St Thomas à Becket Catholic Secondary School, Wakefield

A very happy Feast Day to all members of our Beckets community, past and present, pupils, parents, staff and supporters.
We especially remember with love today those former pupils and staff we have lost in this last year.
St Thomas a Becket’s Feast Day is officially 29 December but as this was a Sunday this year, we mark it today.
Our in-school celebrations will of course take place later in the school year when we can all be together.

We are incredibly proud of all of our readers, singers, musicians and actors who led tonight’s Carol Service, along with the wonderful group of Year 10 pilgrims who started their Lourdes journey of preparation and our Year 11s who were presented with their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh awards by The Mayor.
A fantastic uplifting evening. Thank you all

The Class of 2015 gathered in grief and solidarity to say goodbye to one of their own today.
A beautiful, talented and generous soul who left too soon and is deeply missed.
May he rest in peace.

To our former pupils - you may have left but you’re still part of us and we are here for you if you need us.

Another great rehearsal tonight for our upcoming production of “Little Shop of Horrors” and a chance to meet the latest member of the cast - Audrey 2!
Tickets will be released in the New Year.
Show dates 11/12/13 February

Class of 2019 Presentation Evening

As there is a delay in delivering your examination certificates from one of the 3 major exam boards to school, we are postponing this Thursday’s planned Presentation Evening.
As soon as we have those certificates, a new date will be arranged and sent out.

We look forward to welcoming back last year’s fantastic Year 11 cohort on that rearranged date

Just to confirm that school is open from tomorrow (Wednesday 23rd) morning as planned.
Huge thanks to our Trust IT Team and Central Team who are working quite literally around the clock and to the Police who are involved in the investigation process.
Thank you also to our own staff and especially our Timetabling and Safeguarding Teams for ensuring all is ready for tomorrow.

Lessons tomorrow and possibly for the remainder of the week - as indeed they were on Monday - will be “old school” and technology free - ie pen and paper, “chalk and talk”.

Parents are asked to ensure that their children have up to date emergency contact details with them in case of illness. As previously stated, all personal data is safe but not all of it is as yet accessible.
Parents are also asked to call rather than email or message school first thing if your child will be absent for any reason.

Pupils will be coming home this afternoon with a letter to say that unfortunately school is closed to pupils tomorrow (Tuesday 22 October).
We discovered this morning that we have had a ransomware attack over the weekend which has disabled all of our systems.
No personal data has been accessed in any way and is indeed completely secure, but we are unable to access our systems and cannot therefore track and monitor pupils through the day to keep them safe.
As for today, we have rerouted pupils to form rooms every hour to re-register but this was a stop gap measure as sending them home without being able to contact all parents was not a viable choice for their safety.

Whilst the investigation happens and the registering, monitoring and safeguarding systems are restored, we have therefore had to take the very difficult decision to close for a day to allow this process to happen.
All of the pertinent authorities have been informed and the Trust have been fully involved with that process.
We are sorry to families for the inevitable inconvenience this will cause.

We're looking for cleaning staff to join our wonderful team. Hours negotiable.
Please see our website or contact school for more details

We've had lots of requests to share the July 2018 Lipdub which we showed at Open Evening..... Enjoy

St Thomas a Beckett Wakefield Lipdub 360 flat projection 2D version of our 360 immersive lipdub video from St Thomas a Beckett catholic college, Wakefield, to "This is Me" from The Greatest Showman. (Used under fai...

A massive thank you to the huge number of families who attended our Open Evening last night and to our incredibly hardworking staff and our wonderful pupils, who as ever are our best ambassadors.

So wonderful to have our whole school community back together and up and running for the new school year.
New Year 7 have made a fantastic start; Year 11 have been busy preparing for their next steps with personal statements for college and apprenticeship applications and Years 8,9,10 settled straight back in today.
Happy New School Year everyone. May it be a really good one for everyone

Huge congratulations to the Class of 2019 on your hard earned successes on this Results Day. We are so proud of you and all that you have achieved.
We look forward to seeing you together in school for one last time to collect your certificates and celebrate your achievements on 7 November

We hope everyone is enjoying the summer break.
Our wonderful premises and cleaning staff at school have been working incredibly hard and you'll see some real changes when you get back, but in the meantime - you've still got 2 full weeks to go!
That's the equivalent of a full Christmas or Easter holiday so if you've not done much with your time yet, make the most of this two weeks.

All love, prayers and best wishes to all former pupils collecting A Level results tomorrow.
We hope that your hard work will be repaid in full but remind you too that - to paraphrase our pre-exam prayer - your worth lies in who you are, not in your performance.
This has been a really tough few weeks for your Becket's year group.
Whatever happens, Becket's is and always will be here for you.

Ahead of schedule due back at school 12:45, see you all soon

Busy last few days at the waterpark, archery, vertical play pen and games in the river. We are now on our way home ☀️☀️🏊‍♂️🏄‍♂️🚣🏻‍♀️

Paddle boarding, raft building and mountain biking today 🚴‍♂️🏄‍♂️

Ardeche descent complete ☀️🏊‍♂️🚣🏻‍♀️🚣🏻‍♂️

Day One of the Ardeche Descent completed!

All cooled off with a dip in the river

Ardeche trip have all arrived safely and we are just having a tour round before our first activity. ☀️ 🏊‍♂️

Lourdes Highlights part 2

Lourdes highlights
31 year 10 students and 4 staff plus our school chaplain had an unforgettable pilgrimage - July 4th to July 11th. We worked hard, laughed a lot, met new people, explored our beliefs and grew in faith.
In the words of our Bishop Marcus Stock: ‘as Catholics our mission is to listen, to receive and to act on the word of God’

Wednesday saw us relaxing at Lac de Lourdes

Tuesday saw us helping in mass where Fr Elliot Wright - ex Beckets pupil - preached the sermon.
Singing and praising the Lord at catechesis and then our late night vigil

Our lovely pilgrims......

Later on Monday we took our pilgrims to a ‘Washing of hands’ and then onto the Anointing of the sick mass and the heavens opened again.

This morning Fr Sean led us in a walking tour visiting the Parish Church that St Bernadette attended. And the heavens opened.....

Sunday afternoon we went up the mountain.....the cloud hid the view but we still had fun and conquered our fears of heights