Cardinal Griffin Catholic High School

Cardinal Griffin Catholic High School

Motto	Da Mihi Animas (Latin for Give Me Souls)
Established	1960
Type	Catholic school
Headteacher	Mr Michael Burrowes
Location	Cardinal Way Cannock Staffordshire WS11 4AW England Coordinates: 52°41′49″N 2°02′10″W / 52.697°N 2.036°W / 52.697; -2.036
Local authority	Staffordshire
DfE URN	124468 Tables
Ofsted	Reports
Students	900+
Gender	Mixed
Ages	11–18
Houses	Six (see House System section)
Colours	Black and Red
Publication	The Griffin newsletter
Website	www.cgchs.org.uk

Cardinal Griffin Catholic High School is a Catholic high school in Cannock, Staffordshire, England. Cardinal Griffin is a Specialist Science College.

Management

The school has a leadership team consisting of seven members of staff:

Science and Mathematics

GCSE

While the National Curriculum only requires pupils to complete a course in Core Science, Cardinal Griffin requires most pupils to complete a course in Double Science.

A Level

Facilities

All of the mathematics and science rooms are on the A and B floors (ground floor and first floor) and are all located in one block.

Mathematics

Five large rooms for teaching whole classes. All rooms are fitted with projectors and a computer, and three of the rooms are fitted with interactive whiteboards.
There are currently (as of February 2011), seven full-time mathematics teachers working at Cardinal Griffin.

Science

Seven large laboratories for teaching whole classes. All rooms are fitted with projectors, and a computer.
All rooms have access to the following equipment:

• Laboratory glassware
• Bunsen burners
• Fume cupboard
• Laptops with data logging equipment
• Scientific textbooks

There is also a "prep room" where glassware and other equipment is stored and cleaned, and a locked storage cupboard for chemicals.
There are currently (as of February 2011), nine full-time science teachers working at Cardinal Griffin.

Music

Bands

The school has several bands, including a Swing Band and Irish band named Clanna Gael.^[1] The school organises annual rock concerts with school bands and solo acts performing. The money raised from ticket sales usually goes to a charity chosen prior to the concert.

Facilities

The Music Department has two large main rooms for teaching classes and three practice rooms for one-to-one music tuition.
The department also has several netbooks for the use of GCSE and A Level music students. The netbooks have Sibelius 6, Photoshop Elements and OpenOffice installed. Five desktop computers with Sibelius 6, Microsoft Office 2003, Cubase and Guitar Pro installed are also available for students to use.

Qualifications

The school offers GCSE music and BTEC at GCSE level (offering one and two GCSE qualifications respectively).
At A Level, music is available as a qualification.

Physical Education

Cardinal Griffin has reasonably extensive physical education facilities available to it. These include a sports hall (new floor surface at start of September 2010 term), a gym, two tarmac yards with netball line markings, and a large two level field). The school is also located within 300 yards of Chase Leisure Centre, which allows for regular usage of the facilities there (swimming pool, gym, sports hall, tennis courts in Cannock Park, and Cannock Chase Golf Club where the school regularly does cross country running).

Sports Day

Cardinal Griffin run an annual sports day on the field. Some of the events are listed below:

• Sprint (50 m, 100 m and 200 m)
• Long distance running (1600 m)
• Throwing events (javelin and shot put)
• Jumping events (high jump and long jump)

Inter-house Competitions

The school hosts several competitions for boys and girls between houses throughout the year:

House System

Cardinal Griffin employs a house system for management of pupils and organisation of timetables (up to end of year nine, when GCSE options take precedence over house group when organising timetables). There are six houses in totals, all named after figures in the Catholic Church.

Houses

Tutoring

Each house is split further into six "vertical" tutor groups (forms) and numbered accordingly. The term "vertical" means that there are members from each year group (excluding sixth form) in each form. There are roughly the same amount of people from each year group in each form.

External links

• School's official website

References