St Mary’s CollegeNEWS Issue 20

February/March 2016

Our most recent news from the College

Full term dates are available on the College website: www.stmarysblackburn.ac.uk

www.facebook.com/stmarysblackburn www.twitter.com/smcblackburn www.youtube.com/stmarysblackburnuk

Wednesday 23 March 2016 - College closes for all students, Easter breakMonday 11 April 2016 - College re-opens for all studentsMonday 2 May 2016 - College Closed, Bank Holiday

Friday 27 May 2016 - College closes for all students, Half Term breakMonday 6 June 2016 - College re-opens for all students

BE CONNECTED Dates for your diary

West End PerformerFormer St Mary’s student James Dryden, is starring in black comedy ‘Hangmen’, currently showing at Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End.The play, which has received rave reviews, follows a hangman, played by David Morrissey, as different characters in a small pub in Oldham seek his reaction to the abolition of corporal punishment. James is playing the role of ‘Clegg’, a journalist trying to get into Harry’s head. James had previously played small roles in the film Mr Turner and TV shows Father Brown and Doctors, but Hangmen has been his big break.James studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama after leaving St Mary’s and he has been professional for four years.

He said: “I’ve just been auditioning away and this came along and I managed to get the part, It’s the best job I have been involved in so far, it’s amazing working alongside everyone in the cast.”A performance of Hangmen will be broadcast in cinemas, including at Accrington, on March 3 as part of National Theatre Live.

ESSENTIAL SKILLSSt Mary’s College offers Essential Skills courses in Functional English and Maths

For further information please contact The Essential Skills Team on 01254 580464 and choose option3

IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH AND MATHS! St Mary’s is working in partnership with local schools and children’s centres providing day time and evening classes for adults in the community.

If you want to get better at English and Maths so that you can help your children, get a new job, access further training or Higher Education and get a qualification then get in touch with us.Classes are free, available throughout the year and are accredited up to Level 2 (equivalent to a GCSE). You will work at your own pace, with your own individual learning plan and will be supported at all times by our experienced and qualified staff.

“CLASSES ARE FREE”

Admissions EveningDespite bad weather during the morning, our third Admissions Interview evening still managed to take place as planned on 2nd March. It was lovely to meet yet more of our new intake for September 2016.

St Mary’s Nurseries ‘Outstanding’ hat trickSt Marys Nurseries are celebrating their hat trick after another ‘Outstanding’ rating from Ofsted in its latest inspection at the Corporation Park site.St Mary’s Nursery based onsite at St Mary’s College opened in September 2003 and has been awarded ‘Outstanding’ at each inspection. Our second nursery based at Wensley Fold Children’s Centre opened in January 2008 was also awarded ‘Outstanding’ when inspected by Ofsted and now St Mary’s Nursery at the pavilion in Corporation Park, our third centre to open in the summer of 2014, completes our hat trick after being given the ‘Outstanding’ rating by Ofsted just the other week. Congratulations to all!

Competition WinnerFormer student of St Mary’s College, Sarah Yates has just won a competition which sees her lino print/watercolour of Lincoln cathedral being sold at the cathedral until April this year.The competition was held by a local art platform called Cygnet Ink, who are a creative platform in Lincoln for graduates of the University of Lincoln art and design courses and want to bridge the gap between education and employment. As a member Sarah is able to showcase her work in areas that will benefit her career http://cygnetink.com/about/ by entering competitions such as these.

Sarah explains, “The competition was open to graduates from the University of Lincoln and the brief was to respond to our own interpretation of the exterior or interior of the cathedral, so really to create our own style within an illustration or design of Lincoln Cathedral. I did a lino cut combined with watercolour as I particularly like the colour of the stonework, especially at night, which is what I wanted to convey. I also like traditional media such as lino printing, etching and watercolour combined with digital. There were just five winners including myself, the prize being to exclusively sell our framed prints in the Lincoln cathedral shop from January-April 2016, taking 70% of commission.”

Sarah graduated last September 2015 from the University of Lincoln, with a First class honours in BA Hons Illustration, after completing the Foundation Art course at Blackburn College and had previously studied A Levels in Fine Art (A), Sociology (A*) and English Language (B) here at St Mary’s. More portfolio work and work experience can be found on Sarah’s website www.sarahyatesillustration.co.uk

Courtauld Institute of Art WorskhopThe Courtauld Institute of Art is a centre for the study of art history and is home to the word famous Courtauld Gallery http://courtauld.ac.uk/The Art Department recently hosted an Art History workshop in conjunction with the Courtauld Institute, for Art and Classics students. This was an excellent opportunity to work with such a world-renowned institution and will give students additional skills, which they can use in their studies. The experience will also make a positive addition to any CV or UCAS application.The aim was to introduce students to a new way of approaching Art History and curation in relation to their critical and contextual element of A Levels. Students were presented with a variety of works of art from the Courtauld’s collection and the different art historical tools to read them.

Students then participated in a mini-curation task informed by their ‘reading’ of images, producing an exhibition plan, title and example wall text which then led to discussing an exhibition and culminated in a mini-exhibition review.

Textiles TripThe Textiles and Fashion department participated in a trip to the Whitworth Art Gallery to see the ‘Art of Fashion’ exhibition. This was a challenging exhibition on many levels; students were exposed to political work, feminist work and historical textiles. Themes ranged from the death of an artist’s mother to a knitted womb that the students could walk through. They also visited the newly opened exhibition of work by Tibor Reich; his distinctive range of woven and printed textiles was amazing, using vivid colours and designs that referenced his Hungarian heritage.

We then moved on to the lovely Platt Hall costume gallery, which is situated in Platt Fields Park, here we saw dresses by the legendary Alexander McQueen and also an exhibition by the talented Italian Designer Elsa Schiaparelli.It was a lovely inspiring end to a busy week full of art deadlines.

Junior Swimming ChampionCongratulations to St Mary’s student Joshua Lambert, who has not only been crowned the Junior Champion at 16 for swimming, he has also recently been given the Donald, Race and Newton Sports Award at our annual Prize Night.Josh has been competing with the Blackburn Centurions for over 10 years and has been going from strength to strength in the 100m Butterfly.

The Donald, Race and Newton Award is a monetary donation to financially help the recipient with any outgoing costs of competing in such a competitive environment.Josh will be using his award to aid with travelling expenses to his next competitive swim meet which is to be held in Beauvais, just outside of Paris, in France.

Kelly Reynolds, his Sports teacher at SMC, said on his achievement, “We are extremely proud that Josh was awarded the sport scholarship. As a conscientious student and a dedicated and talented swimmer, the monetary contribution he has received will no doubt be put to good use to support him in his future sporting competitions”.

Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts visitOn Tuesday 9th February, Roger Whittam from Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts visited the AS Graphic Design group at St Marys College to give them an overview of design at Lancaster University and to run through a workshop of the kind of activities that underpin their course ethos with them.

Roger’s workshop demonstrated the speed in which a complex idea can be rapidly realised in a basic form to create a working prototype to test the viability and functions of an idea.

AS Graphic Design Students tested ideas for a mobile app, by drawing basic pages on paper and photographing them in to an App call ‘Pop’ to create a working prototype App in under 10 minutes. This workshop demonstrated how quick an idea can be tested for viability without spending a great deal of time on final production.