Northern Insight talks to Anita Bath, Headmistress at Sacred Heart Catholic High School who reflects on an excellent school year and looks at what they are currently working on.
What have been your highlights of the year so far?
Rose Auditorium – Undoubtedly this year, one of the highlights has been the opening of our Rose Auditorium. This fabulous resource replaces the original hall, built in the 1960s, which had become a little tired and outdated. Our new auditorium provides girls with an exceptional resource that allows them to really showcase their talents in music, drama and dance. The acoustics and sprung flooring, together with state of the art lighting and sound desk ensure that students can rehearse and perform in a professional environment. Comfortable seating and a striking social space, The Undercroft, ensures audiences have a wonderful experience when they attend concerts, shows and parental events. We hosted our first music and dance showcase event this term, and feedback from both students and audience were that it was just like being in a brand new theatre.
Royal Shakespeare Company – This year we have continued to be the Lead Associate School for the RSC, a programme run by regional theatre companies and schools, in collaboration with the RSC. The programme is built around local partnerships that consist of a Lead Associate School and their theatre partner, which in our case is Northern Stage, who recruit a number of Associate Schools. As the RSC’s Lead Associate school in our region, our staff train alongside RSC professionals and then disseminate this to other teachers across the North East. This year’s work culminated in a production of Macbeth in May, which brought together students from six local schools, Gosforth Junior High Academy, Sacred Heart Primary School, St Catherine’s RC Primary School, St Oswald’s RC Primary School and St Michael’s RC Primary School. The production was performed to a packed audience of family and friends who were immensely impressed by the quality and talent on show from over ninety pupils.
Mentoring Scheme with Year 10 students – This academic year, 10 Year 10 students have been given the opportunity to work with The Girls’ Network. The aim of The Girls’ Network is to inspire and empower girls by connecting them with a mentor and a network of professional female role models. The students are taking part in a 15 month mentoring programme. Each student has been assigned a mentor who is a professional female working within the local community. The student and mentor meet once a month to look at how they are getting on in school, what career opportunities they are interested in and to develop a professional supportive relationship. The students will be supported with writing letters of applications for courses and for jobs when required. They will also look at interview techniques and how to be best prepared. The meetings are currently taking place at Newcastle BBC which has also provided the students with an opportunity to go behind the scenes and have a look at careers in media and what goes into getting the news onto our screens. As well as the mentoring the students are provided with career events and networking opportunities help them to see the careers and futures that are possible.
What does the future hold ?
Our Year 11 and 13 students are at present undertaking their GCSE and A-level examinations and we wish them every success with these. As a school we are very proud of our track record of students leaving us to enter university, in many cases to study challenging and high tariff courses. Most years between 85%-90% progress to University both locally and increasingly further afield. It saddened me this week to see a report from the Sutton Trust and UCAS that highlighted a huge disparity in university entrants from the North East, where only 4% of undergraduates are from our region compared to 1 in 5 from London. Even, taking into consideration the larger population from the London region, this is too big a gap. As a school we will maintain our focus on ensuring that our students to continue to see higher education as a natural next step in their education and working lives and help to close this gap for our region. This work will start very early on with children from the Primary Schools in our Trust.