News

Wednesday 12 February 2025 Healing Mass On Saturday afternoon Issy Sykes, Year 10 and Seb Greer, Year 9 attended a Mass for the Sick at the church of SS John Fisher and Thomas More, Burley-in-Wharfedale. Afterwards they helped serve refreshments in the Parish Centre and chatted with the parishioners, some of whom will be going to Lourdes on the Diocesan Pilgrimage. Both students are from this parish and are to be commended for giving up their time to be in the service of others. Issy will be going to Lourdes with St Mary’s in July and both students are attending the Flame Congress in March, a national CYMFED Youth event at Wembley Arena.
Friday 7 February 2025 Book Drive We are holding a Book Drive for the Children’s Book Project charity between Monday 10th February and Monday 3rd March 2025. Please bring in any books your children have grown out of so that they can find new homes with others across the local community.
Friday 7 February 2025 World Book Day To celebrate World Book Day on the 6th March 2025 our school will be supporting the Children’s Book Project. Across the UK 1 in 4 disadvantaged children owns fewer than 10 books, whilst 1 in 8 has none at all. This has an impact not only on these children’s academic outcomes but also on their wellbeing, emotional development and sense of themselves as a reader. The Children’s Book Project directly tackles this ‘book gap’ and gifts donated books to targeted communities across the Leeds. Over 500 schools, community groups, women’s groups and prisons nationwide put on book gifting events at which children are invited to choose a book to take it home and keep. The charity expects to gift upwards of 350,000 books this year. For more information visit www.childrensbookproject.co.uk
Wednesday 29 January 2025 Leeds Book Awards On Thursday 16 January 2025, Mrs Hall attended the Central Library in Leeds for the Leeds Book Awards Launch Party. For 15 years, the Leeds Book Awards has championed the best of newly published children's books celebrating diversity of authorship, characters, and genre. The project provides unique opportunities for active participation in reading, reviewing, debating, and voting for favourite books. In 2025, the Awards will culminate in a high-profile award ceremony at a city centre location, where children and young people will get the unforgettable opportunity to meet with the shortlisted authors and illustrators. There are 4 categories from Key Stage 2 through to Key Stage 4. The shortlisted books for 2025 are: -On Silver Tides by Sylvia Bishop -Apocalypse Cow by O.R Sorrel -Postcards From Valhalla by Danny Weston -Young Hag by Isabel Greenberg -Homebody by Theo Parish -Spider-man India – Seva by Nikesh Shukla A group of students have already started reading the books and are
Wednesday 29 January 2025 Basketball Festival St Mary's hosted a Leeds North West Year 6 Basketball festival on 21 January. SS Peter and Paul, Westgate, and Guiseley Primary schools participated in basketball drills and games delivered by City of Leeds Basketball Club, and our Year 9/10 Sports Leaders. Children were mixed into non-school groups to enable them to make new friends and develop confidence and physical skills. Children were signposted to the new Community Basketball Club starting at St Mary's on Monday's, after February half term, (4.30-5.45pm) for Years 8-11 contact: t.campbell@cityofleedsbasketballclub.co.uk.Well done to our amazing Leaders for mentoring the children and ensuring they have a positive experience.Year 10: Leaders Emily Bowker, Lauren Conley, Evie Bates, Maeve Godfrey Tom Middleton, Isaac ShumYear 9: Isla Mcleer
Wednesday 22 January 2025 Young Apprentice Challenge It has been another successful year for the Ss Peter & Paul Young Apprentice Challenge. Mr Power, Headteacher at Ss Peter & Paul Primary School, said the pupils really enjoyed the process and presented brilliantly in their Young Apprentice Boardroom.
Friday 10 January 2025 Advent Appeal Your generous donations of food goods and gifts were collected by Sean Gilks, Ss Peter and Paul, Yeadon SVP, and taken for distribution to the St Vincent Centre, Leeds. Sean was assisted in school by Elliot Pickard, Year 11. Cards bearing Christmas messages, written by Year 9 pupils were added to the boxes. In the photograph we see representative pupils from 8C who are to be congratulated for their outstanding efforts and generosity in their support of SVP.
Thursday 22 August 2024 GCSE Celebrations
Thursday 15 August 2024 A Level Success As our students collect their A-Level and Vocational qualification results, they can reflect proudly on their achievements. There are some outstanding subject and individual outcomes at all levels of attainment with an array of personal stories and triumphs behind many of their individual results.
Thursday 28 March 2024 Easter Wishes Congratulations to Olivia, Hannah and Jack who are worthy winners of our Easter Card design competition.
Monday 18 March 2024 The National Spelling Bee for Year 7s The National Spelling Bee for Year 7s saw 3 of our very own Year 7s represented at the regional competition. Eve Robinson, Philippa Cowell, and Kirsty Modrzejewska all made it to the final 8 French students out of nearly 1200 participants. This is a wonderful achievement for these three girls, and clearly shows the dedication our Year 7s are showing for their academics.
Monday 19 February 2024 Ski Trip to Folgarida
Monday 5 February 2024 Year 13 Crime Scene Year 13 Psychology students have been participating in an investigation of a mock crime scene. They had to use the skills they had acquired on cognitive interview techniques and offender profiling in order to determine who the suspect was. They had to interview suspects in school from the staff body who had agreed to take part. They successfully uncovered the murderer and were very professional in the way they conducted themselves.
Monday 5 February 2024 Sports Leader Awards It was great to see the success of our our students and their counterparts in Africa who work so closely together in our many visits. Congratulations to all those South African children who thoroughly deserved their awards. You can read the full article below:
Wednesday 17 January 2024 Leeds Salon Years 10 and 11 Debating Competition 2024 The Leeds Salon Debating Competition is an annual competition run for our Years 10 and 11 students, as well as holding Sixth Form debates.
Friday 12 January 2024 St Mary's is a Fairtrade School St Mary's Menston has received confirmation that it has achieved the final step in the Fairtrade Schools awards - the FairAchiever.
Friday 12 January 2024 Brilliant Together - Year 13
Tuesday 9 January 2024 Alumni Honours Congratulations to our former pupil Stuart Murphy who was awarded a CBE in the New Year honours list. Since his days at school, where he played the clarinet and was captain of the school rugby team.
Tuesday 12 December 2023 Year 7 Pantomime Trip Year 7 students enjoyed a lovely trip to the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford to watch Cinderella, the pantomime. Students had the joy of watching pantomime legend Billy Pearce, Emmerdale's Samantha Giles, and Strictly Come Dancing finalist John Whaite star in the production. This was a real treat for all to enjoy and a great way to kickstart the Christmas festivities. Our students really got into the pantomime spirit and some of us even got front row seats!
Wednesday 6 December 2023 Advent Bauble Raffle
Tuesday 5 December 2023 Year 11 Health and Wellbeing day Year 11 students had an excellent personal development enrichment day last week, developing their understanding of physical and mental health concerns and strategies. Pupils worked competitively in groups to devise and present a campaign to promote mental and physical health; all worked hard to produce billboards displaying facts, tips, and initiatives to raise awareness, with some fabulous tag lines and slogans that explore topics such as healthy eating, exam stress and men's mental health. We also welcomed three Leeds Councillors into school to speak to students - Oliver Edwards and Eleanor Thomson of Guiseley, and Abigail Marshall-Katung of Little London and Woodhouse, who spoke drew on her personal experiences to speak inspiringly about how to succeed, and we are very grateful to all of them for their time. Thank you to everyone for your hard work.
Monday 4 December 2023 Bebra Computational thinking success Congratulations to all of our students who have been so successful in the Bebras Computational thinking challenge and the Cyber First Girsl comptetion.
Monday 4 December 2023 St Mary's Menston named among the UK's highest-ranking achieving secondary schools On Monday 4 December 2023, Miss Hattersley shared with all members of our school community (parents, students, staff, Academy Council and local Parishes), the great news that St Mary’s Menston has been named among the UK’s highest-ranking achieving secondary schools in the Sunday Times Parent Power Guide. Helen Davies, editor of Parent Power, states, ‘The guide showcases academic excellence….this year Parent Power includes details on extracurricular clubs and wellbeing initiatives…’. Schools are ranked academically by performance at A level and GCSE in summer 2023. St Mary’s is listed as 8th out of hundreds of secondary schools in the ‘Top State Secondary Schools in the North’ category. St Mary’s is also listed as 5th in the ‘Top Comprehensive Schools’ in the North. We are ranked higher than local secondary schools in our geographical area. We are obviously delighted for our whole school community that hard work
Monday 27 November 2023 Advent at St Mary's
Tuesday 21 November 2023 St Mary's and the Bambisanani Partnership
Friday 17 November 2023 Bambisanani Partnership Work Recognised On Friday 10 November 2023, The Universe Catholic Weekly published an article about the Bambisanani Partnership that really captures all that is good about the Partnership. This followed an extensive article written by the Diocese of Leeds. Visit their page here to hear how St Mary's Students have changed the lives of young people through the partnership in the last year. Click here to read more.
Monday 23 October 2023 Sporting Success - National Youth Squad One of our Year 10 students, Mollyrose has been offered a place on the Youth Squad National Programme for Artistic Swimming for the competitive season 2024. Well Done to Mollyrose – this is a fabulous achievement.
Saturday 14 October 2023 Trip to BBC Radio 4's 'Any Questions?'
Tuesday 3 October 2023 Year 7 Day of Welcome and Mass of Welcome
Wednesday 27 September 2023 West Yorkshire U15 Netball Squad Congratulations to Leila Hill (9F) who has once again been selected for the West Yorkshire u15 Netball Squad. This is the second year Leila has asked to represent the team after successfully making it through two rounds of trials during the summer. Well done Leila on a brilliant achievement.

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