Busines Name

The St Thomas More Cluster is made up of the following schools:

· St Thomas More Catholic School
· Corpus Christie Catholic Primary School
· St Philip Neri Roman Catholic Primary School
· St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Blaydon
· St Agnes’ Catholic Primary School
· St Mary’s and St Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School

The Extended Services Co-ordinator for the St Thomas More Cluster is Anne McMillan. Anne is responsible for co-ordinating activities and services throughout each school in the St Thomas More Cluster to ensure that each element of the Extended Services Core Offer is being met within the Cluster. Anne can be contacted for any queries regarding Extended Services in the St Thomas More Cluster. Anne's contact details are:

Anne McMillan
St Thomas More Catholic School
Croftdale Road
Blaydon
NE21 4BQ
(0191) 499 0111
amcmillan@stthomasmore.org.uk

Pupils from year 3 & 4 of the cluster primaries where invited to attend an art investigation day at St Thomas More School on Saturday 30th January.

The main theme of their day was “Abstract Art Mirrors”, where they looked at patterns, shapes and colours that can be found in abstract paintings by artists such as Kandinsky, Miro and Hundertwasse.

Mrs Wood, an art teacher from St Thomas More School, lead the days activities, helped by some 6th form art pupils.
It was a great day and the pupils really enjoyed it, the primary pupils where excited to be in the senior school, and were very impressed with the art work on display. They had lots of questions, and were very enthusiastic about the whole day.

“It’s my show and tell day on Monday at school, so I am going to take my mirror in and tell them about my day, it was fun” St Joseph’s pupil.

15 schools in Gateshead from the Heworth and St Thomas More Clusters have gone Hoop Hop crazy whilst taking part in the Hoop Hop Pilot, where children hoola hoop to hip hop music as a dynamic and innovative physical activity.

Training for teachers, wider school staff, Gateshead's Sports and Leisure coaches and The Play Development Service has been provided and every school involved in the programme has received 36 hoops as well as instructional DVDs and CD.

The innovative programme has been commissioned by Public Health North East and further funding by Gateshead Council through the Extended Services Team and PCT has enabled the programme to reach even more schools and communities.

Hoop Hop, a KidTribe programme, allows children, young people and adults to engage in physical activity in a fun, alternative and accessible way. ContinYou, one of the UK’s leading learning organisations has joined forces with KidTribe to bring this exciting activity to school children in the UK.

Designed to allow for individual, group and mass participation and regularly delivered in the US to groups of 1,500 at a time, Hoop Hop has been successfully delivered to over a million children, young people and adults throughout the US and the UK. Its founder, Kellee McQuinn, is nicknamed “the Pied Piper with a Boom Box” by the LA Times and has been featured on PBS, Discovery Kids, TLC, ABC News, E! and Exercise TV in the US as well as on the BBC and STV in the UK.

Councillor Catherine Donovan, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People in Gateshead said “We welcome the Hoop Hop initiative in Gateshead. I have every confidence it can help address obesity and can make a significant contribution in encouraging children, young people and families to adopt healthier lifestyles, a vital element of Gateshead Council’s and the Gateshead Strategic Partnership’s Vision 2030”.

The Hoop Hop pilot is planned to take place over a three month period in early 2010 and will provide each school/setting and the local authority with the resources, training and support to develop and deliver a sustainable, innovative physical activity programme to engage children, young people and families.

Children and their teachers from the Heworth and St Thomas More Clusters attended two massive Hoophopalooza Extravaganza Events that took place at St Thomas More Catholic School and Gateshead Stadium's new Indoor Running Track. The events were led by Kellee McQuin and children learned how to hoola hoop to their favourite music, with loads of fun moves to go away and practice with their teachers and other students from their own schools. Check out the Photos.

St Mary’s has there very own “Kellee”, Camille and other members of year 6 take out the microphone, and cheer on, there classmates!

“Its one of the best things I have ever done, I have learnt loads of new tricks, its very fun, and I loved Kellee who came in and taught us!” Camille yr 6

“The staff returned from training, aching but energised and enthusiastic to try it out with everyone. Some of the older pupils have been able to showcase their Hoop Hop skills to younger pupils in school with confidence." – Mrs McMillan (Head Teacher)

St Mary and St Thomas Aquinas have put Hoop Hop into their PE timetable, so KS2 are having 2 hours of Hula hooping per week. A Hoop Hop club has been set up for KS1, this takes place on a Thursday after school. Even the school teachers are keen to get involved, and after Easter there is going to be a staff club set up, so Hoop Hop is working its way, right through the school.

An allocation of funding to the St Thomas More Cluster Group was used to develop the varied menu of activities, adult learning and childcare aspects of the extended schools core offer.

Corpus Christie has a range of activities for their pupils. They have also started a breakfast club that provides a healthy breakfast and activities delivered by support assistants.

St Philip Neri are currently developing a breakfast club and after school activities.

St Thomas More have developed study support sessions for their pupils both before and after school, which has improved attainment for many of their students.

St Thomas More have recently carried out consultation with parents and pupils from years 7-10 with a 74% return rate to look at demand for services, so look out for both pupils and parents activities you may have suggested across the St Thomas More Cluster.

St Joseph’s, St Agnes’ and St Mary’s and St Thomas Aquinas have recently joined the St Thomas More Cluster and will be contributing to the cluster activities soon.

Click on the link below to read the St Thomas More Cluster Newsletter:

Download file St Thomas More Cluster Newsletter

The Fashion and Beauty Club at St Thomas More has given students the opportunity to customise their clothes and learning how to apply 'everyday' make-up, as well as high-end fashion looks. The club has had their own fashion show to showcase their individual pieces and their new make-up styles.

"I have learnt how to blend my make-up in properly and apply various shades of eye shadow to create dramatic looks"

The after school Street Dance Club performed an excellent routine at the schools exhibition evening to a hall packed full of parents.

Getting to perform the routine, which the students had choreographed themselves was a brilliant way to end the term.

"I loved performing 'Thriller' and getting to design our own costumes'

"Using talcum powder to look like dust was a really good idea and looked brillian on stage"

This term the St Thomas More Cluster have successfully hosted adult learning courses such as Italian for Beginners, Cake Decoration, Digital Photography and Image Manipulation, Social Dance and Social Dance Advanced.

St Thomas More School attended an enterprise event at the Dryden Centre on the 21st and the 22nd of April. I attend one of these events on the 22nd of April and observed and took part in what was going on.

The children arrived with a very positive attitude and were all raring to go; they were all grouped together into different teams. They were told that they had to become a company in their teams. Each team created a team name, slogan and appointed each person a role in the company.

They then had to design and create an idea that each team came up with they also had to take into account the cost of materials and the cost of making the item. There were many different ideas including State of the art sports drinks, new mobile phones and funky ice skates that make you fly over ice. The creativity from the children was amazing!

Once the children had designed there idea they then had to create it. Once created they had to make a presentation to the other teams in the hall and they were all confident in this.

The whole day went really well and I personally thought that children took a lot of new skills away with them at the end of the day.

Below are a few quotes of some staff there and children who attended.

“'What Do You Make of That?' is an enterprising stimulation aimed at introducing the concept of enterprise to secondary school students. It successfully marries the student’s creativity with communication skills, teamwork and confidence building it also makes enterprise and business fun!"
John McGowan: Gateshead EBLS

"I think that today has been good because we are not stuck in a close room all day and we are learning something about the work place".
John McConnell: Student

"Today has been really good, it was fun and also I was taught how to become a very good businessman. I would definitely do it again. It was so much better than school because I was with all my mates and we could have a laugh whilst learning".
Daniel Heale: Student

Reported by Matthew Ternent, V-Talent Volunteer on behalf of Extended Services

The Thomas More Cluster wants to know what YOU THINK, whether it be what services or activities you would like to see taking place in the cluster, comments on the Hookergate Cluster Web page or any comments in general about the Thomas More Cluster PLEASE TELL US!!!!!!!!

All you have to do to feedback what you want is to go to the homepage and post your comments by leaving your leave your age, school that you attend and area that you live in and of course WHAT YOU THINK!!!!