Dame Allan’s students broughtthe house down this half termwith a fantastic production ofthe hilarious musical LittleShop of Horrors, in the 30thanniversary year of the originalFrank Oz film.In all more than 70 pupils fromYear 7 to Year 13 took part in thecomedy horror rock musical,which features a man-eatingplant, Audrey II, whose spectacular transformation onstage thrilled the audience.Little Shop of Horrors is set inthe 1950s in Mushnik’s Skid Row flower shop, where

hapless florist Seymour Krelborn cultivates the blood-thirsty plant which turns theshop into a horticultural hotspot, and Seymour into a national celebrity. The lead role of Seymour wasplayed by Nick Warneford inYear 9, who, aged 14 years old,was the youngest to play oneof the main characters. However Nick’s performanceof the improbable hero captivatedthe audience. Nick, who is amember of Dame Allan’sSchools’ choir and drama clubssaid: “We rehearsed the play

for months and it was a lot ofhard work, but it was all worthit in the end. The reaction ofthe audience was brilliant, andI really enjoyed acting with thehuge, man-eating plant!”The cult musical classic wasjam-packed with talent fromDame Allan’s and really showcased the huge array oftalent we are lucky to have at the Schools. Students performed song, dance anddrama on our own stage, themusic was live and was alsoperformed by Dame Allan’sstudents and staff.

As part of National CareersWeek 2016 we ran a bustling careers week which our pupilsfrom Year 1 to Year 13 were fortunate to benefit from. Over 40 employers attended theevent during the course of theweek, taking workshops andholding stalls at the lunchtime careers fairs where our studentswere able to ask questions andhear advice.

Pupils took part in Speed CareersNetworking allowing them timeto meet each of the guests insmall groups to discuss their career paths and ask questions.The week also gave our studentsa taste of things to come as wewill be running our biennial careersconvention again on October. A huge thank you to all thoseemployers, Allanian’s and parentswho helped.

Little school of horrors

DigestD A M E A L L A N ’ S

M A R C H 2 0 16

This newsletter comes at the endof another varied and successfulterm at Dame Allan’s and I feelthis edition reflects the tapestryof activities and opportunities weoffer our students. National CareersWeek was marked with a full weekof activities, talks and workshopsfor all students in Years 1 – 13. I ammost grateful to all the parents,Allanians and employerswho gave uptheir time to come into the Schoolsin support of Mrs Whitehouse’sinitiative. The drama, dance andmusic departments worked collaboratively to put on thespectacular performance of ‘LittleShop of Horrors’ this term. Theperformance won great critical acclaim from those who came along– a big thanks for your support. As you will also see, our sportsdepartment have been enjoyingmuch success across a variety ofsports. As ever, I am delighted to seeso many of our students involvedin a range activities alongsidetheir academic work. I hope you have an enjoyable andrelaxing Easter holiday and thatthose preparing for examinationshave a profitable time too. Welook forward to seeing you at thestart of our summer term.

A welcome from the Principal

Careers Week

Three of our Junior Schoolchildren, Amelia, Tabitha and Isabella, competed inthe All Scotland IrishDancing Championshipsthis half term. This is amajor competition anddancers from all over theworld travelled to competein it. Amelia took part inthe U10 competition andmanaged to ‘recall’, thismeans that she was able tocompete in the final roundas her marks for the firsttwo rounds were highenough, a huge achievement.Amelia was placed 32nd in

the championship overalland 2nd in her prelimchampionship. There weremore than 90 dancers in the competition so she didextremely well, and was amedallist for each of hersolo rounds. Tabitha took part in theU6 competition and wasplaced 6th out of 17 dancers,this was Tabitha’s firstmajor event and was abrilliant achievement. Isabella did amazingly welland won the U7 competitionfor the second year. Well done to all the girls!

A number of members of staff atDame Allan’s have been involvedin a very special project with theSchools’ parish church, St James’and St Basil’s. For nearly fouryears they have been working

alongside the church and its vicar,Canon Nick Darby who is alsothe Schools’ Chaplain, and successfully applied for fundingfrom the Heritage Lottery Fundto restore the organ, a £150,000

project. The organ restoration isnow complete and a celebratoryconcert took place this half term,which included performancesfrom students and staff fromDame Allan’s.

We are very proud of our charitable work at Dame Allan’sand were thrilled to be able todonate money to charities againthis half term. Following an assembly by St Oswald’s Hospice earlier in theyear, one of our Senior Schoolforms, 8Y, raised £170 for thehospice by baking bread. Everyboy in the form played a role inthe fundraising, whether that washelping to make the bread, bakealongside members of staff or tosell it around the Senior School.Two of the boys have been so inspired to raise funds for thehospice that they will be takingpart in the Junior Great NorthRun in September and hope to raise lots of money for thehospice via sponsorship. Our Junior School children areexcited to be taking part in St Oswald’s Great North SnowDog project later this year. We also donated over £300 toMarie Curie Cancer Care whichwas raised at the Richard HolmesMemorial rugby match. Many thanks to all those involved!

St Oswald’sDame Allan’s playing their part

When Irishdancers are smiling

This half term has seen a jam packed sporting calendar, and a greatdeal of silverware to go with it.

FootballOur Junior School saw much success including outstanding winat the ISFA U11 seven aside football tournament (North East

Region) in Leeds. The team played five matches,Dame Allan’s went unbeaten andhave qualified for the national finals.

Cross countryThe Junior team also had an enjoyable day at the inter-schoolsmini cross country competition.Four of the children were placedfirst to third and they all had a brilliant day running in the muddy conditions!Well done to Senior School studentsFlorence McPate and Dan Mellingfor being selected to run forNorthumberland in the National Finals – they both preformed really well and Dan’s team cameseventh out of 44 counties.

SquashOn the squash court we are excelling once again. Both the U15 boys and U19 girls competed in the National School

Squash Finals. This was the first time our boysteam had qualified and they camesixth, the girls team did particularlywell, and came second.

HockeyThe hockey teams are also playingvery well this season, the Year 8team came second in the CountyTournament.

Well done also to Annalea Davisonand Miles McGrady who have wonSport Newcastle Rising Star awards– we will hear more about theirachievements in the coming weeks.

RugbyWe are very proud of our rugbyteams, with two County Cup victories amongst the manyachievements. The Y10 and Y11teams both won at Kingston Parkwith the Y9 team coming runnersup. The Y9 team also participatedin the Newcastle Falcons Festival,the boys won the tournamentafter winning all three of theirgames. The boys were then luckyenough to watch the U20 RBS Six Nations international betweenEngland and Ireland, where theysaw Allanian Jonny McPhillips play fly half for Ireland and guide

his team to victory. The Girls’ School has also beenintroduced to rugby, with the PEdepartment introducing touchrugby into PE classes, they hopeto hold a charity tournament inthe coming weeks.Congratulations also to LukeNewby in Year 10 who has beenselected to train at the NewcastleFalcons Academy, alongside thethree Year 11 boys who alreadytrain there, and to Adam Gurteenand Alex Watson in Year 11 whohave been selected to play in threePremiership club festivals for theNewcastle Falcons U16 team.

Sporting success

b u i l d i n g t h e f u t u r eDA M E A L L A N ’ S S C H O O L S

This year the Allanian Society dinner was a celebration of modernlanguages at the Schools. The evening had a Europeanflavour with continental food,wine and entertainment. Year 13 student Daniel Venningperformed songs betweencourses in English, French andGerman. Alongside speechesfrom Dr Hind and the Head Boyand Girl, a number of Allanianswho studied languages at theSchools spoke about the success

of languages at Dame Allan’s.This included David Ward (Ambassador to Eritrea), Geoff Sockett (Professor of Linguistics at Paris DescartesUniversity), Russell Barnes(Translator with the EuropenCommission) and Richard Harding(works on European projectsfrom Bucherest). The dinner was once again a brilliant occasion for Allanians ofall ages to meet up, many thanksto all who attended.

Tuesday 12 April – Start of termThursday 21 April – Year 12Higher Education Evening

Saturday 23 April – Leaver’sDance ShowMonday 2 May – May Day holiday

Saturday 7 May – DASPA Spring BallMonday 16 May – Leavers’ ConcertWednesday 18 – Friday 20 May

– Year5 residential activity daysSaturday 21 May – DASPA SummerFair 12 – 2pm

t: 0191 275 1500 e: news@dameallans.co.uk www.dameallans.co.uk

Allanian Society Dinner

Techno,Techno,Techno

Looking to the future...

DASPAMany of you will have seen thecolourful banners with informationregarding the forthcoming SpringBall. Tickets are selling well andwe encourage anyone who isthinking of joining us at theHilton Gateshead on May 7th toplease send in your table requestsas soon as possible to snap upthe places still available! If youhave any queries, please contactMrs Boyle in the Schools’ office oremail daspa@dameallans.co.uk. Another great social evening is inthe pipeline for April when theDame Allan's ceilidh band will bejoining forces with a visitingschool band for an evening ofmusic and dancing. Further information will be announced soon.DASPA is also delighted to providetwo engraved plaques to acknowledge the 20 studentswho painted the wall outsideRoom 21, commemorating WW1.

Safeguarding atDame Allan’sThe Schools are committed tothe safeguarding of children, oursafeguarding leads are:

Pam Pollock – Early Years

Deborah Farren – Junior School

Elaine Fiddaman – Girls’ School

Phil Wildsmith- Boys’ School

Our Junior children enjoyedworkshop sessions with TechnologyTom this half term. TechnologyTom works with all age groups tomake STEM subjects exciting andinteresting and he took sessionswith our Year 1 children on their

playgrounds topic and Year 2 children on their winding up topic.The workshops took place in theDAS lab where our children tookpart in activities such as designingclimbing frames and modelling aswing, see-saw and roundabout.

Brian Adcock and Bill Lomas. Helen Grant, Andrea Fairbairn and Helen Buckley