Future Memories of St Augustine’s School

Pupils who are currently attending the school in 2005 were asked to write about a memorable occasion or what they think they will remember about their schooldays in the future.

The day of Pope John Paul’s Funeral
“I will always remember 8th April 2005, the day of Pope John Paul’s funeral. In the morning the whole school watched the funeral. Although, Reception, Year one and two only watched a short part of it, due to restlessness and their age. I think the most memorable moving part of the ceremony was when the members of the Pope’s household carried his plain, but beautiful coffin back into St Peter’s. It was extremely moving and I was nearly crying.

After the funeral we had the most wonderful liturgy organised by Miss McPartlan and Miss Sutcliffe. I did a reading about the Pope and the work he did on Earth. I was very nervous but when I actually read it, I was fine. Many children read their readings in English and then in their own languages, it was really interesting!

After the liturgy and playtime, we had a fantastic party, in memory of Pope John Paul and his life. There were buns, biscuits, sweets and drinks and everybody had a brilliant yet moving time.” By Catherine Hatch.

Our First School Trip
In year two, when we were seven, we went on one of the best school trips we have ever been on. We went to Filey. The trip was absolutely brilliant, although it rained most of the day. It was great fun because all our former teachers came. These were: Mrs Rees, Mrs Surtees, Mrs Marshall, Mrs Cooney, Miss Gaughan, and Mrs Deton.

The fun all started when we got on the coach for a two-hour trip. Straight after the coach trip we were sorted into our groups, we was in Mrs Rees group. Following a nice long stroll across Filey pier our group went on the beach. It was dinnertime so we began to eat. After what seemed only five or ten minutes the tide started to creep up on us! Quickly we gathered our lunches and set off to find another place to eat. We bumped into Mrs Marshall’s group and Mrs Cooney’s group so as a result we all set off on a long hilly journey up to the tourist information centre.

When we arrived in the hall some of the other groups had already arrived, so we joined them and sat down to eat our lunch. After we had all finished, we played a few games. It was still raining, so our group and Mrs Cooney’s group went into the arcade and had a great time there. The weather started to brighten up, so Mrs Rees decided to let us have another try on Filey beach. But as soon as we started digging with our buckets and spades the awful rain returned.

It was nearly time to go back to school and the sun decided to play one last trick on us – it thought it would be funny if when we were deciding to go home he came out shining. Straight away we made the most of the sun and played mini-golf plus we went on the trampoline, Mrs Marshall kindly fished out some juicy ice lollipops for us (I got a red one). All in all it was a marvellous trip and if we had another chance to go we would definitely take it. By Sophie Barrass (year 6) and Paolo Mischenko (year 6).

School Council
I will always remember when I was elected to be a part of the school council by my fellow classmates when I was in year 3. Firstly, I was extremely nervous yet very excited. Megan and I were representatives for class 3GC, as a boy and girl were needed in each class. The first ever meeting we attended Megan was as nervous as I was. Miss Cohen was the organiser and she introduced herself, as she was quite new to the school. The representatives of the other classes at the meeting introduced themselves too, some of them I didn’t even know! We discussed things, for example: extending our playground, healthy tuck shop etc. We got some of our ideas from pupils and teachers in our class, if not we thought of ideas ourselves. After getting used to going to the meetings it was a lot better. Luckily in years 5 and 6 I got the chance to be on the school council for two consecutive years. By Jameel Ible.

May Procession
One of our memories of St Augustine’s, is when we took part in the May procession in May 2003. All the children who took part in the procession had to bring in their First Holy Communion outfits to wear, which meant for the girls: dresses, veils, tiaras and shoes whereas the boys only had to wear a suit and a sash. Emily Murphy was May Queen (which meant she crowned the statue of Mary) followed by Amy Fleming, Ailish Smith, Shannon Smith, Emily Fearnly, Emma Halliday and myself we carried the cloak that Emily was wearing. Behind us were several children carefully carrying flowers. We processed around the outside of school saying the rosary and when we got back into the hall it was time to crown the statue of Mary. At that point we all started singing, ‘Bring Flowers of the Rarest.’ It was a wonderful procession and everyone respected the fact that it was dedicated to Mary. By Megan Enright and Portia Freeman

From Mike Teggart
I have just completed 10 years as headteacher of St Augustine’s Catholic Primary School and it has been a wonderful journey. During this time the school has been blessed with two extremely supportive parish priests in Father Durkin and currently Father Kelly, a hard working, efficient governing body who have helped steer the school through two successful Ofsted inspections, a superb caring, highly conscientious staff, some of whom have now retired or moved on to pastures new, a very loyal cohort of parents and a tremendous set of pupils.

Like all schools, St Augustine’s has changed over the years. The fire, which destroyed the school, meant that a new, modern school was built in its place. The staff, pupils, parents and governors who had to not only cope with the effects of the fire but then had to rebuild for the future are to be greatly admired for their efforts and commitment to the school. Over the years everyone involved with the school has worked very hard to make our school a school to be proud of and, in my opinion, we have succeeded. We are able to offer a wide variety of extra curricular activities, sport, music, clubs and residential trips, the academic results are improving year on year and the behaviour of the children has been highly commended by both Ofsted and our many visitors. The welfare, care and education of our children is of the highest importance and is reflected in our school mission statement.

The school population has itself changed over these past few years. We are proud to have welcomed children and their families from a variety of countries throughout the world and they have unquestionably enhanced the ethos of the school and the parish. It is a joy in school masses to hear the bidding prayers being read in Polish, French, Portuguese and Filipino as it is a constant reminder that we are all God’s children regardless of our nationality, an ideal which was reiterated during the Pope John Paul’s funeral recently.

One thing that has always amazed me about St Augustine’s school is the fact that so many people you meet have attended the school or have connections with the school in some shape or form and they are always extremely keen to tell you what a good school St Augustine’s was and is! You can be miles away from Leeds and meet a person from Leeds and believe it or not they have connections with our school!

St Augustine’s has provided a high quality education for thousands of children and their families for over a hundred years and has a great deal to be proud of and I hope that when the parish is celebrating its 200th anniversary, the then head teacher is able to provide his or her thoughts on the school. As I said earlier we want St Augustine’s to be a school to be proud of and a “happy and holy school” that children and staff are proud to be a part of.