News

Parklane Plowden Chambers and Walker Morris provided ten A-level law students a unique insight into the legal profession by running a mock High Court trial, as part of a week of work experience.

The students were given just over a day to study the evidence for a road traffic accident case and to prepare for the trial. The boardroom at Walker Morris’ offices was converted to a court room and the trial was kept as true to life as possible, complete with wigs, gowns, a witness box and even an usher played by, Counsel, Gareth Price. The whole proceedings were presided over by Barrister, Kaiser Nazir, acting as the High Court, Trial Judge.’

Students who took part were: Samuel Heyhirst, Sara Djoudi, Amelie Thewlis, Shyaam Bundy, Ishfaq Shafiq, Nick Leadbeater, Mark Dawson, Zaynah Baksh, Emma Ramsey and Heather Conboy (all lower sixth).

Students from the classics department have been busy recently. Early in March, Dr Beaumont and Ms Yates took a group of Notre Dame GCSE Latin students to Bradford University for a ‘People in the Past’ workshop.

The University of Bradford has an international reputation for teaching and research in human skeletal remains and this Human Osteology workshop gave our students the opportunity to gain hands on experience examining lifelike synthetic skeletons and looking at actual archaeological finds.

Staff in the department showed students how to determine such things as whether the skeleton was male or female and how high the person was in life by examining the femur and tibia bones.
It may sound a little grizzly but the students thoroughly enjoyed their day and learnt a lot from the experience.

In addition to this the department continued the long standing tradition of success in the Greek Drama Category of the Leeds University Classics Reading Competition which took place in March. L6 student Rae-Anna Evans and U6 student Henry Wain, both gave dynamic and polished performances in the face of strong competition and Rae-Anna achieved an excellent second place with her rendition of Hecabe’s speech from Euripides’ Trojan Women. Both students also study Theatre which may account for some of the dramatic flair.

Fairtrade Fortnight at Notre Dame got off to a flying start this week with a well-attended Bake sale held in the upper common room on Wednesday.

Willing volunteers provided a range of home baked treats for hungry staff and students. This was not only intended to raise funds for charity but perhaps more importantly to raise awareness of Fairtrade products and issues.

Our Fairtrade team headed by Miss Case have worked hard to create an exciting range of events which you can join in.

Don’t forget to break out your wellies and hippy hats next Thursday when Notre Dame holds its own Fairstock festival in the main hall at 1.00pm.

Entrance is free and you will be able to groove to some cool music while you sample Fairtrade crafts, cakes and lemonade as well as having the opportunity to have your picture taken in the Fairtrade booth. Before you leave, don’t forget to buy your balloon label for Friday’s Great Balloon Release.

This takes place on the walkway outside the hall at 1.30 and will mark the end of a tremendous two weeks of Fairtrade fun.

Every February, Notre Dame Theatre studies students volunteer for the task of directing, designing and performing in a production of their choice. There have been some truly fantastic shows over the years and this February was no exception when Adam Leonard and Ruby Trudgeon directed extracts from ‘LovePlay’ by Moira Buffini.

Loveplay is a story of love through the ages and uses a mix of comedy and pathos to explore many different features and expressions of Love with each section taking place in a different era, moving through Roman Britain, Medieval England, the Renaissance right up to a speed dating event set in 2013.

The production was rehearsed during lunchtimes and after college over only four weeks and was a huge success.

The cast; Stephen Caswell, Emily Gledhill, Tom Greig, Jess Harris, Katie Hawkhead, Ed Hide and Mollie Stockhill, multi rolled a number of characters showing their versatile skills and delighting the audience with their comic timing.

However good the actors though, [and these were very good], a production needs a strong team of designers and technicians behind it and this was provided by Abi Makin[ lights] Susie Newton [sound] Jess Wood [costume] and a whole team of set designers and builders who gave up their free time to make this happen.
The whole evening was stage managed by Lizzie Gunby supported by Charlotte Bailey and Alex Beese whose job it was to coordinate actors and technicians and ensure all cues were precisely timed.
Although it meant a lot of extra work during the January exam period all the cast and crew thoroughly enjoyed meeting the challenge.

Adam said afterwards ‘It was a huge time commitment and took a lot of work but it was definitely worth it to see the final performance. The cast were all great and we had a lot of fun rehearsing’

The next Theatre production will be performed on the taster days in July and will be directed by Sophie Massa.

Asghar Ali 13%

Jonathan Prashar 55%

Niccolo Sto-Tomas 29%

Spoiled papers 3%

The Corporation therefore appointed Jonathan Prashar as Parent Governor for the period
6th March 2013 to 5th March 2016.

Fairtrade Fortnight at Notre Dame got off to a flying start this week with a well-attended Bake sale held in the upper common room on Wednesday.

Willing volunteers provided a range of home baked treats for hungry staff and students. This was not only intended to raise funds for charity but perhaps more importantly to raise awareness of Fairtrade products and issues.

Our Fairtrade team headed by Miss Case have worked hard to create an exciting range of events which you can join in.

Don’t forget to break out your wellies and hippy hats next Thursday when Notre Dame holds its own Fairstock festival in the main hall at 1.00pm.

Entrance is free and you will be able to groove to some cool music while you sample Fairtrade crafts, cakes and lemonade as well as having the opportunity to have your picture taken in the Fairtrade booth. Before you leave, don’t forget to buy your balloon label for Friday’s Great Balloon Release.

This takes place on the walkway outside the hall at 1.30 and will mark the end of a tremendous two weeks of Fairtrade fun.

Former Notre Dame Student Lucas Dambitis has just been awarded a prestigious scholarship from the Institution of Civil Engineers [ICE]

The scholarship which is worth £10000, is well known and respected within the industry, is awarded to a high calibre student with the potential to excel in the field of civil engineering.

Lucas left Notre Dame last summer after achieving straight A grades in Maths, Physics and Product Design, and was particularly interested in the possibilities afforded by the Design department’s CAD programme Pro Engineer which he used to create a variety of products ranging from jewellery to MP3 Docks.

His great passion though  was for playing Hockey and not only did he represent the college in the mixed Hockey team serving as captain for two years, but was instrumental in getting Hockey back on the sports team’s agenda at the college.

Lucas’s flair for engineering is in his blood as his father runs an electrical engineering company based in Otley, and Lucas spent much of his free time helping out and learning the tricks of the trade.

The scholarship means that Lucas is now a QUEST scholar and he will receive £2500 a year whilst studying for his degree, and will be offered paid work placements during university holidays.

Ms Pattison who was Lucas’s form tutor remembers his determination and commitment to all aspects of his college life, and commented, ‘He was a pleasure to have in the form’

We say congratulations to Lucas and hope his success will be an inspiration to our current students embarking on higher education courses next year.

Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College are currently seeking to appoint a new Vice Principal. Applications should be made via the Hire Wire web site

Further details can be seen in the advert below.

Vice Principal Advert

Following our story on the success of Maths students last term, U6 student Qin Zou continues his amazing success in Mathematical competitions.

After the Senior Maths Challenge, he qualified for the British Mathematical Olympiad Round. Students who are successful in this can truly call themselves gifted and Qin stormed the competition narrowly missing Gold by one mark but bagging both the the Silver and a book prize. In addition, he achieved the 18th highest score in the UK.

Maths teacher Mr Watson said “Qin is definitely one of the most able students I have met in over thirty years of teaching. The level required for this competition demands intuition, creativity and the ability to persevere. The average mark nationally for all those that sat the paper was only a third of Qin’s score.”

Well done Qin!

In November Physics students were given an exciting opportunity to meet Dr Mick Storr, a leading particle physicist and researcher based at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research and home of the Large Hadron Collider LHC.]

Dr Storr is currently Head of the CERN Academic and Technical Training section and his current research is detecting antimatter in space. He has also worked on software development and was in the same office as Tim Berners-Lee when he was developing the World Wide Web!

Dr Storr grew up in Yorkshire and was educated at Pudsey Grangefield. He now devotes a lot of his time to Education outreach activities and as part of this visited the county in November to give a series of lectures about his ground-breaking work in order to inspire the next generation of particle physicists.

Dr Caroline Neuberg, a physicist at Fulneck School, invited Notre Dame Students to a particle physics workshop run by Dr Storr and such was their enthusiasm following their visit, Mr Windle, Head of Physics here in college, invited Dr Storr to visit us at Notre Dame.

He spoke to our physicists about his own work, the LHC and the role of CERN as an institution, particularly highlighting the collaborative and international aspects of the workforce. CERN is probably one of the few places where race, gender, nationality or academic standing are of no consequence; as a student on a placement you could easily find yourself sitting at a table in the canteen with a Nobel prize winner! Dr Storr’s talk was inspirational and he went to great lengths to make it clear that absolutely anybody could apply to work there and you don’t have to be a genius! As a result, at least one of our students intends to apply for a summer placement.

Mr Windle said afterwards “I am very grateful to Dr Neuberg for her invitation to our students to join hers at Fulneck and to Dr Storr for his subsequent visit here; both were very generous with their time and expertise and beneficial links have been established.”