Merry Christmas

After the splendour of the concert and the excitement of the revue, we come at last to the Carol Service and a chance to reflect quietly on the term, the year past and Christmas itself. From everyone in the Sixth Form at St Mary's a very merry and peaceful Christmas.

Sixth Form Revue

The end of term is almost nigh, which means that it's Sixth Form Revue time again. The Upper 6th served up a series of skits, jokes and video to delight the whole school this afternoon. It's hard to decide whether the RE Department's Vicar of Dibley, the History Department's multi-talented rock star or the Art Department's newest recruit was the highlight of the show. These Upper 6th Formers seemed to think they were all great.

Christmas on the Cam

The rowers indulged in a little festive pain on Saturday when they took part in the Christmas Head on the River Cam. They beat their junior rivals from the Champion of the Thames crew and several other women's novice crews. Surely it must be time now for them to have a rest!

Christmas Concert

Tonight the musicians will be performing at Cambridge University's West Road Concert Hall. It should be a truly superb concert so do come and join us for Christmas music and a whole lot more.

East Anglia Children's Hospice Christmas Party

Every year members of the 6th Form help out at the East Anglia Children's Hospice Christmas Party. It is always a fabulous experience with our students gaining at least as much as they give. The costumes are great too; in fact we're severely tempted to introduce elf costumes as the new school uniform!

Book of the Month: December

If you need something to read this Christmas you could do a lot worse than Carlos Ruiz Zafon's blockbuster of a novel, The Shadow of the Wind. Great characters; great plot; wonderful setting: what better way to deal with the post-Christmas blues?

Row, Row, Row the Boat

Those balmy summer days now seem a very distant memory. It's cold and wet in Cambridge but nothing can deter the rowers! Three crews competed today in the Fairbairn Cup against the cream of the Cambridge Colleges. Amazingly, our crews came 6th, 14th and 45th out of 61 crews. Many congratulations to Mrs Brown, her team of coaches and all the competitors.

Happy New Year

We are very much moving into end of term, end of year mode now. Everyone is very busy - hence the blog silence over the last few days - and looking forward to Christmas. We had our Christmas Fair today, decorations are going up and the nights are drawing in.

However, it is also a time of new starts. The Church started its new year and the season of Advent last Sunday so a happy new year to all our readers.

Artist of the Year

We are absolutely delighted that one of our Lower 6th students has just been announced as the winner of the Young Artist of Thailand 2009 competition by the Royal Over-Seas League Thailand at a special Awards function held at The Sukhothai Bangkok. To read more and to see the winning painting click here.

De Litteris est Disputandum

We were delighted to welcome twelve students of AS Latin from local sixth forms, including our own, to a seminar on one of the texts set for AS Latin this year. The text was In Catilinam 1, Cicero's highly rhetorical speech attacking Catiline on charges of conspiring against the Roman Republic. Each student contibuted to the seminar with a brief presentation on one aspect of the text, which led to some spirited discussion. The Undercroft proved an ideal venue for the event. We hope that this seminar will be the first of many of its kind. Literature needs discussion and the sixth formers impressed their teachers with their capacity to debate the text.

Seeing Shakespeare

A group of English and Drama students went to London yesterday to see the award-winning Lenny Henry playing Othello. The whole production was well worth seeing, as was the T.S. Eliot exhibition they took in at the British Library on the way back. Oh yes, and the Houses of Parliament weren't bad either, though we weren't too sure about what they were doing with Churchill.

Volunteering Opportunities

This is a photo of a former St Mary's Head Girl building a house in India! Lizzie came back to speak to the 6th Form today about volunteering opportunities and about the delights of studying veterinary medicine at university. If you would like to find out more about the volunteering opportunities she spoke about then check out http://www.volmakaibari.org/.

Here are some of the things you might get up to.

Subject Profile: Chemistry

A Lower 6th Chemistry student writes: "Chemistry is famous for being full of experiments which make pretty colours and are all fiery. So far Chemistry AS has not let me down. In just the third class we did a titration and during the open morning we had flame tests which were popular with both the new students who were looking around and with the people doing it, us! Chemistry sounds like bunches of fun, but we also have to study and learn definitions."

Interesting lectures

There are some intersting lectures coming up. On Friday there is a lecture at Fisher House at 5pm about John Fisher's Theology which A Level historians and theologians might find interesting while on 26th November potential medics might find the talk on "Perspectives in ear reconstruction" at Addenbrooke's worth attending.

Visiting Stratford

Some of the 6th Form Theatre Studies students joined the Year 9 trip to Stratford-upon-Avon today to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Twelfth Night today. It was a production well worth seeing. There's no substitute for being there but if you'd like to read an interview with the director click here.

Singaporean Visitors

We were pleased to welcome a class of Singaporean students from Nanyang Girls' High School today. They took part in some Sixth Form lessons and had a chance to see some of our extra-curricular activities in action. We wish them all the best with the rest of their tour of the UK.

University and Careers Advice

The Upper 6th are beginning to receive their university offers but here are some useful websites for the Lower 6th as they begin to mull over where they might want to go and what they might to study. Courses and typical grade requirements can be seen here.  If you want some statistics about universities and useful feedback, click here. For virtual tours of universities, try this one out. For videos of different universities try here.

If you want to investigate specific jobs you might want to look here. Go here if you want a career in the National Health Service, then click on coursefinder. It is vital that you check that the NHS recognises the medical courses offered at various universities: not all of them are recognised. For an online questionnaire to match you with an NHS career click here.

Keep an eye on the blog: there will be more advice coming soon. Happy hunting.

House Debating

This lunchtime saw the launching of the House Debating Competition. The 6th Form house captains have done a great job of organising this competition, which will culminate in a grand final at the end of the year.

Still Lots Going On

The Sixth Form have been involved in a huge range of events already this week. On Monday there was a trip to see Othello, on Tuesday a fashion evening in aid of the Sick Children's Trust, on Wednesday the GSA Girls' Leadership Conference followed by an evening event about writing as a profession, and today ... Today we're all drawing breath.

Remembrance Day

In today's Remembrance Day assembly we focused on the contribution of the Chinese to World War I and, in particular, on this man, 陸征祥, Lou Tseng-Tsiang, who was the only man to refuse to sign the Treaty of Versailles. As leader of the Chinese delegation he took the courageous step of refusing to accept the loss of Shandong province. To learn more click here or here.

The truly remarkable thing about Lou was that he went from being Prime Minister of China to becoming a Catholic priest and monk in Belgium, where he suffered under the Nazis during World War II. The pictures above, in other words, are of the same man. His story may have been unique but he can help remind us of all those many non-combatants whose lives, deaths and work are sometimes forgotten when we recall past conflicts.

Girls' Leadership Development Conference

Tomorrow is going to be a big day. St Mary's has organised a large-scale Girls' Leadership Development Conference at West Road Concert Hall, University of Cambridge. Over twenty schools and 450 students will be taking part in the panel discussions, interactive debates and workshops.

Speakers will include Dr. Mary Archer, Chairman of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Professor Dame Julia Higgins, formerly Principal of the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial College, London; and Suzanne Doyle-Morris, who will be launching her new book, ‘Beyond the Boys’ Club: Strategies for Achieving Career Success as a Woman Working in a Male Dominated Field’. The day will end with a closing speech from Girls' Schools Association President Jill Berry.

The theme of the event will be ‘transition’, inspiring and supporting girls as they progress from GCSEs to A-Levels and into the sixth-form world, a time when making life-changing decisions such as choosing universities, degrees and careers becomes top of the agenda. It should be pretty impressive.

Book of the Month: November

What more could we ask for in life than to find happiness? The 6th Form Book of the Month helps us along the way.

This isn't your usual self-help book though: the author, Abbot Christopher Jamison, offers Monastic Steps for a Fulfilling Life. We might not naturally turns to monks for ideas about happiness but, on the evidence of this book, perhaps we should. It's in the library: give it a try.

Has Science Replaced God?

'Has Science replaced God' was the title of the talk given last week to the school's scholars by Fr Stephen Dingley. Fr Stephen has a PhD in Radio Astronomy from Cambridge University and a degree in Fundamental Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University so he's pretty well qualified to answer the question.

If you are interested in finding out more, you can download some pamphlets he has written here.

There's a lot going on

There is a lot going on at the moment. We'll try to keep up. The first event this week was a concert in Queens' College Chapel last night with the school's chamber choir joining the Fairhaven Singers. A fantastic way to start the week in a fantastic setting.

What's coming up?

There are a number of exciting events coming up this term and next. We'll keep you posted about what's on offer. In January next year, for example, the 6th Form will be sending a delegation to the Netherlands for a Model United Nations Conference. We will be spending a few days near the Hague learning how the UN works and debating the whole gamut of world issues, alongside students from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Ghana. It should be great.

Where did you go this half term?

Some of the 6th Form went to Iceland and what an experience it was.

Fun Run

We enjoyed the annual fancy dress fun run this afternoon. All the school's students took part as a way of raising money for a variety of worthy charities. This year's theme was evolution, as it is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. We had everything from The Voyage of the Beagle ...

to a butterfly and giant caterpillar.

The 6th Form helped marshall the event and check that everyone had run or walked the required five laps.

It was a good way to end the half term.

Off to Iceland

It's been a busy half term but the activity is not over yet by a long shot. A group of 6th Formers are off to Iceland over the half term break and, if past trips are anything to go by, it should be a stunning experience.

There will be a chance to lounge around.

A chance to take a hot bath.

And, of course, a chance to do some geographical research.

Debating Success

Two of our Lower 6th students took part in a prestigious debating competition at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge yesterday against Northampton Academy. The photograph shows the two teams together with the Chairman for the evening, TV Personality, Loyd Grossman.

After a closely argued and high level debate about the obsession with personal space in the western world, the St Mary's team won by 37 votes to 34 (with one abstention). We were delighted by the result, delighted by the support we received, and delighted by the invitation to take part in such a wonderful experience in such a wonderful place.

Many of our students also looked around the exhibition about female education in Cambridge after the debate. Highlights included the original manuscript of Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own". We are fortunate indeed to have such resources on our doorstep.

Sixth Form Information Evening

We will be holding our Sixth Form Information evening tomorrow, Thursday 22nd October, from 6.30pm onwards. Whether you are currently in year 11 or are at school elsewhere, you are warmly welcome to come along and see what subjects are on offer next year and to learn more about our wonderful Sixth Form.

Netball Success

The netballers started the season in spectacular form yesterday afternoon, notching up a 16-11 win over Perse Girls. It was an exciting match, even after St Mary's built up a clear and early lead, a lead they never looked like losing. Well done.