Month: July 2019

This week, three Christ the King sixth form students have been awarded a scholarship from Private capital fund management firm, Metric Capital worth £15,000 each.

Each successful student was carefully selected according to their academic performance and formal interview process.  Christ the King students Veronica Marafini, who hopes to study Translation and Interpreting with Modern Languages at the University of East Anglia, Kafilat Alogba who hopes to study Law and Sociology at the University of Warwick and Chanin Peart who hopes to study Business Management at the University of Westminster, all successfully received a scholarship worth £15,000 over the course of their University degree.

The Metric Capital scholarship programme with Christ the King is in its eighth year and to date has awarded £300,000 in scholarships to hardworking, ambitious Christ the King students.  Metric Capital, worked in conjunction with Our Turn Global, a charitable organisation that uses social media to raise awareness about initiatives that have a positive impact on society to award the scholarship.

The scheme is led by Metric Capital’s Managing Partner, John Sinik.  John was first introduced to Christ the King by one of his mentees, and he was inspired to create the Metric Scholarship Programme after meeting high performing, aspirational students at Christ the King, who dreamt of going on to University, but couldn’t afford it.

Metric Capital Managing Partner John Sinik says:  “Tuition fees are only a part of the expense of going to University. There are living expenses that can be overwhelming for people and ultimately drive their decision not to go.  The scholarship plays a key role in allowing the students to pursue their dream of obtaining a University degree”.

Collegiate Principal Shireen Razey says:  “We are delighted to continue working in partnership with Metric Capital with this fantastic venture. We are so proud of our hardworking students at Christ the King and it is a great opportunity to support them in their university aspirations.”

This month, we held the Christ the King Evening of Celebration at CTK St Mary’s. Our annual Evening of Celebration provides our students with the opportunity to reflect on the friendships, knowledge and skills that they have developed whilst studying at Christ the King. The event allows us to honour all their hard work and academic and extra-curricular achievements.

There were a variety of keynote speakers at the 2019 Evening of Celebration. Christ the King: St Mary’s were pleased to welcome alumnus Ren Balogun who offered her congratulations to the 2019 leavers on their dedication and hard work and reflected positively on her own experiences as a Christ the King student. After completing her studies at Christ the King, she went on to study Sociology at the University of Bath, where she worked assiduously in order to achieve her BSc Hons qualification. Ren now works as a Business Development Manager at the youth employability organisation: Circle Collective.

Former CTK St Mary’s student Trevor Gomes spoke with great eloquence about how his time at Christ the King gave him the strong academic foundation he needed to excel in his career. Trevor went on to achieve a First Class honours degree in Business Management at the University Of Westminster Business School and was awarded by the Dean as the highest achiever on his course. He currently works for BT as a Business Analyst and has recently been appointed as part of a team to lead the next stage of BT’s consumer brand EE’s 5G transformation.

It was a great privilege to have all our guest speakers join us in celebrating the achievements of our students and Christ the King would like to extend its sincere thanks to them all for taking time out of their busy schedules to honour the occasion. The College would also like to commend all of the 2019 leavers on their tenacity and hard work and looks forward to welcoming them back on results day in August 2019. 

A group of students from Sidcup have scooped the runner-up prize in a major business challenge.

The students from Christ the King Sixth Forms took part in the London Metropolitan University’s annual Big Idea Challenge for schools and colleges. The competition aims to raise entrepreneurial interest in teenagers across London, encouraging and supporting them to treat it as a career path. 

At the awards ceremony, held at the Royal Institution, Ayodeji Adebiyi, Lucky Aragua, Joseph Kwaw, Aliy Salako, Kimarnie Bell and Daniel Komon succeeded with their idea called Enough Is Enough. This is a youth centre that focuses on careers advice and work experience to tackle the rising rates of knife crime throughout London, as well as engaging young people in sports and music. “Our goal is to make a youth club to get youth off the street, to prevent violent and knife-related crimes,” said Aily Salako. “The next step in taking our business forward is to look for investors, and also thinking of ways we can improve our idea. We also don’t have a website or a way for people to contact us, so that is a priority to take our idea to the next level.”

The Big Idea Challenge for schools and colleges runs alongside the London Metropolitan University’s annual Big Idea Challenge, which invites students, alumni and staff to enter their idea and win a shared prize pool of £30,000 to launch their winning idea. Previous winners have gone on to launch businesses which have created hundreds of jobs and millions of pounds profit.

Toby Kress, head of the Accelerator hub at London Met, which helps start-ups, said: “This year’s Big Idea Challenge was bigger and better than ever before. “I was seriously impressed with the ideas entered this year. At London Met, we have such a diverse community and the array of ideas produced really showed me that our students and staff really can make a difference.

“At Accelerator, we put our all into supporting the winning ideas, and I am excited to see how these ideas develop next.”

Over 800 students from the three Christ the King sites in South East London took part in supporting their local communities, across London.

 Students took part in activities such as helping feed the homeless at Brixton soup kitchen and taking part in the pay it forward initiative, helping to support the homeless at Second Shot Coffee in Bethnal Green. Students from Christ the King St Mary’s in Sidcup, Aquinas in Brockley and Emmanuel in Lewisham, gave their time to help out at foodbanks in Greenwich, Eltham and Lewisham and visited a care home in Deptford to take part in activities with the residents. Students also worked in ‘The Charity Shop’ in Sidcup, which raises funds for the Canterbury Oast Trust, which supports people with learning disabilities in education and work.

The Christ the King motto is ‘Ut Vitam Habeant’ which means ‘that they may have life’ and every student in encouraged to develop as a whole person and to be actively involved in both the college and in their local community.

This year students have taken part in a number of charity events. They have donated goods and volunteered time at local food banks, taken part in sponsored walks to raise money for Second Shot coffee. At Christmas, Christ the King students created Christmas boxes, filling them with goods to donate to the Samaritan’s ‘Operation Christmas Child’ appeal’.  At Easter, students created Easter baskets, filled with treats and messages of hope for the children of local Delmelza hospice, and refugee children, who have no access to benefits, through the Revive charity.

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Although the initiative is called Acts of Charity, it is not only about charity work.  Christ the King students also actively get involved in community work.  Christ the King students have taken part in litter collections in local parks, worked in care homes and primary schools and got involved in recruiting new shops to join Lewisham’s water bottle refilling scheme, which allows people to refill plastic water bottles on their premises to reduce plastic waste. Co-Collegiate Principal Rob McAuliffe said “At Christ the King we aim for all of our students to develop into young people that will go on to make a positive contribution to society, and the charity and community work, is an important part of this.  Helping the local community helps our students to make a positive contribution to their area they live and study in.  Students find getting involved in the activities really rewarding, as well as building confidence, team building and leadership skills, which they will use to help them as they progress onto University or employment”.