{"id":25377,"date":"2006-12-13T22:29:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-13T22:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdon.blog\/Abingdon2006\/2006\/12\/13\/st-helens-and-st-katherines\/"},"modified":"2006-12-13T22:29:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-13T22:29:00","slug":"st-helens-and-st-katherines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=25377","title":{"rendered":"St Helens and St Katherines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYCQTQb0IfI\/AAAAAAAAAPA\/4cTSrYcw4Pk\/s1600-h\/shsk.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:center; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;\" src=\"http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYCQTQb0IfI\/AAAAAAAAAPA\/4cTSrYcw4Pk\/s320\/shsk.gif\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5008161446139535858\" \/><\/a><br \/>The wheel and cross were joined in the ancient celtic cross, and more recently, in Abingdon, they were brought together when two schools merged.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bp1.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYBlIwb0IYI\/AAAAAAAAANs\/utegQMFpIk0\/s1600-h\/sthelstkat01.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/bp1.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYBlIwb0IYI\/AAAAAAAAANs\/utegQMFpIk0\/s320\/sthelstkat01.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5008113986750914946\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>St Katherine School from Wantage (wheel) and St Helen School from Abingdon (cross) merged in 1938 to form St Helen &#038; St Katherine School.<\/p>\n<p>The first pupils moved into the current school building  (the one-time St Helen School) in 1906, 100 years ago. St Katherine&#8217;s started a little earlier. Both were initially taught by nuns and gave the girls a fairly strict religious education, in keeping with the times.<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYBlJAb0IbI\/AAAAAAAAAOE\/qqgX5t-yEtw\/s1600-h\/sthelstkat04.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYBlJAb0IbI\/AAAAAAAAAOE\/qqgX5t-yEtw\/s320\/sthelstkat04.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5008113991045882290\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>There is a recently redesigned drive across the front of the school. At one end of the entrance is the Chapel of the Holy Cross from the 1920s. The Holy Cross is a reference to St Helen finding a relic of the Holy Cross. Inside I believe there is a statue of St Katherine.<\/p>\n<p>The School hymn &#8220;St Katherine&#8217;s hymn&#8221; is about the life of the saint who gave her name to a firework (the Katherine Wheel). The final verse brings the saints together&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Martyr Katherine, Empress Helen,<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Called in different ways to share<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Faith and hope and love that ventures<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">All to give and all to dare&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYBlJAb0IaI\/AAAAAAAAAN8\/YXkepQ-gGEg\/s1600-h\/sthelstkat03.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_9voh_13xCGQ\/RYBlJAb0IaI\/AAAAAAAAAN8\/YXkepQ-gGEg\/s320\/sthelstkat03.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5008113991045882274\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>More modern buildings have been added including science laboratories, a modern language block, a Performing Arts Centre, an exhibition gallery and two sports halls. And any differences of tradition forgotten as this has become  a school which according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shsk.org.uk\/\">school website<\/a> has: &#8216;<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">an excellent academic record, being placed in the Premier League by the <\/span><em style=\"font-style: italic;\">Daily Telegraph<\/em><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"> for both its 2005 GCSE and A-level results.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The wheel and cross were joined in the ancient celtic cross, and more recently, in Abingdon, they were brought together when two schools merged. St Katherine School from Wantage (wheel) and St Helen School from Abingdon (cross) merged in 1938 to form St Helen &#038; St Katherine School. The first pupils moved into the current [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}