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The Christmas market added a wonderful festive spirit to the event, offering a range of handmade and seasonal treats created by our talented students. Stalls were filled with candy canes, Christmas head-boppers, and beautifully crafted ceramics made in our art department. Students from the COPE class with Miss Rowell also showcased an impressive selection of hand-crafted gifts, including homemade baubles, pocket hugs, reindeer food, and cheerful Santa Stop Here signs—each ite

Our Sixth Form Goals and Ethos Ambassadors led our first ever Christmas Bauble Decorating event, bringing a burst of festive creativity to the school. Staff and students were invited to design their own baubles for the school Christmas tree—or to take home and enjoy with their families. Over 120 students attended, making it an incredibly popular addition to our Advent celebrations. With glitter, paint pens, ribbons, and festive stencils at the ready, students created a wonder

As we journey through the season of Advent, our Year 7 students travelled to the Emmaus Youth Village for a retreat centred on preparation, joy, and the hope that Advent brings. Rooted in the Catholic values of belonging, service, and shared experience, the retreat offered a series of creative and interactive activities designed to help students reflect on the meaning of Advent. Students took part in Manger Making, building simple cribs as symbols of welcome and readiness. Th

Our Sixth Form Ethos and Goals Leadership Team accompanied Mrs. Mason to St. Catherine’s Care Home, supported by St Cuthbert’s Care. During their visit, students spent time with the residents, sharing stories, festive treats and delivering homemade Christmas cards, which were created by our Goals Ambassadors and GCSE Health & Social classes. The visit reflected the Sacred Heart Goal of Community, as students built connections across generations and brought joy to the resident

With the Christmas holidays approaching, this is a perfect opportunity for students and families to enjoy reading together. Just a few minutes each day can spark curiosity, boost vocabulary, and improve concentration. Most importantly, reading for pleasure helps students develop positive habits that last far beyond the classroom. Next year, schools across the country will be working together to champion 2026 as a National Year of Reading. R eading for all will be the national

Nevermoor and the Morrigan Crow Series by Jessica Townsend For fans of Harry Potter. Morrigan Crow is cursed, destined to die on her eleventh birthday. But, as the clock strikes midnight, she's whisked away by a remarkable man called Jupiter North and taken to the secret city of Nevermoor. There she is invited to join the Wundrous Society. Mystery, magic and protection are hers - if only she can pass four impossible trials, using her exceptional talent. Which she doesn't

Almost Nothing Happened by Meg Rosoff 17-year-old Callum is facing an unfortunate truth: his summer exchange in rural France was a failure. No epic adventure, no summer fling, and his French is still rubbish. Just as he should be boarding the Eurostar home, without even a hint of a plan, Callum impulsively decides to stay (and doesn't bother telling his parents). He only knows one person in Paris: his long-lost cousin, Harrison, an oboist. As night falls on the hottest we

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won't be able to put this down! Kala by Colin Welsh Helen, Joe and Mush were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group's white-hot centre. Soon after that summer's peak, Kala disa

During our regular Code Club, students have been getting festive by using Python Turtle to program their own snowflakes. After experimenting with loops, shapes, and angles, they imported their designs into a snow scene simulator, creating animated winter landscapes filled with their uniquely coded flakes. This fun project blended creativity with real coding skills and has been a brilliant way for students to see their programming come to life. As we head into the new year,

This term, 31 of our Year 8 students represented the school in the CyberFirst Girls Competition, a national challenge designed to inspire the next generation of female cyber-security experts. Competing across eight enthusiastic teams, our students tackled codebreaking missions, online safety challenges, logic puzzles, and real-world cyber problems designed to ignite interest in digital security. This year’s competition brings an exciting range of individual, team, and school

Last week GCHQ released their annual Christmas challenge, students and staff took on the challenge using skills GCHQ use to keep the country safe. There were seven fiendish puzzles based on the seven disciplines of languages, engineering, codebreaking, analysis, maths, coding and cyber security and given a day to complete. This year’s Challenge came with a twist…once all seven puzzles were solved, you had to think outside the box, using the design on the front of the card to

Our school’s Christmas Liturgy this year is focusing on the theme Lighting the Way This Advent, exploring how we can bring peace, hope, and goodness into the world. In the weeks leading up to Advent, each form class decorated their own lantern—beautiful symbols of guidance and warmth. On these lanterns, students wrote personal pledges, reflecting on the ways they hope to ‘light the world’ this season: through kindness, patience, generosity, forgiveness, and small acts that li

Year 7 and 8 students recently competed in the School Games Sports Hall Athletics competition against several other Newcastle schools. All students performed very well in both their track and field events and were a credit to Sacred Heart. The Year 8 team were fantastic and finished in second place, meaning they will now represent Newcastle in the County round of the competition in January. The Year 7 team also competed fantastically well and finished in a strong 4th place. W

Year 9 had their managing risk day at the beginning of December. They had sessions with experts from Northumbria Police's Violence Reduction Team on county lines, drug awareness, knife crime and joint enterprise. The Tyne and Wear Fire Service delivered a session on anti-social behaviour. The NECA also delivered a session on Gambling Harm Prevention. The visitors commented on how well our Year 9 students presented themselves, and represented Sacred Heart with impressive leve

This Thursday (4th December) at lunchtime, the Chapel will be open for bauble-decorating, led by our Sixth Form Goals/Ethos leaders. This will take place 12:30-1:10pm. Students and staff are warmly invited to drop in, decorate a bauble, and add a little sparkle to the season. There is no cost to take part – just an opportunity to pause, create, and help “lighten the way” this Advent.

The Sacred Heart school network is built on values that inspire kindness, respect, and a strong sense of belonging. Each year, school celebrates an individual Sacred Heart Goal. This year we looked at community. Students were invited to submit a postcard that reflected this goal. The winners of this year’s contest have truly captured the spirit of Sacred Heart, showing how even the newest members to our school contribute to a positive school environment.

Every year, our school takes part in a project called Letters from Auschwitz run by the Holocaust Education Trust. Two students from our school get the opportunity to travel to Poland and be educated about the Holocaust, or Shoah, at Auschwitz in the Polish town of Oswiecim. At our orientation seminar, we were lucky enough to have a talk from Annick Lever, an Auschwitz survivor, who was taken to the camp when she was just 2 months old. She described her and her mother’s expe

Music students from both GCSE and A Level took to the stage for our annual Senior Recital evening, an informal concert designed to showcase the performance skills they have been developing throughout the year. The event provided a supportive platform for students to share their musical progress, celebrate their hard work, and gain valuable experience performing to a live audience. It was a wonderful evening that highlighted the talent, dedication, and growing confidence of ou

Sacred Heart Musicians brought the spirit of rock'n'roll to Ouseburn's Cluny2 venue at Newcastle Music Service's Band Jam rock gig in late November. Sacred Heart bands Solarix, LuvBugz and CodeF, who participate in our senior rock school programme with tutors from the Newcastle Music Service, performed short sets in front of a sold-out audience, and enjoyed meeting other musicians from across the city.