Brave Scott rescues neighbour

At the end of last year Scott Bennett in Year 9 saved his neighbour from her burning house, he's now been put forward for an award by firefighters for this brave rescue!

Scott was on his way home from school when he saw smoke billowing from a neighbouring house. He said: "I was on the field behind the house and saw a load of smoke so I went to look and there was a fire in the kitchen. I went around to the front of the house and banged on the window and saw Mrs Bennett in her front room. I didn't really think about it – I just wanted to get her out of the house." Grateful Sue Bennett, 54, said: "If it wasn't for him I would be dead. I was having an asthma attack because of the fumes from the smoke – when I opened the front room door the flames had just whooshed up in my face. But he got me out of the house and then he rescued Molly, my West Highland terrier, who was trapped in the kitchen where the fire was." Scott called 999 and Wakefield firefighters attended the blaze. Mrs Bennett was taken to Pinderfields Hospital.Crew manager Pete Hemsworth said: "An electric deep-fat fryer had been left on one of the hob rings and it seems as though that caused the fire. "Scott's swift actions were excellent. He managed to get Mrs Bennett out of the house and call the fire brigade. He didn't try to tackle the fire, which was the right thing to do. We are hoping to present him with a commendation award." Mrs Bennett added: "I would not have got out of the house without him. I would like to thank him and the fire brigade for saving my life."

Vocational Specialist Blog

NEW!! DECEMBER 2006 Damian Ward, Assistant Headteacher (Vocational) launches an exciting blog to chart our first year as a Vocational Specialist School.

http://vocationalspecialismschool.blogspot.com/

St Wilfrid’s Day Mass 2006

The St Wilfrid’s Day Mass is our greatest opportunity to come together in prayer and worship as a school community. This year, our theme was “Back to the Father.” This theme focuses our thoughts on the Christian ideas of repentance and reconciliation.
During the entrance of students to Mass, the “Paradise Steel Band”, a steel drum band played a number of Gospel based hymns. Before Mass began, Miss Birkett’s dance group performed an interpretation to two songs which related to the theme of our Mass. The Mass was lead by Fr Simon Lodge who during his homily on the Gospel of the Prodigal Son spoke with knowledge and humour about the difficulties of living out the Christian life, and also the life of St Wilfrid. During Mass, the orchestra and choir, conducted by Mr Clarke and Miss Herrington, led the congregation in a number of contemporary hymns based around our theme. During the Our Father, students from Years 8 and 9 performed a piece of liturgical movement to the words of the prayer. The Liturgy was prepared by members of the school Chaplaincy team, and it is a testimony to their hard work and dedication that the Mass was such a success.
The St Wilfrid’s Day Mass is a way of both celebrating our school achievements, but also and most importantly, a time to come together and to remember our purpose as a school. As our Mission Statement says, “At the heart of our life is a desire to encourage students to lead a Christian life and be of service to others.” We hope that our St Wilfrid’s Day Mass inspires them to do this.

Phil Russell Nov 2006

Year 5 Art Day

In November ’06 as part of St Joseph's Primary Schools Arts week St Wilfrid’s Art Department had the pleasure of working with 30 year 5 pupils for a day. Using Celtic Art as a starting point we ran two workshops – Mr Walsh and 6th form Art students provided a challenging experience manipulating day and providing the pupils with new skills and techniques. Mrs Beach and 6th form Art Students introduced Batik and textiles – a new experience to all of the pupils and something they all found very rewarding. Ideas were based on Celtic Animal Imagery and the pupils used hot wax to make a resist pattern then brushed on strong colour to make excellent individual vibrant designs.
Pupils from St Joseph's Primary School Pontefract working with Mrs Beach and 6th form Art Students. Using Celtic designs as their starting point the year 5 pupils used the strong pattern and images as inspiration to produce their own Batik Artwork.
Pupils from St Joseph's Primary School Pontefract working in collaboration with Mr Walsh and 6th form Art Students. The morning was spent on a collaborative project where pupils produced individual tiles to make a large FRIEZE. The afternoon was used to produce their own Gargoyle heads to ward off evil spirits. It worked – Mr Horodczuk was nowhere to be seen.

Paul Horodczuk Nov 2006

St Wilfrid’s Kart Club

The Kart Club is a long established after-school activity in which the members learn how to repair and maintain the karts which they then race in competitions. The competitions are organised by the National Schools Karting Association which is recognised and approved by MSA (the approved Motor Sports Body) and at an event there may be over two hundred karts taking part. The karts belong to teams similar to ours or to private individuals and can be from across the whole Country. The team have enjoyed considerable success in the past both locally and nationally, winning a number of national titles. The most recent being the National Enduro Championships held at Wigan at the beginning of November!
Chris Rayner Nov 2006

Yr 11 Art Trip to London

Yr 11 Art GCSE pupils made the long journey to London to stay overnight and visit some of the world famous galleries to help them prepare for their upcoming GCSE’s. We set off Friday morning and dropped our bags off at the Langham Court Hotel before going on to the Royal academy to see an exhibition of Amedo Modigliani work.The evening was spent in a local Italian restaurant before venturing on to the cinema for some ‘light entertainment’. Saturday was Tate Modern and the pupils found both inspiration and bewilderment at some of the work on display. It wouldn’t have been a trip to London without some time for shopping so a good quick excursion to both Carnaby St and Oxford St was included before leading back to the hotel to collect our bags and heading home.

Paul Horodczuk Nov 2006

Recording Studio!

The music department have recently moved into a state of the art building comprising of 47 dedicated music computers using the latest Sibelius and Cubase music technology software. A dedicated Mackie 24 track recording studio with mixing room and adjacent classroom can now be accessed by pupils with the opportunity to compose and arrange their own pieces using professional sounds and microphones in order to produce professional sounding cds. Pupils now have the opportunity to learn how to arrange, produce and post produce their own pieces before mastering them down to cd. For the first time pupils can make use of equipment that can only be found in a dedicated professional recording studio and produce work of a standard for use in the professional media market.

Rob Clarke Nov 2006

Healthy School!

Peter Ward, Assessor for Healthy Schools, was in school to meet with the Student Council and other groups in order that we may be awarded the Healthy School recognition!

Year 9 Rugby League

At the first attempt the Year 9 Rugby Team got through to the Powergen Schools National Finals! After winning the Wakefield cup, the team progressed into the Yorkshire Cup where they continued on their winning run, beating last years National Cup winners in the final of the Yorkshire Cup.
This put them into the National Rounds as one of the favourites, a title they lived up to winning all their games to reach the Final.
In the final they played St John Fisher, from Wigan. The Finals Weekend was played at RAF Uxbridge, London. The final was played on Friday and then the Saturday all the teams went to the Challenge Cup Final at Twickenham and paraded around the pitch at half time. Unfortunately we lost the final but the experience of the whole weekend is one that is never to be forgotten by both students and staff alike. Roll on this year when our current year 7 and 10 (last years finalists) are at going to press on course for reaching the national finals! Iain McCabe Nov 2006

Opera North

We had a fantastic day! On Friday 6th October, a team of three energetic workshop leaders from Opera North spent the day working with a group of 26 young people from St Wilfrid’s. The aim of the workshop was to teach our students about opera, and in particular, Rigoletto. Most of our young participants had very little understanding of opera, and of the singers who produce these huge voices.
One such voice belongs to Mark Evans who is a baritone and sang with us and for us during the day. He was accompanied by Sarah Tipple, director and Dominic Harlan, repetiteur. The workshop not only introduced us to the plot of Rigoletto, but also to the excitement of being onstage and singing with a large chorus.
We played games, we sang, and we staged scenes from Rigoletto. Then on Monday 9th October, we went to see the opera, Rigoletto, at the newly refurbished Leeds Grand Theatre, with students, their parents and staff. It was much more exciting to sit in the audience and watch the opera that we had worked on. Sally Eldridge Oct 2006