STONYHURST newsSUMMER TERM 2009

AMDG

Great Academies ‘best ever’Full story page 11

It has once again been a really busy term in all ways at the College. As we draw near to the end of our academic year we can look back with satisfaction on another exciting year in which many of our pupils have surpassed our expectations of them. This success was celebrated at our Great Academies weekend when many of our pupils’ talents were on show. Particularly to the fore was the wonderful musical skill exhibited in three concerts during the weekend. We were very grateful to the Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe MP for presenting the prizes and speaking so pertinently to our young people about their future. Further talents will be celebrated at the St Mary’s Hall weekend before the end of term, including the production of The Pirates of Penzance. Prizes will be presented by Mr John Cowdall, one of our Governors.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff for their hard work in preparing pupils for exams and giving them so many other opportunities, we are also grateful to parents for their support of Stonyhurst, and we wish all the pupils, parents and staff an enjoyable and relaxing summer. For those pupils leaving us we wish them God’s blessing, trusting that their time here will prove a stepping stone to great things.

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Welcomefrom the Headmasters

Andrew Johnson Lawrence Crouch

This term’s Headmaster’s Concert was once again a huge success, showcasing the talent of the Stonyhurst Music Scholars. The performance took place in the Top Refectory in front of a highly appreciative audience. The programme consisted of duets, solos and ensembles which performed music to the highest standards.

The programme featured pieces such as Mozkowski’s Spanish Dance, the first movement from Sonata by Saint-Saens and O Polichinello by Villa-Lobos.

The concert was part of a series of Summer Concerts held at the College including performances from outside groups.

The Headmaster’s Concert

Paul Garlington, Head of History, St Mary’s Hall, writes:

The traditional Figures tours of the Great War battlefields were filled, as usual, with copious occasions of fun and also with moments of reflection and poignancy.

The artwork for the new military cemetery at Fromelles, which was produced at short notice by Figures for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission under the expert guidance of SMH Head of Art, Mrs Jacqueline Hines, is nothing short of sensational. When we visited, the Mayor of Fromelles, the CWGC project manager and Lambis Englezos, the Australian historian who had made the discoveries at Fromelles came along to meet us.

Figures have fully understood the impact of their contribution here. Genevieve Turner said: “All the soldiers had families like us and they were not much older than we are. When I saw my drawing I was happy because those soldiers who died in the war will never be forgotten.” Favour Maduka, said, “Today was one of the proudest days of my life. Seeing our artwork displayed and being given the privilege to enter the excavation site has made me feel proud of the school, of my friends and of myself.” Jessica Moyle added: “The artwork was magnificent especially when it had been put up on the boards. All the men who died at Fromelles will finally be put to rest.”

Later in the tour and on a quieter note, Beatrice Smith took her friends, Lara Hopwood, Iona Graham, Hannah Fogden and Emilia O’Connor to find the grave of her Stonyhurst soldier who had been killed in action. Beatrice had researched Bertram Devas OS who had fallen in the final stages of the Battle of the Somme and is buried at Luke Copse Cemetery near Serre. As they walked along the pathway to the cemetery, the girls collected flowers from the hedgerows to put on the grave: a very touching sight.

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Art at Fromelles

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One of our oldest artefacts, the mummified remains of a child, has now been returned to the college from Manchester University Museum.

The preserved body of this young boy aged about five or six years at death, is about 2,500 years old. He was discovered in the 1850s by a Jesuit missionary and archaeologist with a strong scientific interest in Egyptology and brought back to Stonyhurst.

The return of these remains has caused great interest amongst the pupils, who have welcomed this chance to see a real Egyptian mummy at such close quarters. He will be part of a larger display in the Long Room, which will be completed later in 2009, which deals with science, the natural world and human anthropology. Part of the display will question our need to ‘collect’ and display material to which some people might be sensitive.

Human remains are not like any other museum object and need to be treated with respect and dignity. We can learn a great deal about our own past from them, but we should never forget that they were once living human beings like ourselves and treat their remains accordingly. That is why the case containing this body has a cloth cover.

In the 1970s he was lent to Manchester University Museum, which has a world famous collection of Egyptian artefacts. They have cared for him for over thirty years, carrying out forensic investigations including scans and X-rays to try and learn more about the child’s living conditions and health. He has recently been returned to the College as we now have the facilities necessary for his conservation.

We know almost nothing about the child himself – his name was not recorded, or his family background. He was obviously wealthy, as only the fairly rich were embalmed in this way, and his head has traces of gold leaf attached, indicating his status.

The mummyreturns

Mini MarathonOnce again the Hodder House Mini Marathon was held in June. The pupils of Hodder House run around the site of St Mary’s Hall putting in an enormous effort. All of SMH supported the event with great enthusiasm. As the skies darkened the children puffed and panted their way around the site. Fortunately the rain stayed away and everyone crossed the finish line to thunderous applause from the older children at SMH. Congratulations to all who took part and for all the help the children were given to complete the course.

News of former pupils

Patrick Page (OS), who left the College two years ago achieved the top marks in Theology amongst all those taking prelims in Theology at Oxford, and has earned himself a scholarship. Mrs Page, Patrick’s mum said “The theology

department at Stonyhurst must take an enormous share of credit for this wonderful achievement.” Patrick has also been elected President of the Junior Common Room at St. Benet’s Hall.

Joe Ansbro (OS) was recently named in the Scotland A side, paving the way for a call-up to the full team later this year. Joe currently plays for Northampton Saints and was thrilled with his call up. Well done to Joe on this achievement.

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Project WeekIn the second half of term St Mary’s Hall held their project week. This included lots of trips, events and visitors to school...

Africa Day - learning about drums and movement

Emergency Day _

we were visited by the

Emergency Services

A trip to London took in the

Tate and the Globe Theatre

Teeing off Sports Day

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Emergency Day _

we were visited by the

Emergency Services

Learning how to build shelters down in the woods

A spot of fun on the river

Orienteering during the Great Adventure

The Adventurers return

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At the end of the Summer Term, the Cricket and Netball squads will make an enviable journey to the Caribbean. The Cricket squad, along with Mr Charles and Mr Thomas will travel to Grenada and St Lucia for 5 fixtures in 10 days. The Netball squad will be accompanied by Miss Brotherhood and Mrs Luker. Whilst in St Lucia the girls will face tough competition, also playing 5 fixtures planned over 10 days.

CaribbeanTourists

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Arthur Conan Doyle (OS), the writer of the Sherlock Holmes stories, was born on 22nd May 1859. To celebrate this fact we held a detective story writing competition for Lower Grammar (Year 9) and Grammar (Year 10) pupils. The winner of the competition was LG pupil Simon Whittle. He wrote a story set in the future about an all powerful

church that rules the galaxy. At the beginning of the story an abbot is found murdered and the hunt is on to find who committed the crime. Simon won a voucher and a copy of the Sherlock Holmes novels. The runner up was Melissa Hartley (LG). Well done to all who took part.

As part of the events held to mark the anniversary Mr David Knight gave a talk about Conan Doyle and his time at School on the evening of the anniversary.

Four pupils from Stonyhurst College have been accepted to train with the prestigious National Youth Theatre (N.Y.T.) this summer.

All four boys successfully auditioned for the coveted places and Bradley Goss 15, Rashad Burns 17, Winston Obi 18, and Conor Kennedy 18, will be heading for London during August. The boys will train for two weeks at Trinity Laban, the UK’s first conservatoire for music and dance at Greenwich, South East London.

We have an excellent reputation for producing budding actors with ten pupils being awarded places at the N.Y.T. over the past six years. Places are limited and only a few applicants get through the tough application process. Other notable alumni from the N.Y.T. include Daniel Craig and Dame Helen Mirren, so they are in good company. Under the guidance of a professional director and specialist tutors at Trinity Laban, the pupils will learn skills and disciplines in voice work, movement, performance and improvisation. The course will close with a performance that is presented to other course members.

Once the pupils have completed their summer school training they will then be entitled to audition for any N.Y.T. productions until they are 21 years old.

Four pupils win National Youth Theatre places

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Champions again!The Stonyhurst U16 Boys Badminton Team retained their Red Rose County Championship Cup by beating Tarleton High School 4-3 in the Final. The cup is called the Burton Cup and dates back to 1966. In the 43 year history we have only won the cup 3 times, including the last two years. This is quite an achievement by the boys. This success is in addition to the Stonyhurst team being awarded Silver medals for coming second in the North West of England Schools Finals earlier this season. Congratulations to all!

A detective story

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Four pupils are going to Austria for RoboCup 09. They are Connor Nealon, William Hacking, Rory Pickering and James Russ-Silsby. They are competing in the Junior Soccer section.

Stonyhurst College Golfing Society First Team has won through to the English School’s Golf Union Team Finals. The team comprises Callum Jones (R) who is captain, Jack Milton (R) and Sebastian Leigh (P). The boys won through several knock out rounds that culminated recently in the Lancashire finals at Haydock Park golf club where they won their semi-final in the morning and went confidently into the County Cup final in the afternoon. After a nail biting 18 holes the teams were all level; one match lost, one won and one halved! Stonyhurst unfortunately then lost on the first sudden death playoff hole to finish runners-up. However, this was enough to clinch the invite to the National Finals. The National finals will be held at Thetford Golf Club in Norfolk on Wednesday 8th July where the team will represent Lancashire. Well done to them and good luck for the finals.

Golfing finalists

Stonyhurst pupils displayed remarkable speed and skill when they won gold and silver medals at a fencing tournament. Twin brothers Simon and Magnus Whittle and Yoann Belon took on more than 150 competitors to defend Stonyhurst’s honour at the Bromsgrove School Fencing Challenge.

The Stonyhurst fencers fought exceptionally well, with Simon taking gold and Magnus taking silver in the under 14s Foil final. The placings were reversed in the under 14s Epee where Magnus took gold and Simon silver. Yoann fought in the U16 Foil and came 10th and in the Senior Epee took a creditable 13th place.

Medal winning fencers

Heading to RoboCup 09

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‘This is the best ever Great Academies’ was heard to be the comment from an OS who attended the event. Things began on the Friday afternoon with the CCF abseiling from the top of the building to raise money for charity. This was followed by raft building on the ponds and wonderful music from Schola Cantorum in the College Chapel. A concert showing the many talents of the College’s musicians came next in the Academies room followed by a delicious buffet in the beautifully decorated Ambulacrum. Everyone was able to chat and to catch up with old friends before the evening was rounded off with an excellent play and some fantastic songs from the musicals. The following day at the prize giving The Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe MP was the guest of honour. The Headmaster spoke of the many achievements of the pupils and also talked about the collections and how the College is proposing to promote them further over the next few years. Miss Widdecombe then gave out the prizes before taking to the podium to give an excellent 20 minute speech without a note. She said: ‘What is important is to persevere and never give up and to remember that everything we do is for others. But the most important thing of all is what is taught here at Stonyhurst, everything should be done to God’s glory.’

Thanks were given by the heads of line Sam Leach and Nick Isola who both gave very moving and enjoyable speeches.

The annual Rhetoric Ball rounded off the Great Academies weekend. The evening was enjoyed by everyone who took part.

Great Academies

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