On Thursday 23rd May and Friday 24th May Years 2, 3 and 4 put on a performance of “The Faith Comes To Thanet” for their parents and the local parish and visitors to Ramsgate for the local Saint Augustine’s Celebration Week organised by Father Marcus Holden – the school’s parish priest. The children of St. Ethelbert’s Catholic Primary School told the story of the Romans taking Anglo Saxons to Rome as slaves and of Pope Gregory The Great in 595AD seeing these blonde headed slaves and saying that these “are not angles, but angels!”

The Pope then sent Saint Augustine – a Benedictine Monk -  to England and he landed on The Isle of Thanet where he met King Ethelbert – who was a pagan and Queen Bertha who was already  a Christian. St. Augustine was allowed to set up a church in Canterbury and eventually baptised King Ethelbert – who our primary school is dedicated to - and began bringing his missionary work to England.

The play was also filmed in three parts with Year 2 class acting the scene of the Pope seeing the slaves, Year 3 class being the missionary monks on their journey from Italy to Thanet and Year 4 class showing the monks in Thanet meeting King Ethelbert and Queen Bertha and teaching the locals to read and write.

The children have had the help of Chatham House Grammar School  to make DVDs of the play and they have asked to send a copy to Pope Francis, The Queen and our Archbishop. Father Marcus thanked the staff and children , ”On behalf of the parish I would like to thank you all for an amazing production of 'The Gospel comes to Thanet'. The parishioners are still talking about it and it was one of the highlights for me during St Augustine's Week.”

Everyone in the school helped – Mr Dave Fry – the school caretaker – with painting the marvellous backdrops, Mr Bishop – Year 3 teacher - with the hymns and music, the parents with costumes and helping the children to remember their lines and Mrs Butchard-Thursten – the Deputy Headteacher- with writing and directing. David Turner  - the Chair of the Governors said he was delighted in the way the school supported the local parish initiatives about ‘The Catholic Year of Faith’ and John Letts – the Headteacher – is immensely proud of the children and the way they really enjoyed the drama of their religious education lessons and entertaining the general public. “The children are very, very excited about the DVD and keep coming to me with a new list of people to send it to”.

School children compete nationally to gather the most declarations of support for local fruit.

Children of All Hallows are calling on the people of Macclesfield to help them in their quest to gather as many declarations of support for local fruit as possible.

As part of the fruit-full schools project, All Hallows is one of 200 schools across England, which will be aiming to collectively gather over 100,000 pledges in support of local produce from their surrounding communities.

The school, having already established its own orchard as part of the project, will be in competition to gather the most reasons why their community loves and supports local produce.  If they win, they will be awarded funds to commission a local artist to create a permanent fruit related art installation in their school grounds.

In addition, anyone that gives their reason why they love local fruit will be in with a chance of winning a stunning new fruit press from Vigo Presses (www.vigopresses.co.uk) worth £220.00!

The competition comes as a part of the ‘Fruit-full Schools ‘project, a scheme designed to help increase the numbers of the UK’s orchards, whilst reviving some of the long-forgotten local fruit varieties.  The school has now participated in the project – developed by the national school grounds charity- Learning through Landscapes, for four years.

The Fruit-full project is helping children across the UK to establish and maintain traditional fruit orchards within their school grounds in partnership with their local communities. All Hallows now hopes to put Macclesfield’s love for local fruit on the map, by asking them to show their support by submitting a short reason why they love local food. Martin Blades (Assistant Principal) explains, “There are so many reasons to support locally grown fruit- it increases business for local farmers and trades, helps preserve the heritage of local varieties, conserves energy in food miles and therefore fresher, more nutritious fruit can be consumed. We are hoping our community will join the school by pledging support by adding a short reason why they love locally grown produce”.

Pledging support costs nothing and takes less than a minute online on the Fruit-Full Schools website www.fruitfullschools.org alternatively you can visit All Hallows to pledge at the school.

PRESS RELEASE - June 2013

Thomas Reynolds was awarded a citizenship award by Bishop Thomas McMahon at Brentwood Cathedral in recognition of his role as an altar-server.  

Thomas is an altar-server in his local parish and at staff/student Masses every Friday at 8.15 during term-time.  Thomas feels strongly about his faith and says it has provided him with a direction in his life.  

As he says, “If you believe in God you find ways to be better.”  

We believe that Thomas is an excellent example of a young man who puts his faith into practice by serving others and, as a result we nominated him for this award.  

The photograph shows Thomas, with his award, accompanied by Miss Heaphy outside Brentwood Cathedral.  He received his award from Bishop Thomas McMahon alongside pupils also receiving awards from 60 other schools in the diocese; including Thomas’ brother Euan, a pupil at St Alban’s. It was both a moving and inspirational occasion hearing of the fantastic work being carried out by our young people in Catholic schools.