Congratulations to all those who took part in the Ulster Cross Country Championships at Mallusk.         Jemma Speers finished in the top 20 in the Intermediate Girls competition         Jonathan Brattle came 6th in the Minor Boys and qualifies for the Irish Finals. The Intermediate Boys won their team event qualifying for the Irish Finals, with Conall Kirk, 3rd and Harry Speers, 14th. Inter Boys Team  Conall Kirk Harry Speers Roger Dawson Stefan Losty Alasdair Knox Charlie Quinn Chris McClure Martin Francis

On Friday 10 February 2012, forty Sullivan pupils all met at Spafield car park bright and early in the morning.  We had been counting the days and finally it was time to head off on our History/German trip to Berlin for five days.  There was great excitement and lots of chat onboard the bus en route to Dublin Airport.  The flight lasted about three hours and we were picked up by NST Travel and taken to our hotel.  The first thing that hit us was the freezing weather!!  We settled into our rooms, explored the hotel and after dinner which the hotel provided we were soon out on our travels to the Reichstag (German Government Buildings).  We needed to wrap up extremely warm for the -13 degrees temperature outside.  We took the Underground train and then walked past many sights of Berlin, including the Brandenburg Gate.  After a long day travelling we arrived back at the hotel to defrost over a mug of hot chocolate and game of cards and soon after headed to bed. The next morning, we were all up early for breakfast at 8 am and headed off on a guided coach tour of Berlin. We past many of the sites we had seen the previous evening and hopped off at the Brandenburg gate for photos of this former city gate and one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany.  Our tour guide then left us on the coach as we were headed to Sachsenhausen Holocaust Memorial and former Concentration Camp.  This part of the trip was something I was not particularly looking forward to seeing but felt it was a must see insight into the fate of many of World War II victims.  There was an eerie silence throughout the huge camp and as we toured around with audio guides, I kept thinking back to the book we studied in second year, “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”.  The three hours we spent in this camp really brought home the horrors of the Nazi ideas and we were all moved by this all too real experience.  When we arrived back in Berlin we took a guided tour of the Gedachtniskirche Memorial Church.  This church is a striking building with it’s bombed out tower and it stands as a reminder of the 2nd World War.  Our tour guide Philip was extremely funny and had us all in fits of laughter.  We had a relaxing evening out at Café el Gelato where we had a chat over some large delicious ice-cream sundaes.  Exhausted after such a long and cold day, lights out seemed like a good idea at 11 pm. With another early morning start on Sunday, we knew the time was flying by and we only had a couple of days left.  After a good breakfast at the hotel we made our way on the train to the large station, Potsdamer Platz.  From here we walked along the Berlin Wall and stopped at Checkpoint Charlie for some photographs with the German soldier.  Further along the wall we reached our destination at the Jewish Museum.  Inside the Museum there were many memorial rooms all of which were symbolic to the holocaust.  We were given a few hours to wander around the exhibitions.  After a fast food lunch we went to see the Olympic Stadium which held the 1936 Olympic Games under Hitler’s regime.  This Stadium is massive, steeped in history and is still in use today.  In the VIP box we sat in the seats where Hitler would have watched the games. As the temperature had dropped more layers were put on for our evening activity of ten pin bowling.  Unfortunately I was not the winner, but my bowling skills provided some entertainment and lots of laughs. On Monday morning, we made our way to see the Berlin Bunkers, an underground world in which the German citizens lived during the air raids from the allies.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photographs in the bunkers.  That afternoon we visited the large department store, KaDeWe which is a large store similar to Harrods.  We then had some free time to explore the shops around Kurfurstendamn where the girls had some retail therapy judging by the number of shopping bags everyone was carrying. On our last evening we headed to Wonderpots Frozen Yogurt Café where we played Jenga, ate frozen yogurt and chatted about how sad it was that our trip was nearly over. The next morning we headed to the souvenir shops for those all important presents and a last few group photographs in the large Square at Alexander Platz before heading to Berlin Airport.  We touched down in Dublin Airport at teatime and headed home for Holywood.  As the coach pulled into Spafield we were all sad that our trip was over as we had all got along so well and really enjoyed spending five days in Berlin together. Berlin is a very interesting and moving place to visit.  It was a fantastic trip which I’m sure none of us will forget and we owe a massive thank you to all the teachers who came with us Mrs Black, Miss Connolly, Mr Ballantine, Mr Thom and especially Miss Orr for the time and effort they put in for organising such a fantastic trip.  We hope they enjoyed the trip just as much as we all did. Stephanie Craig  Year 12

In the Irish Schools Championships held on 12 February 2012, several Sullivan Upper swimmers travelled to Dublin to compete in the Irish Schools Championships held in the Aer Lingus pool In the Intermediates, James Doggart  finished a credible 5th in both the 100m backstroke and 200m. In the Senior events, Harry Speers  got a bronze in the 200m butterfly whilst the Sullivan Upper Relay (James Doggart, Roger Dawson, Harry Speers and Jordan Sloan) were Irish Senior School Champions in the medley relay and won silver in the freestyle relay. Congratulations to all the swimmers on this most recent success.

NORTH DOWN CROSS COUNTRY RESULTS 2012 The following individuals qualified for the Ulster cross country Competition: Niamh Murphy – Senior Girls and Jemma Speers – Inter Girls FOUR TEAMS QUALIFIED FOR THE ULSTERS: INTER BOYS: Came 1st with Conall winning and Harry and Roger coming 4th and 5th. Conall Kirk, Roger Dawson, Harry Speers, Stefan Losty, Alasdair Knox, Charlie Quinn, Mark Francis, Chris McClure JUNIOR GIRLS: Came 1st with Anna 5th and Sasha 8th. Anna Gregg, Sara Smyth, Sasha Cleere, Sarah Storeng, Ali Adams, Karis Fitch MINOR GIRLS (Yr8) CAME 2nd: Rachel Smyth, Alice Burton, Orla Hayes, Janet Cunningham, Laura McCaw, Nia McNally MINOR BOYS (YR9) CAME 2nd: Stewart McCaw, Jacob Robinson, Peter Speers, Jonny Brattle, Jules Storey, Stephen Hodgson

5 Sullivan pupils have been given conditional offers for Cambridge or Oxford Colleges: Wilson Hill, Tom McClelland, Adam Leach, Kirsten Beggs and Jill Luke

On 15 January 2012 Eva Clarke, a holocaust survivor was met by all of the year 10 pupils eager to hear her story. This is her fourth visit to Sullivan and she has spoken of her ordeal on many occasions so Eva has already developed excellent story telling skills. We hung on her every word in absolute silence as the story of her and her family’s experience of the holocaust unfolded, accompanied by a slide show that added to the atmosphere. We were fascinated to hear about the horrors of the concentration camps; Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Terezin. Each camp was a different experience and a different example of how cruel the Nazis were. Everyone was in awe of the strength, determination and will-power of Eva and Eva’s mother, Anka to survive their experience. After the tale, Eva took questions and gave detailed answers on many aspects of her story. Eva helped us understand this part of history from her first hand account, better than we could have ever done from secondary sources.  I think she helped us to realize that 5,933,900 dead is not just a statistic but a mass extermination of individuals. Thanks to Eva and the history teachers who made today possible. William Preston Year 10

Guest Speaker- Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Niall O’Donnghaile The Lord Mayor came along with a BBC documentary crew, who are currently following him. They filmed the proceedings of the meeting, some of which may appear in the final documentary when it airs in September 2012. The Lord Mayor gave a short statement in which he briefly outlined his year as Lord Mayor. He then gave his feelings on how 2012 would be for the city of Belfast. He then took questions on a wide variety of topics; Q- Does he feel the Irish Language has been overly politicised, does he feel Sinn Fein have any part to play in this? A- The Lord Mayor felt the language was politicised whenever it was denied equal status. He felt the language would play an important part of our shared future, as it has been our shared past. Q-Will Sinn Fein release any documents that would implicate them as, “murderers” during investigations in the past? A- The Lord Mayor felt it would be difficult to predict. He asked if any government would release information that did so. Q- Has being young been a help or a hindrance in the role of Lord Mayor? A- The Lord Mayor felt that Sinn Fein choosing a young Lord Mayor was a proactive and symbolic use of the office, as it recognised the role of young people in the city. Q- Is being Lord Mayor of a divided City a positive experience? A- The Lord Mayor said his short answer was that he didn’t know. He felt that the unionism/nationalism divide is not, and need not be, a negative thing as both are positive and totally legitimate political views. Q- What is your opinion on the dissolving of the Department of Employment and Learning? A- The Lord Mayor felt there was too much bureaucracy at Stormont and that DEL didn’t need to exist as a separate department. Q-Is it hard to be Lord Mayor as a member of a hard-line party? A- The Lord Mayor felt it could be a challenge, and stated that he had been challenged both personally and politically. However the Lord Mayor felt these challenges were a good thing. James McNaney Year 13

Guest Speaker: Naomi Long MP, Deputy Leader of the Alliance Party Mrs Long spoke to the society about how she entered Politics. She spoke at length on how she became a member of the Allianceparty and how she progressed from local counsellor to a (unexpected) Lord Mayor, to a MLA and finally to win the East Belfast Westminster seat. A constant theme was the importance of redress of constituent’s grievances and how engaging with constituents encouraged her to get more and more involved in politics. Mrs Long then took questions on a variety of topics, such as; Voting reform, her opinions an AV; Mrs Long replied she had supported AV as she felt it was more proportional, however she felt a system more similar to the PR:STV used in NI would’ve been preferable. How she felt about the 2015 election in East Belfast, her campaigning strategy; Mrs Long replied that she felt very concern over the next election; she was more focused upon the work she could achieve now. She felt, however, that the election inEast Belfast would be a close one. What she felt should be reformed and modernised with the House of Commons.; Mrs Long replied she felt the House of Commons had a number of archaic rules and regulations with regards to who is allowed into what parts of the parliament buildings. She felt these structures were remnants of a strict class system and not relevant in the 21st Century. Jame McNaney

Congratulations to the following 9 pupils on their success at the Northern Ireland Schools Trampolining Championship and who now go on to compete in the Regional Finals in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in January 2012. U15 Girls Team (All Year 10 pupils) – Ali Adams, Sarah Storeng, Katie Fisher, Nadia Kyle – the team came 1st in the team entry. U19 Girls Team (All Year 13 pupils) – Hannah Fisher, Alice McNaney, Emily Johnson, Hayley Gibson – the team came 1st in the team entry. The following pupils qualified individually in their section: Ali Adams – placed 3rd in U15 girls Peter Lyn – placed 2nd in U19 mens Hannah Fisher – placed 1st in U19 girls Sullivan Upper also won the Shield for the most successful entries in the Competition.

On Friday the 16 December 2011 , the Politics Society welcomed Baroness O’Loan as part of the “Peers in Schools” Programme. Her visit came at a great time for the politics students, having just covered the topic of Parliament, it was fantastic to have Baroness O’Loan to talk to us about the House of Lords in greater depth. Baroness O’Loan began by explaining to us a “day in the life” of a peer. She also explained in depth how committee in the House of Lords work and that she is a member of two sub-committees. She explained that she actually applied to be a member of the House of Lords. Baroness O’Loan then kindly agreed to answer a few questions from our members, from which we learnt a lot. It was interesting to find out that as a peer herself she sees the future of reform in the House of Lords as needing a process of retirement or time out for people who are ill and she does not think it would be a good idea for the House of Lords to be elected. With that, our meeting was concluded, and I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Baroness O’Loan for coming and for everyone who attended. Savannah Thompson  (Secretary of Politics Society)

Congratulations to Matthew Miller and Tom Smyth (9W) who were close runners up in a UK nation-wide competition ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2’.  This was a great achievement as the competition received thousands of entries. They forwarded a joint entry in digital format (using ‘Pivot’) based on their most embarrassing moments.  They put much time and thought into their entry and received a goodie bag of merchandise worth approximately £100.For more information on this achievement visit the website: www.filmeducation.org and click on ‘competitions’ link.

Congratulations to the following pupils who will attend an Ulster Schools Rugby training camp at UUC on 20 and 21 December 2011. U17 Squad Chris Griffiths, Ross Todd, Michael Cartmill, Josh Davidson, David Cave and Scott Finlay U16 Squad Mark Adair, Fergus Jemphrey, Peter Cooper, Angus Macartney, Zach Bertenshaw, James Houston, Max Clarke, Jonathan Bryans and Ryan Spence.