PICTURE GALLERY: Cross and Passion Prize Day

Reverend Fathers, Sisters, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, you are all very welcome to this evening's distribution of prizes in Cross and Passion College.

To our Guest Speaker, Ray Carroll, I want to extend a very warm welcome and I hope that you enjoy meeting the young people and their parents. Our entire school community is represented here this evening, pupils, past pupils, parents, governors, teaching and support staff. As the ceremony proceeds this evening, I hope that you will learn more about us and about what makes this such a unique school.

I know that many of you are going off to college this week – it very good of you to make time to be here. Can I extend a special welcome to the staff and pupils who are new to school - to Miss Mullin, Miss Houston, Mrs Kearney and take this opportunity to express our best wishes to Miss Rita Mc Ginnity, Home Economics Teacher who left this year after 29 years of service to the school. Miss Mc Ginnity in her role as a class teacher, form teacher, Year Head and Head of Careers, showed great dedication, care and concern for all of the young people in her care. Mrs Palmer who taught in the Music department also left us to go to Banbridge in Co. Down. Mrs Palmer's particular interest and strengths lay in the development of Choral Music in the school. She did tremendous work with school's choirs, preparing them for UTV Choir of the Year, school liturgies and concerts. Mrs Palmer made a major contribution to the musical life of our school and indeed to the wider community in Ballycastle. We will miss them both in Cross and Passion, and wish them every happiness in the future.

Father Henry, our former Parish Priest has left us also to go to County Down. Father Henry was also a dedicated and enthusiastic member of our Board of Governors. We wish him well in his new parish in Crossgar.

Speaking of Governors. Last year saw the ending of the term of office of one set of Governors and the formation of a new Board which will be formally constituted to include all new member in the next week or two. Thank you to all who served – their commitment to and interest in the young people in the school community was outstanding – they were an absolute pleasure to work with.

Welcome to our new Governors who are here with us this evening.

I cannot let this occasion pass without paying tribute to Mary O Hara, our former Parent Governor who died last Christmas. Mary represented the parents of this school with great enthusiasm. She was an extremely warm, caring lady with a sharp sense of wit and good fun. More importantly she has great sense of judgement, taking a common sense, practical approach to the issues and challenges facing governors during her term of office. Mary is always in our hearts and her family in our prayers.

Prize Giving is an opportunity for us to celebrate the giftedness and endeavour of the young people of this area.

The mission statement and core values of our school focus on learning, developing special talents and abilities, rising to the challenge of always giving one's best, reaching out with compassion and a sense of justice to others and contributing to the community life of the school. The pupils who are being recognised tonight truly reflect all that is good in this school. We are recognising young people who in different ways made this school a good place to be during the last school year.

A quote from Dan Zadra on gifts and talents.

'The purpose of life is to discover your gifts – the meaning of life is to give it away' This quote closely reflects the ethos of our school.

Academic Success

As an all ability school, we define academic success or academic excellence in terms of individual young people achieving their personal best, and, for each young person, that is different. I am delighted to share with you this evening the fact that in the past academic year, more young people than ever did just that. Pupils from across all of the learning pathways in our school have demonstrated this year that they have risen to the challenge of GCSE, have responded positively to the learning opportunities we offer, and have achieved, and in many cases, exceeded their personal goals.

We offer two broad curriculum pathways – straight academic and a combined academic / vocational pathway. Young people in both pathways have achieved outstanding success and will receive formal recognition of this during our ceremony this evening. Cross and Passion College pupils continue to be shining examples of what is possible in an all ability school which welcomes, nurtures and values young people from all backgrounds and abilities. There is clear evidence that with hard work, good teaching and support for young peoples' well being, very able students can and do achieve the gold standard, while at the same time, the high expectations we set for all young people encourage them to achieve their personal best.

Excellence in Cross and Passion is about young people, in consultation with their teachers, setting challenging personal goals for progress and achievement and striving to achieve or indeed exceed those.

Examination achievement for all young people in the school continues to be very pleasing. 72% of the pupils achieved 5 or more GCSE Grades A* to C and at Post 16, we had 60 students entered for A Level, 86% of them achieved at least 2 of the top grades A to C. With the exception of a few who are having a gap year, almost all of them have gained places in either their first or second choice of courses at UNI.

We had 3 students who had three grade A's and a further five who had 2 A's and 1 Grade B. You will meet them all at a later stage in the programme. Four of our students achieved the new* Grade at A level, with Justin Mc Henry and Kerry Smyth achieving two of these each.

At Key Stage 3 it was also a record year with many young people achieving or exceeding their own personal goals and targets. A record 80% of pupils achieved Level 5 or above in KS3 English and Mathematics.

I want to congratulate all of the young people, their parents, the teachers and the support staff whose combined efforts brought such outstanding success to Cross and Passion this year.

At this point I want to express my gratitude to our educational partners. A recent development in Education in Northern Ireland, which I believe has brought great benefits to young people, has been the requirement for all post primary schools in Northern Ireland to work in partnership with each other to provide young people, especially those age 14-19 with a much greater breadth of educational opportunity.

This school is an active and enthusiastic member of the Coleraine Area learning Partnership – a partnership in which all eleven post primary schools in the area, from Portstewart, to Garvagh, Bushmills, Coleraine itself and Ballycastle actively plan together to ensure that all of our young people, irrespective of which school they attend have access to a wide curriculum which will enable them to engage positively in school and achieve success. Some very interesting developments in partnership have included; steps to develop 'online learning' opportunities, careers education and guidance, joint staff development with a focus on raising achievement. Young people involved in learning languages in small class groups at A Level are involved in a programme this year which will give them an opportunity to learn together, using online materials and videoconferencing to support the activities. Pupils studying Music at GCSE have also had joint workshops, indeed, the partnership is holding a major musical event involving all schools in the partnership in the University of Ulster in May of this year.

In particular want to express our deep gratitude and pay tribute to the work of our colleagues in Ballycastle High School, the school with whom we work most closely.

As you know, our two schools collaborate to offer a full programme of 23 A Level courses to young people in the North Antrim area. In particular this year I want to pay tribute to the work of Mr Bill Harpur, who last year retired as Principal of Ballycastle High School. Mr Harpur was a very strong advocate and supporter of the collaboration between our two schools. I had the privilege of working with him as Principal for eleven years during which time he made an outstanding professional and personal contribution to enhancing the school experience for young people from both of our schools.

Can I take this opportunity to wish him every happiness and fulfilment in his retirement. I also want to welcome Mr Ian Williamson as the new Principal of Ballycastle High School and wish him very success in his new role. Mr Williamson has been deputy head in BHS for the last two years and we have come to know him well in this role.

The collaboration between our two schools has taken another step forward this year. Following a successful joint application to the Sharing Education Programme, funded jointly by the Atlantic Philanthropists and the International Fund for Ireland, we have planned an extension of the school to school collaboration into Key Stage 4.

This year, with the support of this funding up to seventy young people from each of our schools are sharing classes in one of their GCSE subjects. By collaborating and making good use of our resources we have been able to expand the choice of subjects available to the pupils. This year they have been able to choose from a range of B Tec First Certificates including Sport, Hospitality, Digital Media, ICT, Countryside and Environment. We are also now in a position, with the use of the additional funding to provide opportunities for joint choral and orchestra work, provide instruments and tuition in Brass and Percussion, a joint year 8 rugby team as well as a joint sixth form student council.

As a result of this commitment from both schools and the support of the Philanthropists, the young people of this area have truly unique opportunities to truly engage with each other and build a very bright 'shared future' for the whole community in North Antrim.

Another partnership which has particular significance for young people in North Antrim is the links with NRC. I also want to express our deep gratitude to the staff of the Media, Construction and Engineering departments in NRC and to Mr Tom Heaney in particular for their work with our students. The results for the young people were outstanding.

Continuing on the theme of partnership I am delighted that amongst our guests this evening, we have Principals and representatives of our local Primary Schools and I want to pay tribute to them this evening. The success of these young people did not begin in Cross and Passion – we have built on the very solid foundations that have been laid in primary school – on the good work of your teachers and all associated with your school.

I am delighted to report on a very exciting and innovative development which builds further on the benefits of partnership. Traditionally, links with Primary Schools have been based on activities which focused on both marketing the Post Primary School and on 'fun' activities which simply introduced Primary 7 children to some staff and to the school building. In a way, it helped to lessen some of the fears which children had about moving school. Whilst that is very important, Cross and Passion has, as part of its' Specialist Schools' programme worked to build very meaningful learning links with our Feeder Schools. Starting with the P.E. staff working with Primary Colleagues, we have devised a series of activities involving both teachers and children which have are designed to raise the awareness of teachers in CPC about the types of learning which takes place in KS 2. This was extended to Mathematics last year and will be extended further to include English / Literacy this year. Through joint planning meetings, pupils in Primary 6 and 7 will be involved in a range of transition learning experiences, teachers in Cross and Passion will be more aware of what they have learned, how they have learned, how they have been assessed, in Primary School. We have much to learn from the professional expertise in our local primary schools. Equally, teachers in primary schools will be more aware of the types of learning experiences their pupils will have in Cross and Passion and will be in a better position to prepare children for the transition.

This work is likely to have a great impact – we are in a unique position because almost all of the children in our catchment come to Cross and Passion.

This professional dialogue, a transition experience which builds confidence, make the transition seamless, allows young people to move on immediately .

At the same time as we were building local partnerships last year, we also began our Connecting Classrooms Programme. This programme is funded and supported by the British Council. Again working in partnership with other schools in the Moyle area, we have set up a programme with a cluster of schools in Batticaloa in Sri Lanka. The purpose of this work is to allow our young people to build connection to classrooms in the schools in Sri Lanka. The project will involved mostly online and postal communication for the pupils. The staff involved in the planning of the programme will visit Sri Lanka in the second term of this year.

Last November we hosted a visit from the Sri Lankan partners to the Moyle area. It was a wonderful experience and one on which we hope to build in the future.

The extra curricular life of the school

As you know we are into our third year as Specialist School for Sport and the 2009-2010 year turned out to be pretty special for the whole school community.

After retaining the Ulster Colleges Hurling Title at U 18, Senior level against the odds and against a very formidable opposition in St Mary's Grammar School Belfast, this team, ably led by their Captain Matthew Donnelly and their coaches Mr Cassidy and Mr Kearney, to All Ireland victory against a very formidable opposition when they defeated Dungarvan CBS in the semi final and St Raphael's Galway in the final. The boys showed a level of skill, work rate, courage and self belief throughout the entire campaign which was second to none, and I am very conscious that this will be a highlight of their school career which will be talked about for many years to come. The strength of the friendships and camaderie built throughout the campaign will always mean a lot to each one of them. Boys I want to thank you for representing our school with such pride and loyalty. I know that your campaign to retain the title has just begun – so Good Luck.

Congratulations also to the 3 Hurling All Stars, Matthew Donnelly, Shane Jennings and Conor Laverty.

The U 13 1/2 team won the Mc Namee Cup in a tremendous display of hur;ing against St Mary's in Belfast. This competition also begins soon and I see that the boys are already in training for this campaign.

In Soccer, the U 14 team won the Mc Kinney Cup, defeating Ballymoney High School 4-1 in the final.

The girls also experienced outstanding success with the Senior Camogie team being runners up in the Ulster College's competition where they were defeated by St Pat's Maghera. The netball won the Minor and Junior Coleraine District A league titles with the Intermediate and Senior teams being runners up in their competitions.

Other school teams represented the school in a variety of competitions in sports ranging from the Hurling, Camogie, Soccer, Netball, Golf and Trampolining. Well done to all and many thanks and congratulations to the staff who were involved in the coaching and managing of these teams.

The musicians in the school also presented a musical evening in aid of School Funds last Spring which was very well supported by the local community. In addition to this, 16 young people were successful in Associated Board Royal School of Music Exams in either musical instruments or singing.

I also want to thank the staff of the school who have worked closely with Father Barney our Chaplain and Father Henry, to provide numerous opportunities to promote faith development facilitate and lead the community worship of the school. Thank you for your support in our programme of school assemblies, celebrations of the Eucharist and Sacrament of Reconciliation, and prayer services throughout the year.

Living out the core values of the school can be a challenge, and without a doubt the young people of North Antrim and their families rose to the challenge of 'reaching out with compassion in the pursuit of justice' this year. Several campaigns to raise awareness and raise funds to support social justice projects took place, with the students and their families raising a total of 13,644 for Children in Crossfire, Various Cancer Charities Lourdes Pilgrimages, Friends of Africa, Trocaire and Concern. Thank you to all of you.

Links with business community have always been important and this year we have continued to extent this aspect of school life. I want to express my deep gratitude to them through the local Chamber of Commerce for their continuing support for the school. Time after time, despite difficult economic times, the local businesses respond very positively to our request for additional funding to support the work we do.

I have highlighted just some of the successes and special achievements this year – the booklet you all have notes other special achievements and as we proceed with this evenings presentations you will be able to put faces to the picture I have painted.

What has made this year such a success?

the high level of skill and expertise – their love of their subject – their generosity of spirit – their willingness to embrace change and their drive and determination, their sense of humour and their inspiration.

Their care and concern and commitment to get the very best out of everyone – to give every child the opportunity to achieve their personal best.

The parental support which comes in many forms, expressions of thanks and appreciation, willingness to help their children and get involved, and indeed financial support.

The support of the community. This is a school serving its' whole community The school benefits from the sense of trust, confidence and pride which the community has in us – in turn as a school community we need to engender in our young people a sense of belonging, responsibility and pride in their local community.

The contribution of our pupils to the life of the school

in lessons

in extra curricular – participation – representing the public face of the school

in the way they relate to one another and to the staff – their friendliness, sense of humour, (timing), generosity, willingness to give things a go

the kindness you show to each other, helpfulness in various aspect of school life

Boys and girls, it is privilege to work with you and for all of you. The way in which all of you have responded to our efforts this year is what inspires all of us adults to keep doing what we do.

Another Quote from Dan Zadra

''There has never been another you. With no effort on your part you were born to be something very special and set apart. What you are going to do in appreciation of that gift is a decision only you can make'