‘Catenian Award’ for Personal Achievement presented to Bethan Curran

The ‘Class of 2015’ from St Cuthbert's RC High School at Rochdale Town Hall

The ‘Catenian Award’ for Personal Achievement was presented to Bethan Curran as the ‘Class of 2015’ from St Cuthbert's RC High School assembled for the final time at Rochdale Town Hall on Thursday 3 December to recognise their outstanding achievements.

Bethan has suffered with cancer over the past twelve months and has had 20cm of her thigh bone removed in order to cut out a huge cancerous tumour. Nine months of gruelling chemotherapy followed; yet in spite of this, she continued to study hard for her GCSEs.

She sat all of her exams in either The Christie Hospital or in isolation in school and still achieved an excellent set of GCSE results which will now enable her to enter college this September.

The presentation of the award to Bethan was met with a standing ovation from all staff, students and parents who recognised her astonishing courage.

Over 400 guests assembled in The Great Hall to be welcomed by Dr Meehan, who reminded the former students of the times that they had shared together over the past five years and congratulated them on the mature and thoughtful young people they have become. He also thanked them and their teaching staff for all of their hard work and commitment to achieving such good results.

The students were then given the opportunity to reflect on the good times at St Cuthbert’s by watching videos and pictures of themselves throughout their five years.

Mr Shields (Deputy Headteacher) addressed the group and reminded them of their achievements, not only in their GCSE examinations, but as faith leaders, sporting superstars, cast members of school shows, fundraisers, and as role models for younger students.

Mr Shields invited the ‘Class of 2015’ on to the stage to receive their GCSE certificates.

Heads of department presented awards in their subject areas to the students who had made outstanding academic achievement and outstanding academic progress. Each staff member presented an account of the reasons why each student had been selected, with the recurring theme being outstanding hard work, commitment and going above and beyond in their subject.

Awards were also made to recognise the contribution that sports leaders have made to the programme in local primary schools. Particular reference was made to Emily Carter who had contributed more than 100 volunteer hours to school and the local community.

Following the subject awards, Miss Holt invited students who had achieved well in a wide range of different areas to receive their awards.

The first award for outstanding GCSE results was presented to Sophie Mannion, who achieved seven A* and three A grades.

The next award was presented by Neil Williams of Rochdale Rotary Club, who have donated a new prize to be presented annually to a student who has made outstanding academic progress during their time at St Cuthbert’s. This year’s award recognised the excellent results achieved by Clarence Dumanjug.

Attention turned to a student who had made a significant contribution to the life of the school. The award was presented to Roisin Weldon who was commended by Miss Holt for her contribution to school sports teams, school shows, the liturgical music group, fundraising projects and for being an outstanding role model for younger students.

There followed presentations to a staff member and a student to recognise their success in the mentoring programme last year; Julie Bradley and Callum Dowd were presented with silver plates in recognition of their hard work and determination in meeting Callum’s potential.

Lay Chaplain, Kath Ansley presented an award for Outstanding Contribution to the Catholicity of the school. She paid tribute to the pupil chaplains who had been instrumental in setting up the pupil chaplain programme, and reserved special praise for the winner Robyn Waldie for her role in liturgies, masses and other elements of the faith life of the school.

The final awards of the evening were presented to Nathalie Mukambilwa and Liam Gartland for their role as Head Girl and Head Boy. Both students have been "great ambassadors" for St Cuthbert’s and "wonderful role models".

The evening concluded with a final thank you to the students from Dr Meehan. He thanked them all for their time at St Cuthbert’s and wished them well for a happy and holy Christmas and a bright, prosperous future.