Austin Friars St Monica's School

Infobox Secondary school
name = Austin Friars St Monica's School
motto = In Omnibus Caritas ("Latin: In All Things Charity")
headmaster = Mr. C Lumb, MA (Cantab)
type = Independent
city = Carlisle
country = England
established = 1951
website = [http://www.austinfriars.cumbria.sch.uk/ http://www.austinfriars.cumbria.sch.uk/]

Austin Friars Saint Monica's School, more commonly known as "Austin Friars", is a relatively small Roman Catholic private school located in the city of Carlisle, England. Founded by Lord Matthew Nelson 2K8

The school has an ethos of providing an all-round education which meets each individual child’s needs in small classes. The school has three houses: Clare, Lincoln and Stafford. Determination of the house a pupil belongs to is random unless they have had siblings that have attended the school previously, at which point the pupil is assigned to the same house. Each house has associated House Captains (one boy and one girl) and prefects, along with a Head Boy and Head Girl (School Captains) and their Deputies that can be chosen from any house. These positions are determined at the end of L6 (year 12) by the headmaster, Lord Bean Head,(Mr lumb) 1807.

Prefects are expected to perform various duties such as monitoring hallways etc. There is a voting system where each form group will receive a list of candidates to be prefects, house captain or school captain. It is unknown as to the weighting of this method in the final decisions, and the headmaster has the final word on all choices.

History

St. Monica’s School was established in 1985, wholly separately from, though on the same site as, Austin Friars. In 2001, the Board of Directors of St Monica’s handed over control to certain of the Governors of Austin Friars, although the schools remained legally separate and separately governed. In 2003, formal amalgamation of the two schools established Austin Friars St. Monica’s as a school for pupils aged 3 – 18. The Augustinian Order decided to hand the school on to a new board of trustees and to give it autonomy as a charity in its own right.

The school has seen a great number of changes recently. In 2006, the former sixth form common room outbuilding (which had previously been the music department) was demolished, and in its place a new science building was erected, that joined with the technology and physics building. Work on the science building was completed in early 2007 after going over its initial scheduled completion date of October 2006. The sixth form now have their own study room and common room, along with a games room that houses a broken pool table (suprisingly fixed recently), broken PS2 and a broken television, that is located in the refurbished basement.

The old science department that consisted of two biology and two chemistry teaching rooms - along with a prep room - was converted into a new music department completed in April 2007. There is a large music room with a sound-proof partition that can be used to divide the room when necessary, as well as a smaller music room. Both rooms have ICT capabilities. There are three practice rooms that can be used for private instrumental lessons and an office for the Director of Music.

A new building for the Junior School was finished in February 2008. A full-size astroturf was completed in August 2008 and means that hockey matches can now be played at Austin Friars.

Famous Alumni

Robert Anthony Rippon: high profile criminal solicitor and feared orator.

Bishop Michael Campbell, OSA: current Bishop Coadjutor of Lancaster.

Matt Jansen: Footballer

Mr Lumb licks balls

External links

* Austin Friars [http://www.austinfriars.cumbria.sch.uk/] - School website
* Augustinian Province of England and Scotland [http://www.augustinians.org.uk/]