Three groups from our school Art Club have qualified for the regional final of the ERP Junk Kouture competition, which inspires pupils to think of creative ways to reuse recycled and waste materials in designing catwalk fashion pieces. The final is to be held in the Europa Hotel on Sunday 11 March 2012, and as a percentage of their marks will be awarded for their ratings in an online vote we would really appreciate it if you would take a minute to vote for the groups online at http://www.erpjunkkouture.com/ Online voting begins on Monday 5 March 2012 – and if anyone would like to come along to the live final, which takes the form of a catwalk show, and support the pupils this would be greatly appreciated! Tickets will be available from the same site. The pupils involved are : ‘Ginja Ninja’ – James Stewart, Christian Green, Dylan Jones (Yr 9) ‘Kimono Junk’ – Katie Russell, Katie Ireland, Emily Boyd (Yr 9) ‘All Tied Up’ – Nia McNally, Maggie Gillies, Catherine McLean (Yr 8)

Congratulations to Nina Lloyd-Humphreys and Siona Davis of Year 12 who have been selected by audition to participate in a National Youth Theatre Residential in London during the summer.  The girls were selected from over 4,500 pupils across the UK! The girls commented: “Over the Easter holidays we were delighted to receive the exciting news that we have been selected to join the National Youth Theatre this summer. We will take part in an intensive two week residential programme in London with fellow drama students. Over 4,600 young people applied from across the UK, 500 were chosen to join the NYT this summer, including 5 students selected from the auditions held in February in Belfast. We will be following in the footsteps of Helen Mirren, Orlando Bloom, Daniel Craig, Catherine Tate, Kenneth Branagh to name just a few! The course will take place at the Rose Bruford College of performing arts. We are now working hard to raise the funds for the trip, but it is making the never-ending GCSE revision that little bit more bearable knowing that we will have the summer experience of a lifetime.”

Congratulations to Michael Robson and Connor Roberts of Year 13 and Matthew Allister of Year 14 who were selected for the Ireland U18 Hockey Squad which competed in the recent U21 Inter-provincial Championship. Incidentally, the Ulster U21 team was captained by former pupil, Peter Purcell.

Year 8 Pupils meet Princess Anne Most of you probably think that science is just an ordinary subject but wait till you hear this!  On Wednesday 7 March 2012 half of my class 8D and half of 8C met Her Royal Highness Princess Anne and just in case some of you don’t know how high up in the Royals she is, she’s the Queen’s daughter! We were told about two weeks before this great expedition that we were going to be taking part in a project, this project was called project 500!  At first most of us thought it would be just like any other project, an endless list of questions to answer and a nightmare test at the end but actually this project turned out to be quite different! We started off by separating into groups of boys and girls, then we drew numbers from a hat to find out what activity we were doing like making posters or searching the net. Then we got to work! On the big day after school we were all told to leave our mobile phones in the classroom but no-one really took any notice until later on!  When we arrived at Holywood Library we had to go through a security check which was thrilling!  We then sat down to get ready for science show with an amazing host scientific Sue!  Priory Integrated College were also there. Once the show was over we were told to get ready for the special guest, to tidy our uniforms up and that we should call her your Royal Highness the first time we spoke to her and if there was a second, Maam!  At this point we were all slightly worried about who this special guest was!  Priory already knew who the guest was but Sullivan had no clue which made it even more exciting if you ask me! Then Princess Anne entered and walked around all the tables to talk to us about the project we had been working on.  There was also a lot of tall people there with extremely tall cameras!  It was really scary but exciting at the same time. Once she had finished looking at our projects she stood to the side and watched the end of Scientific Sue’s show with us!  It was amazing meeting one of the Royals because I had never met one before!  When I got home I turned on the news to find a video clip of myself speaking to Princess Anne!  It was a very interesting day and I had a lot to tell my parents when I got home! By Beatrice Campbell, Year 8

Sullivan Junior Singers will be performing at Barnardo’s Spring into Song Concert. Barnardo’s Spring into Song Concert at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast on Thursday, 29 March 2012  at 7.30 pm contact telehone number 028 90674463 Admission £10

“The Great Debate” is a biennial debating competition organised by the Historical Association. This year, there were 24 heats across the UK and Ireland, with the winner of each heat going on to compete in the final at Merton College, Oxford. The topic for debate this year was “Why does history matter to you?”, which prompted a range of responses encompassing topics as diverse as the Brixton riots, the ancient goddess Ashera, Anne Boleyn and the Dutch Hunger Winter. After a competitive heat at the Drama Theatre in Sullivan, in which any of the competitiors could have be called a worthy winner, I was chosen to represent Belfast at the final in Oxford.  After an interesting and educational day of debate, I had the honour of being named runner-up. Sullivan already has a great reputation in this debate, having produced the 2010 winner and I was pleased to be able to keep up the school’s reputation in the field. The Great Debate is a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested in history and I would encourage other pupils in the future to get involved. Report on the HA website: http://www.history.org.uk/news/news_1457.html Link to Reuben: http://www.history.org.uk/resources/general_resource_3002_89.html Link to Jill: http://www.history.org.uk/resources/general_resource_5320.html

Sullivan Upper 24 v BRA 12 Congratulations to the team on winning the Northern Bank Schools’ Bowl Final against BRA on 8 March 2012.

Congratulations to Jill Luke who was runner-up in the UK final of the Historical Association’s Debating competition, held last weekend (11 March 2012) in Oxford.

Congratulations to Christopher Cree (10P) who won the Ulster Spring Provincial Tennis Matchplays and will now go on to represent Ulster in the National Spring Matchplays in Cobh, Cork from 23-25 March 2012.

ullivan Upper Physics Department Invade Europe (Well visit CERN!) The purpose of the trip was to visit the world renowned particle accelerator institute of Cern in Geneva. This was our inaugural visit which was largely organized by another member of the Physics Department Mrs C McCarey. Well the flight was fairly uneventful and just after 1pm local time we arrived in Geneva. There are many things you can say about the Swiss, but we were mightily impressed with the transport system so in no time at all we were walking through the sunny streets of Geneva following directions to the Youth Hostel. The youth hostel was clean and well run so after checking in we headed for th The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the old part of the town, museums, street cafes for coffee and a pastry, cathedrals, more coffee houses, I sure you get the picture. The group met up again at 7pm and everyone was in high spirits exchanging stories of what they had done with their free time. The walk back to the hostel, once again was by the shore of Lake Geneva, was very pleasurable if a little cooler than in the afternoon. We sampled the delights of dinner in the youth hostel followed by a couple of hours of card games before we retired for the night. After breakfast we headed into town to catch the train to CERN, the train was scheduled to leave the platform at 9.42am and at 9.42 that is just what it did. The sun was shining brightly as we arrived at CERN, it had been shining all morning, so we reported to reception and were given just over an hour to visit the Microcosm e Our official tour started with a lecture by a recently retired researcher who gave use a very good talk on the background to the establishing of CERN, the work they are currently engaged in, and what the future may hold. We then did the short walk to the Atlas (one of the four detector sites on the large Hadron collider) control room. The detection system was explained in detail. The next part of the tour took us across the border into France where the complexity of build the LHC was explained and why one small leak in the coolant system took 13 months to fix and cost 30 million euros. It was a very enjoyable trip and I am very pleased and proud of the 17 pupils who were excellently behaved and very good company. Roll on next year. P Whittington

Rapid Response Engineering Challenge The three of us went to form base, first thing on Monday the 27 March 2012 then made our way to the Upper Floor of the Silver Robin. To kick off the Challenge we were introduced to the Civil Engineers and we got spilt into 7 teams of 5 or 6. For the first couple of hours we did some work which was fun, like creating your own campsite for people to live after a disaster. We then got to learn what a civil engineer does and how they help us. After break each team was given 12 marshmallows and 12 pieces of raw spaghetti. We were told NOT to eat them yet, though I can tell you that it was very tempting, and that we had to build a strong tower which could hold a small toy car with no more than what we had. Each teams got to work and with many trial and errors each team was finished all with sticky hands and fingers. The Engineers got out the toy car, and every one gathered around every tower, guessing if it would break and fall or stay up right. Most fell down but one team of girls made a small ramp last minute. Their team won the prize for the toy car being on their “tower” the longest but they defiantly didn’t win for their tower being the tallest. After lunch we were brought out to the Rose Garden and the groups split in half. Half of them were told to make a water proof tent while the half my team was in, had to make a pipe line that wasn’t to go over some things like mountains or swamps. We sent to work. After many times holding up the pipes, stealing more masking tape from the other teams and falling bamboo sticks we were finished. We called over Frasier, the leader who was making sure we went right and he got out the timer. Chloe and I lifted up the 10 litre bottle of water and poured it down the pipe-line. Most of it flowed into the bucket though some did splash out and we did it in good time. The teams got into their tents and waited. Richard grabbed a bucket of water and soaked the tent. Most people in the tents got wet but there were a few exceptions. We then switched over activities and we made the tent. When it was our turn and we didn’t get wet which was good as the buckets of water were all filled to the brim. We then went back inside of the Silver Robin and they asked us, if any of us wanted to be a Civil Engineer when we get older. A number of hands went up, including mine. Being a Civil Engineer sounds like a brilliant and fun job to do. I would really recommend the workshop for any Year 8’s wanting to do it next year. And the best bit of it…. You get the whole day off!! Emma Quinn 9s

On Sunday 11 March 2012, Conor Brown, Sophie Tapper, Brooke Burnside, Rebecca Allen, Mrs Sinead McKeown, Craig Noteman and Niall Fearon completed a sponsored abseil off the top of the Europa Hotel, Belfast.  The money raised from this and other fundraising events throughout the school year will fund their trip to India in July 2012 where they will be working for Saphara in schools in marginalised communities.