Falinge Park High School

Falinge Park High School

Tuesday 15 December sees the school host a seasonal event titled ‘The Festive Treat’ The showcase will feature seasonal songs and fun activities. This event is offered to families and friends of school and we ask for a donation for admission. All monies raised from the event will be donated to local charity. For more details, please contact Ms Moore. “The Festive Treat’ takes place from 4.15pm until 5.00pm.

We have revised the ‘Falinge Has Got Talent’ show to support our year 10 and 11 performers who are busy preparing pieces. It has been decided that Year 10 and 11 students will be able to see the pieces on Wednesday 16 December Periods 1 and 2. Students will be asked to make a donation to charity so that the event raises as much money as possible for a good cause. 

Students have taken a visit to Manchester School of Art this week to meet students as part of a larger project centred on wellbeing and contemporary health issues. Mr Lawlor, Ms Herdman, Mr Brown and Ms Kowalski went along to find out more about what the project will involve and we look forward to seeing the graduate Manchester School of Art students working alongside our learners in the next few weeks. Congratulations to the group of FPHS students who made such a great impression on others.

Arts Award Club is in full swing at the moment and students are busy undertaking their Arts Award Bronze and Silver qualifications in animation and musical scoring, piano and composition and origami. The club takes place every Friday in G3 and is open to students of all years. For more details, please see Mr De Courcey.

The ‘What’s In A Word?’ project is now well underway and a full class of Year 7 students are busy creating portfolios in creative writing using subject specific language from their Science and English lessons. We have been very impressed by the quality of work seen so far and moderations will take place in late January.

We wish good luck to Year 9 Drama and Dance students who will be performing at East Lancashire Railway Bury Bolton Street Station on Wednesday 9th of December as part of the schools’ ‘Santa Special’ provision. FPHS students will be performing a series of monologues and dances before the departure of the train and upon its return an hour later. Students who have not yet returned their visit permission forms should do so at the earliest opportunity to Mr De Courcey or Mr Ahmed.

Year 7 CALL students should now be well underway in the completion of the Underground formal speeches and the completion of project homework. If this has not yet been done or if homework has not yet been returned then it should be brought into school at the earliest opportunity. For more details, please contact your CALL teacher.

Ms Wystawnoha has been visiting several of our primary schools this week to explain more about the Earthworks Project and to support primary schools in the completion of Arts Award related projects. We look forward to seeing all the shared work uploaded on the special website and at the final showcase in the summer of 2016.

Our Storytelling and Poetry workshops are now fully booked by primary schools and there is a limited offer of a Dance workshop available. If you would like to find out more about the offer, please visit our school website or contact Mr De Courcey or Ms Wystawnoha as soon as possible.

Mr Walker and Mr Lawlor paid a visit to the Sharp Project Creative Industries Conference on Friday this week as part of the sharing of good practice across the visual and digital arts in the North West. Both staff found the experience extremely useful and we look forward to seeing some of the shared great ideas back here at FPHS.

Our school is to embark on a special collaborative project with two other schools across Greater Manchester, exploring notions of community, identity and belonging. The initiative will see over 45 students involved and feature workshops from a range of specialists. The project will ultimately lead to several different creative products and a documentary video of the process. The first session takes place on Friday 15th of January and should run through the spring and summer term.

This week we have been lucky enough to host “Prison Me No Way” for a day. Prison Me No Way is a service that visits school and takes students through a variety of workshops linked to the justice system. Our current Year 9 were taken off timetable for the day and engaged in workshops that included Magistrates court, speaking with and ex offender and Anti-Social Behaviour. The day was a fantastic success and 100% of the children involved took something from the day. We look forward to hosting them again next year.

Tuesday the 24 November saw us launch our second “Winter Challenge”. Last year our students linked up with the Trussell Trust and Rochdale Food Bank in order to raise much needed food for the people of Rochdale. The response from the staff and Children in school was amazing and we managed to raise just over a Tonne of food. This year we are hoping to better last year’s haul and are aiming for one and a half tonnes. Once again we have been supported by Morrison’s Rochdale who have kindly provided us with boxes that we can store our collections in. The challenge is on!

A reminder of the Duke of Edinburgh meetings for students for the rest of this term:

Wednesday 2/12/15 OR Fri 4/12/15 from 2.45pm to 3.45pm (E DofE Meeting)

Wednesday 9/12/15 OR Fri 11/12/15 from 2.45 to 3.45pm (Map and Compass Skills)