Maghull High News Aspire Achieve Enjoy

The Front Elevation

The Rear Elevation

Some Indoor Views

Hello and welcome to Maghull High School News.

Excitement has been mounting as we move ever closer to moving day! It has been a hectic half term, with last minute preparations and year 11 mock examinations. The real examinations are now only a few weeks away after the Easter break. Remember, we have an extraordinary INSET day on 23 April, so we look forward to seeing you after the holiday on Wednesday 24 April. Have a restful Easter break and year 11, don’t forget to revise.

New Build The culmination of over a year’s work is about to come to fruition, with the move to our new build scheduled for the Easter break. Preparation has reached fever pitch over the past week or so, as staff gradually pack their classrooms and offices and the site team work hard to support them. The INSET days this week are earmarked for final packing and the removal men are scheduled for the second week of the holiday. The extraordinary INSET day on 23 April will see our staff unpacking and preparing their areas for the start of the new term. We are already looking forward to welcoming our students to their new learning environment after the break. Students were briefed last week by Ms Aspinall, our head teacher, on their new timetables, classrooms and movement about the site after Easter. The existing main school building will become the demolition site when we move and we will not reclaim the whole site until November. All access to the school will be from the two gates on Ormonde Drive; access through the gate on Gainsborough Avenue will not be possible. It would be extremely helpful if parents dropping children off or picking them up at the end of the day could do so at some distance away from the school, to ease traffic congestion in what is already a very busy area. At the start and end of the day, we will be walking students from and to the buses and it will be safer for our students if cars in that area are kept to a minimum. Finally, can we take this opportunity to thank all parents and carers, as well as members of the local community, for your support and cooperation during the build process. We wish you all a very happy Easter break.

Sefton Super Reads 2019 Congratulations to this year’s nominated Sefton Super Reads students. The group of year seven and eight pupils had been eagerly reading the six short listed books and then wrote reviews for the event. They got to meet the authors and two students won prizes; George Hart, pictured above with winning author Ele Fountain for Boy 87. Megan Barrett also won a prize for her review of Secret on the Night Train by Sylvia Bishop. They beat off stiff competition from six other schools in the area, which is amazing. Well done to the students involved.

Science Fair at Manchester Uni

In February, a group of year eight and nine students were lucky enough to travel to Manchester University for the day with our science department. The fair was hosted by students, lecturers and researchers from across the university, with the aim of inspiring young people to consider studying science. They attended two interactive lectures about the five senses and space.

Dates for the diary

Tuesday, 23 April - INSET day Wednesday, 24 April - Term starts Monday, 6 May - Bank Holiday Tuesday, 7 May - Year 10 Mock Exams Monday, 27 May - Bank Holiday Monday, 3 June—Term starts Wednesday, 12 June - Year 10 Parents’ Evening

Mathsfeast Competition Miss O'Hara took a number of year ten girls to a Mathsfeast competition run by AMSP and held at King David School on Wednesday 20 March. They competed against twenty other high schools from the local area. They performed brilliantly and showed excellent team spirit. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon of maths. Well done girls.

Sefton Semi Cup Final

Mr Tyrer would like to congratulate the year ten football team after an exciting first season as manager. The team managed to reach the last 16 of the national cup and the semi-final of the Sefton cup, narrowly losing on both occasions in closely contested games. The boys managed to win seven out of nine cup games this season, all away from home, scoring forty two goals in the process. Mr Tyrer remains confident that they can win a trophy next season. Good luck lads!

Clubs Science Club continues to run successfully after school every Thursday in room 54. Drama Club will be running every Tuesday after school in the Arts Theatre. Photography Club has just started on Monday lunchtimes in Room 58 for those wishing to attend.

Attendance We respectfully remind parents and carers that your child should be aiming for excellent attendance. If their attendance is below 97%, they are failing to meet the school’s target. Please avoid term time holidays.

World Book Day Events

Readathon. We had an extraordinary amazing WBD this March with events being hosted around school. The library hosted a “Readathon” event and we had more than seventy students reading over a two hour period. In total they read over three million words with two hundred and six books being read. To see our stu-dents sitting quietly enjoying their books for two hours was a wonderful thing to experience. WBD Tokens & Books. WBD Tokens were also handed out and a selection of WBD books were made available in the LRC to pick from. A book sale of old library stock took place at break and lunchtimes, raising just over thirty pounds for new stock. Literacy Companions The English department ran a number of activities in lessons and throughout the day in support of World Book Day. At the start of every Key Stage 3 lesson, all teachers read a chapter from the same story, which ran throughout the day. Some of our less confident readers had the chance to visit the Sixth Form Centre, where they read out loud to some unu-sual canine reading companions. Thank you to Miss Murphy for providing Belle and Milo for this session. Our students found it very enjoyable and the dogs were on their best behaviour. Keep reading over Easter break year seven and eight—Star reading tests next term!

Duke of Edinburgh

On a beautiful sunny Tuesday in March, a record number of eighty six year nine students and seventeen staff set off for Delamere Forest on our latest Duke of Edinburgh practice expedition. Everyone got lost but made it back in time for a well deserved ice cream or a cup of tea. Not all students were as well prepared as they should have been, so quite a few gave their shoes up to the bog during the course of their walk. We are looking forward to further expeditions in July.

Fair Trade Fortnight

During Fair Trade fortnight, our student council decided to run a fair trade tuck shop at lunch and break. As part of their role in the senior prefect team in sixth form, they wanted to raise awareness of the movement. Members of the student council from year nine also assisted them, and over fifty pounds was raised and sent to the Fair Trade Foundation. We were also able to visit many of our partner primary schools during the fortnight to deliver whole school assemblies and work with year five. The theme this year was chocolate, so we learnt about the journey of the cocoa bean from the plantation to the supermarkets. It was very informative for our students.

Transition We are so excited to announce that we have a bumper year seven joining us in September 2019. We are really looking forward to meeting them all in May in their pri-mary schools and then welcoming them here on 27 June at 8.50am for their full day visit.

Art Successes

Charley Beasley, Year 9, has been selected as a winner of Save the Children’s ‘Words not Weapons’ competition. This is a phenomenal achievement as the standard of entries was incredibly high and the judges were blown away by the quality, empathy and power of these entries from over one hundred schools in the country. Charley's artwork will be printed in a book with Yemeni children’s messages which will be presented to the UK government, asking them to act for the children of Yemen.

Dot Art Competition

We are delighted to report that once again, we have been successful in our entries to the Dot Art competi-tion, with three of our year nine girls shortlisted. Competition is fierce and the entries are subject to a public vote. To support our students, please vote here: http://liverpool.schools.dot-art.com/school/index/name/maghull-high-school Well done to all students who took part and good

Careers Update Our year nine students had a careers activity day at the end of March, where they had the chance to attend different workshops run by various professionals. In the morning, they attended an assembly looking at the goals they needed to set themselves in order to start planning their career journeys. In the afternoon, they took part in a series of workshops .They met construction project managers, journalists, engineers, universities, physio-therapists, careers advisers, marketing professionals and personnel from Knowsley Safari Park . The aim of the day was to raise their awareness as to the wealth of careers available to them. Twelve year ten students attended a raising aspiration day run by Cambridge University at the Liverpool Museum. Lecturers gave short talks on a range of subjects and students talked about life at Cambridge. All agreed it was a very inspirational day. Year twelve students attended the ‘Which University , Which Career Live’ event at the Liverpool Exhibition Centre in March. They were able to talk to several universities about the choice of courses available and also consider the options of a degree or advanced Apprenticeship.

Year seven and eight had a really entertaining workshop delivered by three members of the North West ambulance service. The event was organised to celebrate International Women’s Day on the 8 March. They learnt about some of the day to day challenges the call handler has to cope with and the highs and lows

during a normal twelve hour shift. They also had the chance to listen to some real life recordings of calls that the handlers had received. They all agreed that helping with the birth of a baby was pretty spectacular. However the very exciting news which our visitors shared with us at the end of their presentation, was that they are part of the team which is about to be filmed for the next episode of the BBC television series Ambulance. Let’s see if we recognise any of them! Well done to all students who took part in any of these events.

John Neal Guest Speaker Our year ten students were lucky enough to have a talk from John Neal, a motivational psychologist who is currently working for the English Cricket Board as head of coach development. John has had a range of roles in cricket, with the Rugby Football Union and the Premier League. He is best known for his work on psycho-physiology, looking at the way in which the mind and the body work together, especially when in stressful situations. This is particularly vital for our Key Stage 4 students approaching their GCSE examinations, in terms of managing their own wellbeing. Using a few simple techniques, he showed the students how to build resilience and make the right decisions in sometimes challenging situations. They were taught that they are in control of what happens in every situation and must not listen to the sometimes negative voice in their head. Thank you to Mrs Wallis for organising the visit; we look forward to welcoming John again in the future.