St Michael's Catholic Grammar School, North Finchley

Dear all,

We are very pleased to announce the relaunch and rebrand of SMOGs to SMOGGs!

The newly formed committee of The St. Michael’s Old Girls and Guys Network have lots of great plans as to how we can get our network up and running and provide our members with a number of opportunities to get involved with fellow past alumni and also to give back to the school that was a place we all remember fondly - whether you left in 1960 or 2018!

The relaunch is in very early stages and our main objectives will fall into 2 distinct pillars:-

· Pillar one will be focused on networking and events which will include some fundraising for the school

· Pillar two will focus on giving back - both to the school and to the newer SMOGGs who have recently left school or university and would benefit insight from SMOGGs from the preceding years; we SMOGGs have gone into many diverse careers and have a lot of wisdom that this network would like to tap into.

We hope that sounds like something you would like to be part of!? If so we would like to hear from you! We want to expand the committee to include representation from as many decades of SMOGGs as we can so that as we build this network up we can ensure it will tailor to all of us. I left in 1991 and am currently the youngest on the committee which is something we want to change asap!

With that in mind, if you would like to come along to our next meeting, have any suggestions for the network or just to find out a bit more please get in touch on our new dedicated email address: [email protected]

The next step we want to take is to launch a webpage and app that will be connected to the school website and make it easier for SMOGGs to organise events— if you could offer some time and/or expertise with that please email us back on our new SMOGGs email address.

Your email address is on an old list that we got from the school and we want to update that so would appreciate it if you would get the word out for us by forwarding this email to your other SMOGGs so that they can also get in touch and get added to our database.

If you don’t want to receive these emails any more just let us know and you will be removed.

Thanks in advance for your help as we get this network running and we hope to hear from lots of you soon.

Kind regards,

Tracey O'Shea (nee Glackin)

Chair, SMOGGs

One of our SMOGs Mandy Staiano (nee Denoris) (1979 - 1986) died of breast cancer recently on her 50th birthday. Her primary school (she was Head teacher) is trying to raise £10k to set up a music room in her memory. Please donate if you can.

Click here to support Mrs Staiano's Music Suite organised by St Catherine's School Mrs Staiano, our much loved co-headteacher at St Catherine’s, had a particular passion for music and singing. We would like to open a music suite in memory of her so that children can develop their own love of music. Mrs Staiano expressed a wish that a music room should also incorporate a ‘sanct...

St Michael's has refreshed its website which went 'live' last week: http://www.st-michaels.barnet.sch.uk/

Ex-pupils will recognise some of the locations in the photos! Parents will find it a useful resource.

The link on the website for twitter is now live () if you would like to follow the School! It will be reflecting school life and reminding you of upcoming events and information.

Home - St Michael's Catholic Grammar School Thank you for visiting our website and I hope you find the information you require here, although to get a true impression of the many strengths and outstanding features of St. Michael’s Catholic Grammar School – you will have to visit us at one of our open days!

Happy St Michael's day! The school will be celebrating with mass today and of course Dux Michael!

We are delighted that so many of our Year 13 students have been offered places at top universities. Over 85% of offers are at Russell group universities which is a record high for the School. This comes on top of the 12 students with offers from Oxford and Cambridge. Other students have gained entry to top Art Colleges whilst others have been successful in gaining offers to Medical schools. Congratulations for all the independent study undertaken by so many of our students in order to gain such offers. We wish all Year 13 students every success in achieving their offer grades in the Summer exams. May they always seek to uphold Christian values in all that they do.

A new St Michael's?

In July the Department for Education gave schools 2 weeks notice to submit capital bids for the refurbishment of their premises under a government initiative called Priority School Buildings Programme 2 (PSBP2). As we were already working on a site development plan with architects, Cullinan Studios, we were fortunate in having some detailed drawings already but it was certainly a mad rush to meet all the requirements for submitting a bid before the deadline for submission. On Monday of this week we were informed that St Michael's is one of only 277 schools nationally and only 3 in Barnet with successful bids. Our indicative bid focused upon a complete refurbishment of the Main Building (Senior Building) at a total estimated cost of £1.4 million. We are now looking forward to receiving more information about this programme in the near future.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Ward

Headmaster

Host an international English language student and earn up to £157 per week per student! Call Elena on 020 8346 9802.

Attendance at school on the day of the bus strike (Tuesday 13th January) was almost normal at 94%. Many parents took the time to drive their daughters/sons to school and I know that many pupils undertook a long walk to school and/or used other forms of public transport. Thank you to everyone for the extra effort needed to attend school on the day!

Record Oxbridge Success

12 students have been offered places at Oxbridge for entry in Autumn 2015. This is another record year on top of 9 offers in 2014, 6 in 2013 and only 3 in 2012. This is testament to a combination of school initiatives, the growing independence of mind and confidence of our students, the time invested by students in attending summer schools and undertaking extended reading, as well as going to external lectures in their own time. Students also enjoyed the generous support of their parents and family in making some of these activities possible. I would also like to thank the teaching staff for their dedication in enabling every student to reach their full potential.
Julian Ward

Happy New Year!
Last Wednesday (7th January) The Mayor of Barnet and his wife, Mr Hugh Raynor and Mrs Susan Raynor, attended our assembly as a result of a special request by the Mayor who was passionate about his appreciation of a performance he had attended, undertaken by 8 of our Year 10 pupils, at the final of the Jack Petchey Glee Club Challenge at Queen Elizabeth Hall in December.

The Infinitones is an A ca****la group, set up and run by the pupils themselves. The infinity sign in their logo can also be seen as the number 8 on its side, which represents all 8 of the groups diverse members. After sifting through all the entries 29 regional finalists were chosen who were invited to specialist Glee ‘’Boot Camps’’ where they received expert help from industry professionals. 12 groups were then chosen to perform in the final.

The Infinitones are Josephina Abuah, Oyemen Okekumatalor, Sonia Mekonnen, Amelia Reeks, Odera Ogbonna, Lucy Lam Yuk Wang, Grace Brimacombe-Rand, Shona Martin.
They have been invited to perform at The Jack Petchey Foundation 15th anniversary celebration at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in March.
I would like to convey my congratulations to the creativity and independence of mind to all members of The Infinitones.

Yours sincerely,


Julian Ward January 2015
Headmaster

December 2014

Dear Parents

Last night we held our annual Speech Night for the distribution of prizes and GCSE and A level examination certificates to members of Year 12 and former Year 13 students who came back from their first term at university. Our guest speaker, Kate Kahle (nee Bradshaw), was inspirational. After leaving St Michael’s in 1996 to study Physics and Philosophy at Sheffield University she has worked in publishing before taking up a post at CERN in 2007. Yesterday, she flew to London from Geneva especially to visit St Michael’s to talk about her work as Communications and Media Manager. She has been so generous with her time over the last two days, taking the opportunity to talk with Year 9, Year 11 and 6th form students about her career path as well as the scientific importance of CERN’s work. We are always grateful to former pupils who are willing to share their experience with the present generation of pupils at the School.

Advent is a time when we are reminded about the importance of giving in our lives – not just the physical presents that we exchange on Christmas Day – but, perhaps more significantly, the gifts and friendship we offer to each other throughout the year. This is a time of year to take stock of how we have all benefitted from the generosity and support of others – a time to recognise our mutual indebtedness that binds us together into a community all sharing a mutual purpose. Our religious belief emphasises the importance of this sense of belonging in contrast to the alternative of acting in isolation or from a narrow perspective.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our pupils and staff for all their hard work and generosity of spirit during this term. You, as parents, have also been very supportive of everything that we do in school. In particular the September Appeal raised just under £30,000 for our refurbishment of 6th Form study facilities and the recent Bazaar raised over £10,000 for the work of the Parents’ Association. Thank you for your contributions. Your support is invaluable in both maintaining and improving the quality of education at St. Michael’s.

Christmas is about an even brighter hope for the future. With this in mind I would like to wish you and your family a very happy Christmas with the hope that we can all carry this forward into the year ahead!

Yours sincerely,


Mr Julian Ward
Headmaster

Come along to the Christmas Bazaar, have an Irish coffee, mulled wine and some lovely food, and see what it feels like to be back in the School Hall....