Cardinal Newman Catholic School, Luton

Cardinal Newman Catholic School

Motto	Ex Umbris In Vertitatem
Established	September 1969
Type	Academy
Religion	Roman Catholic
Headteacher	Joe Richardson
Chaplain	Jane Porter
Location	Warden Hill Road Luton Bedfordshire LU2 7AE England
Local authority	Luton
DfE number	821/4606
DfE URN	142310 Tables
Ofsted	Reports Pre-academy reports
Staff	100+ staff, 30+ support
Students	c.1500
Gender	mixed
Ages	11–18
Houses	8 High school houses: Named after notable cardinals of Westminster. These are the following: Wiseman (W), Hinsley (H), Manning (M), Vaughan (V), Godfrey (G), Griffin (Gr), Heenan (He) and Hume (Hu). 8 sixth form houses
Colours
Website	www.cardinalnewmanschool.net

Cardinal Newman Catholic School, also referred to as Newman or CNS is a Roman Catholic Secondary school and sixth form catering for pupils aged between 11 and 18, located in the Warden Hills area of Bedfordshire, England. Opened in September 1969, the current Head is Mr Joe Richardson, with the deputy heads being Mrs Fleur Musonda & Mrs Lucy Whelan. There are currently over 1400 students on roll. The school is named after the famous cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, Blessed John Henry Newman.

Being the only Roman Catholic secondary school in the whole of Luton, the school is constantly oversubscribed with over 400 applicants yearly, yet with only 242 places to offer. Cardinal Newman is also currently the only secondary school in Luton to have its own sixth form, and this has over 150 places to offer students from both inside and outside the school.

School life and Houses

The school was in fact opened in September 1968 under the headship of Mr William Davies. When the school opened there were only two year groups, the first year as it was called then which had five classes and a second year consisting of pupils who had already completed their first year in other non-catholic senior schools in the town. Year two had three classes. It was not until September 1971 that the school had year groups from one to five. The Sixth Form was opened in September 1974. In the early years there were three houses identified by a colour rather than by a name or title.

Main school

School Logo

Cardinal and each are split into eight tutor groups or Houses, which are named after notable cardinals of Westminster. These are Wiseman (W), Hinsley (H), Manning (M), Vaughan (V), Godfrey (G), Griffin (Gr), Heenan (He) and Hume (Hu). A new form was created in 2007 called John Paul (JP) for the year 8's at that time. When the school was first founded there were only six tutor groups. Since the opening two more tutor groups have been added (Heenan and Hume). In Year 8, (2006-2011) a ninth tutor has been added. This ninth tutor is only in that year and no other years have it. It is called John Paul after Pope John Paul II.

Each tutor group has a tutor who looks after affairs in the tutor group, and each year has a Head Of Year (HOY) and a member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) as a link from pupils to staff. The HOY deals with year group issues including inter-tutor competitions and activities as well as behaviour and rewards.

Every tutor group has a captain, a vice captain and boys and girls sports captains. These responsible students help the tutor organise tutor group activities or sports teams for competitions and so on. In Year 11, pupils are given the opportunity to become prefects, giving them experience of responsibility and leadership skills. The prefects are managed by the HOY and the Head Boys and Girls. Senior prefects are prefects that have shown great responsibility and who help out a lot with yeargroup or activities.

For lessons, the tutor groups are split in half by House, with W, H, M and V on one side and menzel G, Gr, He and Hu on the other. This determines the timetable for the tutorgroup, with one half doing lessons together and the other with their half. W, H, M, V are the 'German' Half while G, Gr, He, and Hu are the 'French' half. This means that one side take German as a Modern Foreign Language, while the other takes French. The main lessons shared by each half are English, Maths, PE, DT, French and German. The only lesson that isn't affected by this grouping is Science. All other lessons are taught in separate tutor groups. In Year 10 and 11, the House groupings change for all subjects with option groups for GCSE determining the mix of students in a lesson. The option groups then in turn affect the lesson timetable, with the House groupings only affecting registrations and PE groups.

Sixth form

File:Newman sixth Symbol.jpg

Sixth Form Logo

In the sixth form, there is the lower and upper sixth (Year 12 and 13 respectively) and these years are again split up into Tutor Groups, which are named after notable saints including St Patrick, St Jerome, St David, St George, St Cecilia, St Thomas-Aquinas, St Michael and St Catherine. Each tutor group is a mix of members of both the upper and lower sixth so as to promote communication and friendship between both yeargroups.

The Head of Sixth Form basically runs what happens within the sixth form, but the sixth formers have their own committee, The Executive, or 'Exec' for short. This committee, in theory, meets with the Head of Sixth Form every week to discuss any problems within the sixth form or any activities coming up or being planned, such as sixth social.

Specialisms and academy status

File:Specialist Science School Symbol.jpg

Specialist Science Symbol

The school has previously acquired Specialist Science Status with Mathematics. This award has given the school funding to build and complete a new sixth form and science block extension, install a new computer and server network across the whole school, install brand new equipment including SMART Boards in many classrooms, purchase new equipment in many departments, especially in math and science and the renovation of certain areas of the school site including the PE block. Despite the specialist schools programme ending, the school continues to offer science and mathematics as specialisms.

Previously a voluntary aided school, in September 2015 Cardinal Newman Catholic School converted to academy status.

OFSTED report

Its last OFSTED report gave the school an excellent feedback, including talking about the 'good quality of the teaching in lessons' and the 'very good management and leadership in the school'. Main areas for improvement included the ICT Provision and the induction process of new students. These areas and others, are currently being addressed and substantially improved with the help of funding and support from the feeder schools and the board of governors.[1]. Cardinal Newman is currently ranked FIRST

for KS3 and GCSE results in Luton.

Motto

The School motto is Ex Umbris In Vertitatem, which means Out of The Darkness and into The light and the School's Mission Statement is "Together towards our Lord, through learning, love and faith with Christ in all we do"

Notable former pupils

There have been several famous people that have attended Cardinal Newman and this includes:

• Cliff McNish, author.
• Kevin Blackwell, Ex Luton Town Football Club Manager.
• Kingsley Black, ex Luton Town Football Club player.
• Gary Doherty has played for Tottenham Hotspur and is currently at Charlton Athletic football club.
• Kevin Foley, currently plays for Wolves Football Club.
• Liam George, footballer.
• Keith Keane, currently plays for Preston North End Football Club.
• Conor Travers, the youngest Countdown champion winning at the age of 14 years studied for his GCSE's and then moved to do his A levels at Luton Sixth Form College.

References

• School profile on BBC News

External links

• Official website