St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, Jordanhill
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St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School is a Catholic secondary school in Jordanhill, which is located in Glasgow. The current headteacher is Andrew McSorley, who took over at the beginning of the 2006 - 2007 session. He left his old head post in Edinburgh's 'Saint Thomas D'Aquin' school, where he had been for two years, to take the job. The previous headteacher was Thomas Bradshaw who headed the school for 13 years.
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[edit] Rebuilding
The school was built in the 1950's, and at the end of the 2001/2002 school year the original building was demolished to make way for a new state of the art facilty. During the rebuilding works staff and pupils were temporarily based at Woodside School, close to the city's Anderston area. the new facility consists of the Abbey Building and the Mitre Building, and was built as part of Glasgow's PPP school building programme. The new school was officially opened on 3rd December 2004 by the then Education convener of Glasgow City Council, Stephen Purcell, a former pupil. The new school is popular being one of the largest Roman Catholic schools in the city and is already close to carrying its capacity of 950 pupils.
[edit] Opportunities for Students
At St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School a wide range of activities are available to students in the academic, vocational, sporting and artistic areas. Activities include participating at events at local colleges and universities for example S2 Science and Engineering Labs at the University of the West of Scotland and a Climate Change Debates at Strathclyde University. The school works with Glasgow City Council and Careers Scotland on many programmes including the prestigious Culinary Excellence scheme which involved a group of students working with top Chef Brian Maule and serving a meal at the exclusive Chardon D'Or restaurant.
The school has produced a number of very successful dramatic and musical shows. Romeo & Juliet received national media attention as it brought to life issues relating to sectarianism. Recently a School Choir has been formed and made an outstanding debut at the 2007 School Awards Ceremony. The Art department at St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School is very active with pupils regularly having work published or displayed. A recent project involved pupils working with Ceramicists on designs based on the abolition of slavery. The work will soon be displayed in the Arches in Glasgow.
In support of the Christian ethos of the school activities such as charitable giving and prayer retreats are all important. The school has a Chaplain, Fr Joe Lappin and Mass for students and staff is offered regularly during the week as well as on Holy Days of Obligation.
[edit] Recent Achievements
[edit] Enterprise
The school has won the Glasgow Schools Enterprise competition 3 times in the last 4 years. Mr Innes Of the Business Studies department is largely responsible for this success.
[edit] Debating
The school's debating team have had formidable success in the past few years. They won the "Glasgow Law Society Juniors Debating Competition" in 2005. They failed to qualify for the 2006 Final and came third in the 2007 Final. They have also very recently had success nationally. They took part in the "ESU Scotland Juniors Tournament" in 2007 and finished second out of a total of 113 teams. The speakers were Dominic Aitken and Paul Cruikshank. The school sees this as a great achievement. Paul Muldoon of the English department is responsible for the debating team.
[edit] Orienteering
The school has a long history of success in orienteering. Currently there are pupils representing Scotland at Junior and Senior levels in both boys and girls teams. Terry O'Brien is partly responsible for this
[edit] Parental Involvement
The parents of pupils at St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School are all automatically members of the Parent Forum. A smaller group of parents are also elected to serve on the Parent Council which meets regularly in the school. The Parent Council has parent members representing all years at the school as well as members from the local community, the Catholic Church, teaching staff and other staff at the school, the headteacher also attends meetings. The current Chair of the Parent Council, Ciaran Ewins can be contacted through the school office. The Parent Council aims to promote partnership between the school, its pupils, all parents and the Catholic Church. Parents are involved in school concerts and charity work such as the Back Pack Appeal [1] for Scottish International Relief and collections for SCIAF [2].
