News & Events

This year our traditional evening of Carols and the Nativity story has a new look. It takes the form of a promenade, which means that the audience actually move from scene to scene as the story unfolds.

This style of theatre is very interactive and always popular with the audience who find that they are drawn into the action with the actors. This is the first time we have taken our Carols outside of the building and we are hoping for a clear, dry evening to capture the real spirit of the Advent season. We want to create a festival feeling in the air so the audience will get a sense of the crowd experience all of those years ago as they travelled to Bethlehem for the census.

The Promenade will begin outdoors with an opportunity to purchase novelty gifts and hot food, Wrapped up for the weather you will be entertained by our choir, jazz musicians and street performers. There will be the opportunity to purchase novelties, hot chestnuts and potatoes, and food for Santa’s reindeer!

We will then process indoors as the Nativity story unfolds, travelling alongside shepherds and kings, maybe Mary and Joseph themselves, as we all follow the star towards Bethlehem.

This aims to be a very special evening, which will be especially enjoyed by younger members of the family. There is a strong rumour that Father Christmas himself will join us!

We have a group of performers drawn from years 7 to 11 and they have been working hard to ensure that this evening brings a touch of awe and wonder to our lives as we head busily towards Christmas.

The evening promises to be sprinkled with magic with some unexpected surprises, so please, take some time out to join us for what will be a lovely way to begin the countdown to the special day. We hope that for a couple of hours we, as a community can remember the real meaning of Christmas, which as we know is not just about shopping, but kindness of spirit an goodwill to all men.

Click here to see the official page and preview some exclusive on set photos!

October saw Hillside pupils taking part in their second ‘Democracy Week’. Several schools across Sefton took part and the results of the workshops will help Sefton Council make sure that young people’s concerns are taken seriously. The pupils discussed issues based on six key areas:

• Community Safety
• The media and its perception of young people
• Youth Provision/cuts to services for young people
• Education, Employment and Training
• Issues that affect young people; including the summer riots

Pupils worked in small groups to put together questions to ask the panel of experts who visited school. The debate which took place was both lively and interesting and pupils enjoyed the fact that although several of the questions were quite hard-hitting, the delegates did not fob them off. They listened and gave sound advice to the pupils. We noticed that last year, several responses given blamed ‘the cuts’. This year, the effect of ‘the cuts’ is starting to be felt by pupils and their families so the pupils were looking for solutions and ideas to deal with the reduction of services. We really enjoyed the afternoon and hope that this will lead to our pupils taking a more active role in the community.

We have started this year’s series of Family Learning evenings with a night of spectacular activities to learn about ‘Diwali’. Families worked together to learn about the Diwali festival, which is the Hindu festival of light, and this year will be celebrated on 26th October.

Fireworks have a major role in Diwali celebrations and in the science department we learned about the science of fireworks and carried out experiments to make different coloured flames using the special metals which are actually used in fireworks. The maths department taught us about rangoli patterns which are a traditional way of decorating homes and buildings. These patterns are based on the lotus flower, which is a symbol of the goddess Lakshmi, and bring good luck to the families.

Miss McMahon, our Religious Studies teacher, worked with an Indian lady, Mrs. Parikh, to teach about the history and background of the Diwali festival. Mrs. Parikh spoke to the families, showed the decorations she uses in her own house at Diwali and even produced wonderful henna tattoos on some of the parents. Our languages staff were next door, busy helping people to make the beautiful paper garlands which are also worn at Diwali.

The evening was a great success and all families said they thoroughly enjoyed the different activities, and that they had learned so many interesting facts about a festival that they had not heard of before. At the end of the evening everyone got to sample types of tea from different parts of India and had the chance to taste some Indian sweets. No-one went away empty-handed as we made sure each family took away a goody-bag which had been designed and decorated by our year 8 pupils as part of the Diwali project in R.S. The goody-bags contained everything that you need to celebrate Diwali: tea bags, sweets and a tea light. Everyone had a great evening and we hope all the tea lights will be lighting up the local area on October 26th.