and it was clear our boys were ready to take their game to the next level and were seemingly unstoppable. Harry, James and Alex all ran hard at the defensive line breaking through tackles and putting the scoreline out of reach for Allerton Grange.

The game finished with us winning 46 – 18.

With that result we should finish mid table so can expect to progress into the Leeds and Hunslet Schools Competition as well as the Yorkshire Cup.

A highlight of the evening has to be Harry coming and asking me if I knew where their coach was at the end of the game as he wanted to thank him for hosting us.

Because of the spirit the game was played in, and the conduct and sportsmanship of our boys, Allerton’s coach has asked if we would visit again and possibly on a more regular basis for “friendly” games to help them develop.

What a fantastic night and a great way to finish the first rugby campaign before the half term break.

Mr S Cooper

Year 9 Rugby – 15/10/24

On Tuesday 15 October we hosted Leeds West Academy in the “Champions School Cup”, an opportunity for our team to play and develop as a squad. 14 Year 9 students played in their 2nd game of 4 this half term.

When the game started, we were quick off the mark and ran in our first try within the first 2 minutes, all created from incredible strength and speed to break through tackles and cross over the line.

This was not what Leeds West were expecting, and they kicked into gear. Over the next 20 minutes there were several sets of 5 completed, with both teams showing off their abilities but with Leeds West coming out on top at half time.

After a quick team talk, we started the 2nd half inspired. Very quickly from the kick off we regained the ball and scored. The 2nd half saw us going toe to toe with Leeds West scoring 2 tries each. In the final minutes Leeds Wests players’ experience and stamina saw them cross the line a further 3 times to leave the final score at 24-66.

Despite the score line we saw further developments in the team’s ability asthey continue to bond. They consistently show impeccable sportsmanship, which keeps their morale high, even after tough games. The Leeds West staff were impressed with the boys’ conduct throughout the game and were over the moon that once the game finished, both teams came together to chat with each other and walk back to the changing rooms together.

I must mention Harry Cawthorne as it was his first time as captain of the team. He held himself and the team accountable for any infringements and, when given the opportunity, pulled players aside to offer advice and encouragement. Harry was amazing again and set the example for the others to follow throughout the evening.

A special shout out goes to Alissia Johns who was my designated photographer and captured some fantastic photos.

Mr S Cooper