On Friday 17 July, former student Kristian Thomas unveiled a commemorative plaque dedicating St Edmund’s Catholic Academy’s sports hall in his honour.

Kristian was invited to celebrate the end of term mass, where he also got to watch some stunning performances from our talented gymnasts.

Principal, Mrs Hughes said: “We are very proud of Kristian’s accomplishments as an international gymnast representing England and Great Britain. He is an inspiration to our students and has visited St Edmund’s twice since he became European Champion in March.

Kristian received a wonderful St Edmund’s welcome as he announced the opening of the Kristian Thomas Sports and Fitness Arena.

We follow Kristian’s events with great interest and wish him continuing success in the competition in autumn, prior to Rio 2016.”

• A2, AS and BTEC results will be available for collection for Year 13 pupils from 8am on Thursday 13th August.
• Year 12 students can collect their AS and BTEC results from 10.15am on Thursday 13th August.
•  GCSE & BTEC results will be issued to Year 11 pupils from 9.30am on Thursday 20th August.

Over 500 pupils and many staff members completed an 8 mile walk on 15 July, to raise money for Cancer Research UK.  Raising a total of £1793.50, by simply running and walking to Wombourne and back, along the old railway track.

This is a long standing tradition at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy when the whole school community comes together to help generate funds to support local, national and international charities.

PC Whittaker and WPC Plimmer from Tettenhall Police Station were invited to support the Academy this year.

Following the walk PC Whittaker said;

“We would like to congratulate your students at St Edmund’s for their polite, respectful and engaging attitude towards us. It was good to see a school with a positive attitude being shown by so many students. Please congratulate them on our behalf. There was also no litter to be seen, well done!”

On Tuesday 7^th July, all staff members at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy took part in an inspiring day of unity and worship, in the beautiful setting of Hawkstone Hall, Shrewsbury.

This year the theme for their Catholicity Inset Day was Unity. The main focus was leadership in all aspects of their professional duties and especially their commitment to the service of leading all students to progress in their development into discerning, compassionate and wise men and women.

Amongst our Year 7 students, we have a very talented cricketer, Syed (Zak) Abbas. Syed has been playing  cricket since he was just 2 years old and is now the lead wicket taker for the district, playing not only with people of his own age, but amongst adults too.

He has been active at his local cricket club, Fordhouses, for three years and for the past couple of years, he has also been selected to play for the under 12’s at Staffordshire Cricket Club – a massive achievement considering almost 200 people tried out. When bowling at one of his matches, he was spotted by a coach and has since been asked to join Worcester Satellite Academy.

Syed said: “My dad’s always encouraged me to play cricket as he was a professional   cricketer for 10-15 years and I enjoy it because it’s a fun and I get to meet to new friends.”

Syed hopes to become a professional cricketer one day. We will continue to support him and hope that one day, he will go on to play for England!

Last Friday, our Year 11 students celebrated their leavers prom at the Grand Station in Wolverhampton and they had a wonderful night.

They came dressed in some beautiful prom dresses and the boys were all looking very smart, they danced the night away and many teachers and staff members joined them to celebrate the end of school in style.

Kimberley Ochoa, Year 10 and Lay Chaplain Mrs Ferris had the privilege of going to St Chad’s Cathedral for a Father Hudson’s society Celebration.

During the Liturgy, Archbishop Bernard mentioned the schools in the Dioceses of Birmingham and wanted them to go back to school and give ‘praise and thanksgiving’, on his behalf for all the hard work the teachers and staff  do for the children and for showing God’s love and care every day.

Later he spoke to Kimberley and Mrs Ferris and wanted St Edmund’s to thank the choir and staff for the beautiful music during the Good Shepherd Mass and for all we do a school to support the charity.

This is the first time we have supported the ‘Walk with Me’ event.  Kimberley’s photograph was submitted by Miss Mifflin and Kimberley won the Art category. The theme was ‘Breaking the Chains’. The academy was presented with a beautiful glass plague. She had some tough competition from St Gregory the Great Catholic School in Oxford, Hagley Catholic High School and St Thomas More Catholic School to name but a few, so we are immensely proud of her.

A big thank you must go to Caroline Mifflin for sending off the work.

Next year’s theme is ‘Disabilities’ there is a written section too, so if any other department gets involved, Art & Photography have set the standard!

This year’s summer production of Jesus Christ Superstar is thoroughly underway and the cast have been working very hard over the last few weeks in readiness for the July performances. JCSS is an iconic show and I’m sure that most of you will already know many of the songs.

Pupils from year 7 to year 13 have dedicated a lot of extra time and energy to rehearsing at lunch times and after school in preparation for the show. They are very excited to showcase their talents and hard work to their families, teachers and friends.

This summer we are holding two evening performances on the Thursday 9^th July and Friday 10th July. We are happy to announce that tickets are now on sale and can be purchased from either the Visitor Reception or Student Services priced at:

• £4.00 adults
• £2.00 concessions
• or £10.00 family (2 adults & 2 children)

We hope to have all support from families, friends and teachers of St Edmund’s and look forward to seeing you all there.