through the events that they have hosted and contributed to.

The assessment involved some very important meetings with

staff, governors and our Year 10 Numeracy Ambassadors as well

as a tour of the school and lessons led by the Year 9 Numeracy

Ambassadors, Kate Sayers and Anya Prior who did a fantastic job

of demonstrating all of the progress the school has made with

Numeracy. Sarah Ismail and Grace Gallagher, also, very kindly

volunteered for us to observe them delivering their Form Numeracy

as part of the Numeracy Ambassador role which was a delight to

watch – it was a brilliant day! The assessor, Dave Carden,

highlighted the contributions of the Numeracy

Ambassadors, parents and the staff to be a

very important strength of the promotion

of Numeracy within school as well as

the cross curricular opportunities to

develop Numeracy for life. We are

extremely proud to achieve this

distinguished award and look

forward to receiving our award

at the Museum of Liverpool in

June 2018.

Miss H Duggan,Headteacher

With Easter approaching and reflecting upon what was a short but busy and exciting term, you will see that yet again our students have impressed us with many successes and achievements this term. We have so much to celebrate across the school, from the successes of our performing arts department, the excitement of robotics in design technology and the recognition of our numeracy provision through the award of the Gold Numeracy Quality mark.

Naturally now my thoughts have turned towards our

Headteacher’s Messagecurrent Year 11 & 13 students who, as exam time is fast approaching, are studying hard to be the best they can be and to reap the rewards of all their hard work.I hope you enjoy reading about the rich variety opportunities that life at Archbishop Blanch brings and I am sure you will be impressed by all of our young people’s achievements. Finally I wish you all a holy and peaceful Easter holiday.

On the 16th March 2018, Archbishop Blanch School was assessed

by the Liverpool Learning Partnership and awarded GOLD in the

Liverpool Counts Quality Mark for Numeracy. In order to achieve

this prestigious award, we had to meet high standards in six key

themes including leadership, development and promotion. A

huge part of the award was linked with Numeracy events which

have been very well supported by staff and students throughout

the whole school. Number Day was a huge success in raising the

profile of Numeracy as well as money for the NSPCC. All staff have

played a vital role in the promotion of school wide opportunities

for Numeracy by building Numeracy into lessons, classroom

and corridor displays and taking part in the National

Numeracy Challenge. Thank you, also, to the

parents that have also contributed to the

achievement of the award by involving

themselves with the National

Numeracy Challenge and Parent

Evening Numeracy Challenges.

Numeracy Ambassadors have

made huge progress in the

promotion of Numeracy across

the whole school, in form time

and all subjects as well as

Liverpool Counts Quality Mark for

NUMERACY - GOLD

Yr 7 Design Technology ‘Race for the Line’ CompetitionOn Wednesday, 7 March all year seven Design Technology students took part in an event called ‘Race for the Line’. The exciting event involved rocket powered car races. Students worked in groups to design and manufacture a range of fantastic concepts that Mark Robinson from the learning partnership helped the Design Technology Department test throughout the day. Congratulations to all the winners!

Year 10 Performing Arts students from Archbishop Blanch win the Best Overall Performance Award at the end of the three day NOW Festival 2018!

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After winning the best performance of the night on Thursday, 1st February 2018, our class of 17 Year 10 Performing Arts students went on to win the Best Overall Performance, as well as the Best Supporting Session Plan during the final awards ceremony on Friday, 2nd February. A large number of primary, secondary, vocational and extra-curricular schools took part in the festival which aims to raise awareness of mental health in young people and share the message that ‘mental health is everyone’s business’.

This year the theme of the festival was ‘My Mental Health, My Education’. After a number of inspiring practical workshops at Merseyside Youth Association, our students got to work devising their own piece during their KS4 Performing Arts lessons. The process and outcome has been hugely beneficial towards their studies, helping to support students’ progress in all areas of their L2 Performing Arts course and has certainly brought the class together.

Working at an extremely high and mature level our students created a very poignant and thought provoking piece called ‘My teacher thought I was so I am’. The piece considers how a teacher’s thoughts and perceptions of young people can affect their life, not only throughout their education, but also once they’ve left school. ‘My teacher thought I was so I am’ explores how easily students can be labelled/stereotyped by the education system and how this can subsequently limit and impact them. The piece reflects the possible consequences of this issue on young people’s mental health and ultimately questions how often students simply become what others say/think they are.

‘My teacher thought I was so I am’ uses drama, dance, physical theatre, music, costume, props and projection to portray the serious subject matter which has a positive ending that reminds students and staff that they are not alone.

Three of the cast enjoyed spending time in the Radio City tower talking to Mick Coyle live on air about the importance of recognising mental health and encouraging people to talk more openly about it. Of course, they managed to get in a shout out to the cast and the whole school as well as promoting their performance! After winning the Overall Award at the Now Festival, our students bravely performed in front of our whole school during our Lenten Service as well as for all of our staff during a twilight session. They hope to go on tour around other secondary schools in the near future.

‘MY TEACHER THOUGHT I WAS SO I AM’

“You have the ability to hold me back or make fly”;

“Today I spent being who you wanted me to be”;

“If I taught my students on an individual basis they would only have 2 minutes each per week”;

“You can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree”.

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SestriereSki Trip

44 Pupils and 5 staff set off for Sestriere in Italy on Saturday, 10th February. The students were fantastic throughout the journey and we were extremely pleased to see the snowy mountains ahead of us on the coach. Later that evening we went to get our ski hire and had a wander around the village to get our bearings. The village was picturesque, with twinkling Christmas lights and a lovely feel to it. Each day the pupils got 4 hours of ski lessons, 2 in the morning and 2 after lunch.

The ski instructors were fantastic and the girls improved a great deal during the week. There were different activities at night which ranged from tubing, pizza night, to snow man beetle drive, a fancy dress competition and a werewolf game, hosted by our lovely rep Andy. Unfortunately, the ice skating was a no

go….due to the ice rink melting! We did however benefit from the lovely warm sun during the day, which made the skiing even better.

After the last ski lesson the pupils were presented with the ski levels and a ski badge and that evening we held a presentation evening, awarding various prizes to the girls for things that had occurred over the week.

The girls represented themselves, the school and Liverpool fantastically everyday and I’m sure they’ve developed skills and memories to last a lifetime. A huge thank you must go to the staff who accompanied the trip for their constant hard work over the 8 days.

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At the Celebration of Women’s Research Event at Liverpool John Moore’s University we were able to hear about the experiences of different women within the wide range of research possibilities. They had very inspiring journeys towards their career paths, which motivated us to follow our aspirations, and gave us insight into the different areas of research opportunities.

The women showed a lot of passion for what they do which made us proud to be a part of the society where women have the ability to achieve such great success. It was an honour to hear Dame Lorna Muirhead (Former President of the Royal College of Midwives and Lord-Lieutenant of Merseyside) talk about how she moved from the limitations of women when she was younger and achieved her dreams persisting through the challenges she had to face.

Women in Research

On Thursday 1st March, the world celebrated a love of reading. A wonderful celebration of reading was had by all at Archbishop Blanch: from our wonderful staff inspiring pupils by dressing up as characters from a novel, to our Drop Everything and Read session! It was brilliant to see pupils taking part in the book and character hunt. We can’t wait for next year.

The Fairtrade mission is to connect disadvantaged producers and consumers, promote fairer trading conditions and empower producers to combat poverty, strengthen their position and take more control over their lives.

During Fairtrade Fortnight our year 10 students

along with members of the Geography

department raised £123 by selling Fairtrade

products and gifts over

lunch and break times.

We are extremely proud

of the awareness drawn

to Fairtrade and the

impact it will have on

the lives of the farmers

and their families in

developing countries.

ModernForeignLanguagesSpelling BeeModern Foreign Languages Spelling Bee Competitions for Year 7 and Year 8This term the Modern Foreign Languages Department ran two very successful Spelling Bee competitions with our Year 7 Spanish and Year 8 French and Spanish classes. Students were able to show off their literacy skills during both the class elimination rounds and during the finals for the respective year groups. During the tense finals, all finalists showed excellent spelling skills and really did their best to spell as many words as possible in the time given. In Year 7 we even had to go to a “spell-off” extra round to decide our champion! Our Spelling Bee champion for Spanish in Year 7 was Milly, for Year 8 French it was Niamh and for Spanish it was Rhein. Congratulation to our winners and well done to all our finalists. The Modern Foreign Languages Department recognises the importance of good literacy skills and we show our classes why literacy matters in everyday learning in order to support their studies in Spanish and French. Let’s see who will be crowned Spelling Bee champions in the next event during the Summer Term!

All pupils at Archbishop Blanch took part in Number Day 2018 on Friday 2nd February 2018. Pupils were given Numeracy activities to complete in all lessons and took part in the Staff Number Hunt where they went searching for answers to clues that all school staff had the answers to. The questions all had numbers as answers and were from a variety of curriculum subjects as well as numbers they use in real life all the time. The form with the most correct entries was 9V who enjoyed a form breakfast alongside their form tutor, Mr Perry. As part of Number Day 2018, we wanted to raise as much money as possible for the NSPCC. Pupils from all year groups entered into the ‘ABS Fiver Challenge’. Each group was given a £5 note and they could spend it however they wanted in order to make the most money. Two year 7 groups were very successful in their task to do this; one group running a maths quiz with sweets as prizes and the other estimating the number of sweets in the jar. The winner of the jar of sweets with the estimated correct answer of 148 sweets was Allyson in Year 7! Well done!

Next to take on the challenge was Year 9 who created an Egg Roulette Teacher Quiz with a number theme. Six willing teachers answered a question- if they got it correct, they could choose someone else to be egged and if they got it wrong, they faced their own fate. Well done to Mr Boylan who also had to face the Silver Egg question after Chanti in Year 7 won the raffle to egg a teacher of choice!

The Year 10 group organised a Teacher Dance Off in which willing teachers followed a sequence of moves on the screen to chosen songs such as ‘Proud Mary’, ‘Footloose’ and ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’. Well done to the winners Mr O’Doherty, Mr McLaren, Miss Walker, Mrs Nadiem and Miss Cummins who won a tray of Lucy’s chocolate brownies! Finally, a group of Year 11s created their very own photo booth with some exciting props available for use. Students could also pick a song to be played at lunch time, a very popular activity. The pupils involved in running the activities did a fantastic job, deciding how to spend their money and creating activities to make as much profit as possible. As one big team, the pupils counted and verified the money they’d collected over the week and I am proud to say that they raised £351.75 for the NSPCC. A fantastic achievement and thank you to all pupils and staff involved! As well as raising money, they also raised the profile of Numeracy in our school, across all curriculum areas and in everyday life which is a big step towards our goal of achieving the Liverpool Counts Quality Mark in Numeracy.

Friday 2nd February

On Saturday the 3rd of March Evie Jones, Evie Murphy and Olivia Langley from Year 12 took part in the Merseyside Young Analyst competition in Liverpool University central teaching laboratories on behalf of the Royal Society of Chemistry. They thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to use university standard chemical equipment such as an U.V. spectrophotometer and an Infra-Red Mass Spectrometer which are opportunities that are not offered in school. Their A-Level knowledge of Chemistry was able to guide them throughout the day, which was both challenging and informative.

Many of the experiments carried out were standard A level practical such as making up a solution and carrying out a titration. However many were new to them and involved skills they had not yet learnt but were able to develop, such as thin layer chromatography.

The experience allowed them to see what life as a chemistry degree student would be if pursued as a course in the future.

Unfortunately, we did not win the competition however the day was very exciting and it definitely opened their eyes to how chemistry is embedded in our everyday lives, and how it is strongly influencing the future world we live in. It has greatly supported the students in their Chemistry A-Level course and it will support them when taking their exams and applying for university.

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On Wednesday, 7 March we were delighted to welcome Dr Sylvia Likambi to talk to our students in preparation for International Women’s Day.

Dr Likambi delivered a powerful message of empowerment and positivity.

Students were hugely motivated by her inspirational delivery and core conviction that each individual is unique and endowed with great potential to impact the world, regardless of background and circumstances.

UKMT Team ChallengeOn Tuesday 13th March, four pupils from Archbishop Blanch took part in the UK Maths Trust Team Challenge for the North West against 23 other teams at St Edwards College, accompanied by Mrs McKeown. They were chosen after their regular attendance at Maths Club and their fantastic problem

solving skills. They worked extremely well as a team and were an excellent representation of our school. Well done to Kathryn Lea-Wilson, Sara Al-Udeini, Anya Prior and Lizzie MacFarlane!

Young Analyst

Careers &Apprenticeship

FairsOn Thursday 1st February we

welcomed 30+ Employers,

Universities, apprenticeship

providers into school to

our Annual Careers Fair.

The students have made

the most of this fantastic

opportunity to find out what

is available to them and

what exciting roads they

may travel down as their

education continues.

We would like to extend a huge thanks to all the industries which have

given their valuable time to school.

HE+ProgrammeIt was a fantastic evening at Edge Hill as part of the HE+ programme run by Cambridge University. Our students had the opportunity to hone the skills required for success at University and the world of work through the nerve racking experience of delivering in-depth research presentations to a professional

audience. Congratulations to Eve Mailey, Georgia Drohan, Emily Costello, Anna Martindell, Ellie Mae O’Neill, Olivia Langley and Lauren Wilson for completing your presentations. They are now ready for the exciting Cambridge trip, where they will get to experience a few days in the life of a Cambridge student.

School AmbassadorsBreakfast At the end of the winter term

our school ambassadors hosted a gathering of people from the business community who have supported our school during the last year. They were treated to a delicious breakfast, Christmas quiz and prime seats and refreshments for the Talent Show.

School Ambassadors wanted to thank all those who have given their time and expertise in helping students learn more about the world of work.

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C of E High School80 Earle Road Liverpool L7 6HQ

Telephone 0151 233 7373

Dates for your diary...Thursday 26 April (3pm-6pm) – Year 7 Parents Evening

Thursday 3 May (3pm-6pm) – Year 10 Parents Evening

Monday 28th May – Friday 1st June – Half Term

Wednesday 27th June (4pm-6.30pm) – Open Evening 2019 Admissions

Friday 20th July – Students finish for Summer

Thursday 16th August – A Level Results Day

Thursday 23rd August – GCSE Results Day

Future Footballing Star

Duke ofEdinburghTraining Day

On Saturday, 3rd February we hosted a training day for 50 of our Duke of Edinburgh’s Silver Award participants from Years 11 and Year 13 to help prepare them for their upcoming expeditions. Throughout the day the girls learned new skills including navigation with a map and compass, first-aid, outdoor cookery and how to pack a rucksack. Having been suitably prepared, the girls are now looking forward to the real thing when they will travel to Clitheroe and the Lake District during the Summer term for their practice and qualifying expeditions. Fingers crossed for favourable weather conditions!

This year, we celebrated World Maths Day by taking part in the worldwide Mathletics competition. All classes in Year 7-10 logged on to join in on the Maths games that saw pupils go head to head live against pupils from all over the world. There were some fantastic battles and at one point during the competition, Archbishop Blanch were top of the leader board of all schools in the world – a fantastic achievement! Winners from each class are posted on the Numeracy Noticeboard but the pupil with the highest number of points was Thihalya Ravichandran from 7.2 –well done!

We are hugely proud of Year 10 student Evie Smith who has recently been selected for the England U15 Football fixture in Schaffhausen, Switzerland 12th - 16 Feb. Evie said the whole

experience was fantastic and is happy to say England won both of their games!Well done, Evie.