Finchley Catholic High School


Finchley Catholic High School is a boys' secondary school with a coeducational sixth form in North Finchley, part of the London Borough of Barnet, England. The current head teacher is Mrs Niamh Arnull, who had previously been a member of the teaching staff in the 1990s.

Admissions

Finchley Catholic High School, as its name declares, is a faith school; it is also – up to the end of Year 11 – exclusively for boys.
It is a school for boys aged 11–18, with a coeducational Sixth Form. The sixth form is increasing in size, and 25% of the intake is offered to girls since the 2007–08 academic year.

Location

The school is situated to the west of Finchley's High Road, and immediately to the east of that stretch of the Northern Line which constitutes the school's western boundary. Lying adjacent to the postcode boundaries of Whetstone and Woodside Park, it is roughly halfway between Woodside Park and Totteridge & Whetstone Underground stations.

History

Finchley Catholic Grammar School was founded in 1926 by the redoubtable Canon Clement Henry Parsons, parish priest of St. Alban's Catholic Church, Nether Street, North Finchley. He founded the Challoner School ; as well as St. Alban's Catholic Preparatory School as a feeder primary for the Grammar and Challoner schools. 1971 saw its two institutional forebears, Finchley Catholic Grammar School. It was the sister school of the all-girls St. Michael's Catholic Grammar School during the grammar school era.

Traditions

Its motto, Da Nobis Recta Sapere comes from the collect of the Mass of Pentecost. The school newsletter, "The Albanian", is named after the school's patron saint, St Alban, Britain's protomartyr. It is sent out six times a year to all parents, governors and other key members of the school community.

Ethos

The school has a Catholic ethos. Religious education is taught twice a week in Key Stage 3 ; and, as in all Catholic schools in England, the GCSE is compulsory, being taught three times weekly.
Products with the Fairtrade Certification Mark are encouraged, and the school has an action group dedicated to making Barnet a Fairtrade borough. Every year, during Lent, pupils raise money for charities such as CAFOD, and various local and national charities, including the neighbouring North London Hospice.

Sport

Facilities include a recently installed full size astroturf pitch and playing fields in nearby Southover, a street in Woodside Park Garden Suburb, the other side of Dollis Brook. Of particular note was the archery club. From 1965 until 1972 they were undefeated in interschool competition.
On 26 April 2018, Finchley's year 10 football team qualified for the ESFA U15 National Cup Final overcoming Carshalton Sports College 3-1 in the Semi-final. Goals scored by Luke Ainsworth, Luke Traynor and Louis Setoudeh were enough to take the school through to the first National Cup Final in the school's history. The school will play St Francis Xavier's College from Liverpool in the final which will be played at the Madjeski Stadium on 22 May 2018.
The same team that got to the ESFA U15 National Cup Final also won the Middlesex county cup three years in a row making it the first time in the history of the Middlesex cup that it had happened, their third Middlesex county cup win is most known thanks to Ehimen Osebore doing the milly rock as a goal celebration.

Music and drama

The show "Remember" written by Mark Sell and Lena Santos, was performed by students of FCHS and St. Michael's. It is about the remembrance of the Holocaust, and has been to Poland, where it was the first-ever performance in the Auschwitz camp itself. Music includes partisan music, and other music with Yiddish and Hebrew lyrics.

Science and engineering

The school offers a government-funded Engineering Club to Key Stage 3. It is currently working on making a green energy supply to run an oxygenating system for the school pond, in the form of a wind turbine.

Languages

French or Spanish are compulsory throughout Key Stage 3, and optional at GCSE. French is also taught up to A2 level. There are after-school lessons in Latin, which is available up to GCSE.

School buildings

The school's buildings vary in age and quality:
There are two other buildings of note.
The school is made up of 5 houses, which are represented by each year's form classes, which in turn are represented by the colour of stripes on their ties. These are named after prominent Catholics : Bampfield, Bourne, Feckenham, Fisher, Challoner, More and Alban. Orange is not always included, but sometimes another form is made to accommodate more pupils, typically every other year.
The forms each have their own letter, which together make up the initials of the school. This is FRCHSB, standing for Finchley Roman Catholic High School for Boys, and each letter is for a different form.
At the beginning of the 2006–07 school year, another tie colour, orange, was introduced due to a complication about the number of pupils admitted that year.
As stated by the school:
At the start of the 2014 academic year they removed orange tie.
For some lessons, classes partner up with another one. Green tie and Blue tie pair up, Gold tie and White tie pair up, and Purple tie and Red tie pair up. For Spanish, White tie, Red tie and Purple tie partner up and for French blue tie, green tie and yellow tie are partnered up.

Notable old boys