College News

The funeral of Fr Brendan McGuinness SDB will take place on Tuesday, April 12 at 11.30am in the main hall of Salesian College, 119 Reading Road, Farnborough GU14 6PA. Parking will be available in the College playground. The coffin will be brought into the hall at the beginning of Mass.

The burial will take place immediately after Mass at Ship Lane Cemetery, Farnborough GU14 8BH. A light buffet will be available in the College Refectory on return from the cemetery. 

Today, all Year 12 students visited the UCAS Exhibition in Farnborough, finding out more about higher education, apprenticeships and more. It was a positive experience, encouraging personal statement preparation and exploration prior to Open Days.

Year 7 football at Salesian College has been excellent this season with 3 teams playing 33 games already this season.

The Year 7A squad have had a league season to remember in the Aldershot & Farnborough league winning all 7 games to become District Champions. The boys took all 21 points on offer scoring 47 goals and ending with a plus 35 goal difference. Lead striker Adrian has scored hat tricks in 6 of the 7 games and has had a super talented squad behind him creating multiple chances.

Well done boys!

Salesian College Farnborough students and the wider community have been continuing their great work and commitment to helping those less fortunate. Recently their focus has been to helping young people in Zambia!  The whole college community have come together, collected, and donated numerous boxes of sport kit, shoes, shirts, and uniforms to send out to projects the college supports in Zambia.  We are very fortunate to have such a fantastic community who realise the need to support the values of the college and assist some of the most vulnerable in our world. The efforts of the community have been incredible resulting in a vast array of items being donated!

A special thanks to Mr Garth Matthews and his company Land and Marine Products LTD for arranging and covering all the expenses to transport the products to Zambia.  Furthermore, we are very grateful to Surridge Sport and Danny Vilia, the UK Sales Director for their support in donating over £5K of brand new Salesian attire to send over to the community we are supporting in Zambia.  The College's PTA team have also worked tirelessly to collate and package all the boxes, a real team effort! 

Mr Vilia of Surridge commented “At Surridge Sport we like to work with our school partners in a variety of ways and not just solely as a kit supplier.  Helping charities is at the core of our business and whilst assisting transition within schools when changing suppliers, we also look at options whereby we can utilise the outgoing stock.  In this instance we provided a vast range of kit to a chosen community in Zambia of which we take immense pride in being able to help in partnership with Salesian College.”

Furthermore, Mr Garth Matthews of Land and Marine commented “As a marine safety equipment manufacturer Land & Marine generally focus our support on projects involving volunteer marine rescue agencies. The lockdown period has made it difficult for us to support these projects, so we welcomed the opportunity to diversify a little this year and get behind such a worthy cause. Thanks to all involved for helping to make this happen.” 

The College would like to thank North Farnborough Infant School headteacher Abi Morgan and English Lead Chris Holden for their very generous donation of Oxford Reading Tree books. They said they hope the students in Zambia enjoy reading the Magic Key adventures as much as their students have.

Mr Maher, Head of Sixth Form at the College, commented ‘‘…the PTA led by Betina with the support of the PE department have done an amazing job in making a shipment of clothes, footwear and even glasses ready to send to the Salesian communities in Zambia. The shipment will arrive at the Salesian City of Hope in Lusaka and will then move to Salesian communities in more remote regions. Access to uniform can prevent access to school and a lack of football or netball wear makes team sport difficult. You have made school and the playground happen, central Salesian themes and a great Salesian team effort!’’ 

It is hoped that boys and girls in Zambia will have the products in the coming weeks and can enjoy the many items that will be in the multiple packages on delivery! 

None of this would have been possible without the great co-ordination of the College PTA with Mrs Betina McEvoy leading the way. She commented ‘When the new PE kit was introduced the PTA decided to have a big clear out in the Second Hand Uniform Shop. As we could not take branded uniform items to the local charity shops, we decided to investigate shipping it all out to the preschool, school, and orphanage the College supports in Zambia.

Families of all students at Salesian were asked for donations of PE kit, school uniform, clothes, shoes, and glasses. The college was inundated with offers of donations, of money towards shipping and of offers to help sort and pack donations. Once again, the Salesian families were incredibly generous shown in both the quality and quantity of the donations provided resulting in far more donations than anticipated. Such generosity extended to a local Infant school who donated some of their books and to people from local communities.

In addition, the college was contacted by a parent who offered to arrange and pay for all donations provided to be shipped out; an incredibly generous and charitable act considering that we had no idea of the volume of donations that we would have. 

As this project grew and grew, so did our excitement and astonishment at the generosity of so many on our college community. Because of their efforts, the Salesian community will have touched the hearts and lives of so many young people living in some of the most impoverished parts of the world. These efforts have given real hope to the children at the City of Hope and have helped to ensure that the college commitment of loving kindness as a key Salesian value is evidenced in their considerable generosity in providing so many items which will be appreciated by so many young people. 

Friday 3 December saw the College's first Performing Arts Evening for two years. It was a wonderful night full of comedy sketches, monologues, drum and guitar solos and the College band - whose name (Birth of a Penguin) led to great hilarity. We also had a surprise last minute addition in the Sandhurst and District Corp of Drums. Our Sixth Form Comperes did a fabulous job guiding the audience through the entertainment. The staff, students and parents had a really enjoyable night. We are already looking forward to next year!