Sunday 20th October 2019 – Day 1

The Gold Care Award trip 2019 had started! 

Everyone gathered at the train station at 1:00pm, excited to begin the journey. We boarded our train at 1:30pm and we were off on our way to Stafford (the first stop), which was  where we had a bite to eat. Soon we were on our second train to Liverpool! As soon as we arrived, we took a calm walk through the city centre towards our accommodation. After we sorted out rooms we set off to start out sightseeing adventures. 

First, we took a walk to one of the cathedrals. Although it was rather windy and cold, the experience was still great. The design of the cathedral was quite historic and it had some interesting features like the organ and there were also many more. Next we went to the Catholic Cathedral where we noticed a different style of architecture. This one was round, bright and extremely modern compared to the Anglican Cathedral. When we went inside, we saw how different it was in layout as well as atmosphere. 

After this we walked around Liverpool to find something to eat. We then ventured around Liverpool to where the Beatles started off but quickly had to leave due to the time of night. We returned to the Hostel and Mr Harris took a group of students onto the ferris wheel and we had an amazing view of the night sky. Then we went back to the hostel and got ready for bed, however, not without a few games of cards!

Monday 21st October 2019 – Day 2 

The day began at 7:45 when we all woke up and prepared ourselves for the second day in Liverpool. Everyone met in the cafeteria, where we all had a delicious breakfast whilst playing cards. We brought down our bags and grabbed our lunch. By 10:00 we were on our way to explore the first museum! 

First, we travelled on foot to the Slavery Museum. As soon as we arrived, everyone parted ways to go take a look around. There were numerous floors dedicated to a range of different sections, for example the Titanic and Slavery. We saw many different things, from life size human figures to video clips. In my opinion, the video about the Titanic was the most interesting because it showed us the whole journey, right up to it’s tragic end.   Furthermore, there were fact phones dotted around where you could listen to someone talking about their point of view at certain points in history. Once we had all looked around, we met back at the entrance and went out to the docks. There were many shops and cafés! Once again, we all split up and did some shopping. The sweet shop caught our eyes first! After venturing around, everyone met up at the tables and shared lunch together that we had packed earlier on in the day. 

Afterwards, we started walking to the Museum of Liverpool. Again, we explored and took in the facts about the history of Liverpool. There was an amazing life size train on the second floor, which we could sit in and see the view looking down at the ground floor. This was my favourite museum because of the unusual and creative layout of the place. In addition to that, there was even a karaoke booth where you could sing along to the Beatles songs. The Beatles of course were loved and appreciated, especially by the residents of Liverpool as that was where the famous group originated and performed many of their songs. You could learn about John Lennon, his wife and their history together. I think it’s most definitely worth a trip there because it was so cool to learn all this stuff through a physical walkthrough, which not everyone would get the opportunity to experience.  

After a long day of walking about and enhancing our knowledge of British and Liverpudlian history, we came back to our accommodation and grabbed our bags. Everyone had a final group chat about our experience and showed our gratitude to the members of staff who made us feel so welcome before  we began our journey back to Wolverhampton. We took our final walk through the city centre and hopped on our train. In no time we were finally back home!

Liverpool Cathedral

“It was a pleasure to lead this trip for the Gold Care Award winners in recognition of their huge contribution to the academy and I hope they enjoyed their time exploring one of our most culturally significant cities” – Mr Harris.

By Ashpriya & Charlotte 

Year 10

On Monday 11 November St Edmund’s Catholic Academy held a Remembrance Assembly to honour the service and sacrifice of our Armed Forces community, the British and Commonwealth veterans, the Allies that fought alongside us and the civilian servicemen and women involved in the two World Wars and later conflicts.

Mrs Hazeldine, Principal, said, ” Today we remember all the people who have died in wars, not just World War One, and together we commemorate the signing of the Armistice”.

On Friday 11th October twenty Year 8 students went to Olive Grove Pub in Hednesford and had a French restaurant experience ran by JLH Languages.

Students spoke only in French for the duration of the three course meal and had to order all of their food and drink in French. Students also had puzzles to solve and games to play whilst there. Everyone ordered and ate a three course meal sat at a traditional dining table. Some of the food included soup as starter, roast chicken or vegetable lasagne for main and a warm french crepe or creme caramel as dessert.

All students had a wonderful time and enjoyed practising their French in a real life situation. Marcel  said, “I enjoyed the trip, it was a very exciting opportunity. Overall it was fun, educational and tasty”.

On Wednesday 16th October Roy Aneke, Raymond Aneke, Kurt Capuno and Chibuike Ojeli represented the St Edmund’s Catholic Academy at the Wolverhampton Schools Basketball Competition at S. Peter’s Collegiate School .

The team performed exceptionally well and won three out of their four league games. This will see them through to the final which is provisionally scheduled for the 13th November.

Well done gentlemen and keep up the good work.

Mr Selvey

Teacher of PE/Head of Year 11

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In the last academic year, the Principal of St Edmund’s Catholic Academy was faced with a challenge. Staff, pupil, and parent groups have all met with Maggie Hazeldine to ask what St Edmund’s could do to become a more environmentally friendly community. 

Inspired by the work of Greta Thunberg,  the academy’s recycling and eco committees have been busy addressing this question. “Listening to parents and pupils I was horrified to realise that at lunch times we were throwing away 88,000 single use plastic food containers a year!” said the Principal.

Mrs Hall , the school’s  catering manager was quick to make a change by redesigning the lunches to return to reusable resources and the reduction in waste has been dramatic! Not only is the academy improving the environment but also encouraging a return to healthier eating, with delicious meals and less “takeaway” food. 

Mrs Hazeldine said, “ I am so proud of our students and their sense of social responsibility is to be commended. We have  further ideas to establish a swap shop and have also been nominated to receive 30 trees in collaboration with CGI (the multinational IT and Business Consultancy).  Once again this opportunity was driven by one of our parents who works for the company and we are delighted to support their mission to offset their carbon footprint.”

“Our Eco committee are now busy discussing  ways in which we can achieve our other goals of global citizenship as we work towards the final steps towards achieving the  Eco Schools Green Flag award.”

Yesterday CAFOD, the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development, blessed us with a visit. They led a discussion with year 9 students on the topic of  ‘Climate Change- climate change destroys God’s precious gift to us-creation’. Inspired by the teachings of Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, we know that responding to the climate crisis requires working together-as families, parishes and countries.

So what can we do?

• Reduce your meat consumption
• Could you grow a vegetable garden or wildlife garden?
• Instead or getting to school in a car, could you go by bus, bicycle or walk?
• Heating – could you turn the thermostat down?
• Can you consume less electricity? Turn the lights off, turn plugs off at the mains
• Do you recycle at home and school- plastic, paper, plastic, crisp packets etc?
• Could you write to your M.P? Let them know what you are doing to revive our common home

I am sure that there are many more ways you can think of to reduce our negative impact on Earth. 

The poorest countries are the ones most affected by global warming, but are creating the least waste and greenhouse gases!

“ … how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and interior peace,” Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ #10