St Monica's High School

Infobox School
name = St Monica's High School


motto =
established = 1987
type = High school
head_name =
head = Frank McCarron
chair_label =
chair =
specialist = Language
Location
street =
city = Prestwich
county = Greater Manchester
country = England
postcode =
LEA = Bury
ofsted =
staff =
enrollment =
lower_age =
upper_age =
gender = Mixed
website = [http://www.stmonicas.co.uk/ www.stmonicas.co.uk]
coordinates =

St Monica's RC High School Specialist Language College is located on Bury Old Road in Prestwich, Greater Manchester opposite to Heaton Park. The Headteacher of St Monica's is Frank McCarron.

The school serves pupils mainly from the areas of Prestwich, Whitefield, Kersal and Radcliffe. As a Catholic establishment, all pupils who attend the school have to be from a Catholic background. St Monica's regularly tops the Bury GCSE league table, which as a state-funded establishment even achieves higher results than the independent Bury Grammar Schools.

As St Monica's does not have a Sixth Form (years 12 and 13), most pupils who continue their education go to Bury College and Holy Cross College in Bury, and Loreto College in Hulme, Manchester. The school is hoping to have £6 million to spend on a sixth form college which will specialize in both languages and another speciality which is not yet announced. Some pupils from St Monica's regularly attend a Mathematics course at the Jewish, local authority-funded King David School, Crumpsall. As well as this course a select few pupils have been put forward for, and are now actually taking part in, an AS course in French.

History

It was created when two schools, St Joseph's and St Peter's, amalgamated in 1987 and settled on the former St Peter's site.

During the Pope's visit to England in 1982 the school was used as the base for local authorities and members of the Pope's entourage. The Pope made his appearance in nearby Heaton Park so the school was the idea place for the appearance to be ran from. The Pope even had lunch in the school dining room and then visited nearby Nazareth House which is a care home for retired priests.

St Monica's gained Language College status in 2003. St Monica's now has regular trips and exchange programmes with schools in France, Spain and China. The school also has links with schools in Germany. This school is also now part of the COMENIUS project which works with many different schools around Europe.

In 2008, the school banned its female pupils from being given the HPV vaccine for cervical cancer as school governors believed that the school was the wrong place for the treatment to be administered and feared side effects. A spokesman for the Diocese of Salford said "the diocese and Catholic schools board do not have a moral objection, but it is up to individual schools to decide whether to allow the vaccinations to be carried out in school". [cite web |title=School refuses 'cancer vaccine' |publisher=BBC Online |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7633761.stm |date=24 September 2006 Retrieved on 24 September 2008.]

References

External links

* [http://www.stmonicas.co.uk/ St. Monica's website]