On Saturday 21^st March 2015, thirteen Year 8 students met at the Wolverhampton Crown Court to participate in the Magistrates’ Court Mock Trial Competition.  Our team were divided into two: Prosecution and Defence, and had prepared their cases for a trial regarding a defendant who had broken the theft act of 1968.

Our Defence team were the first in court, opposing a prosecution from Colton Hills Community School.  In this trial our lawyers were short and to the point, proving that they only had to spark an element of doubt in the minds of the Magistrates.  Our defendant spoke very well for herself but the Magistrates were not convinced of her innocence.

Our Prosecution team were next in court, prosecuting against Saltley Academy.  Our Legal Advisor clearly stated the law and explained to the court that they must find the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt.  Our lawyers bombarded the defence witnesses with questions, showing confidence that impressed the professional Magistrates.

All students involved conducted themselves with maturity beyond their years and were a real credit to the school.  A big well done to Sahar Ali, Ffion Bessey, Natalie Bott, Jessica Bradley, Alyssa Capuno, Sahib Duhra, Sadiyah Iqbal, Gagandeep Jandu, Roisin Murphy, Sarina Randhawa, Lorna Shorthouse, Marika Sulima and Seren Young.

The new St Edmund’s Code Academy club has started for Year 7 ‘Gifted and Talented’ pupils. Running Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes, pupils are programming Raspberry Pi computers, creating games in ‘Scratch’ and controlling hardware in ‘Python’.

The group are learning how computers work, accelerating their understanding of the fundamentals of computer programming (see photographs below). In addition they have the opportunity to program a drone to follow their instructions.

We may have the programmers of the future, here at our academy!

As part of their Lent appeal, staff and students at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy have been busy collecting books for two libraries – one in Cameroon and the other in Nepal. Today, Vicky Ngamsha, Project Manager at the ‘Mama Verla Project,’ and also founder of the charity for the Kikaikelaki Library, collected the books from the Academy ready to ship to Cameroon.

Vicky commented: “This is so wonderful that students and staff have been able to make a contribution to such a worthy cause. I know that the people of Kikaikelaki will be really grateful to have the privilege of reading these books and I thank you all.”

Here at St Edmund’s we encourage the sixth form to work more closely with the lower school. As part of their extra curriculum activities, all pupils will be working with sixth formers to produce a ‘British Values’ poster. Each tutor group will be given one of the five British values to explore, these include: Democracy, The Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs

The tutor group with the best poster will win this lovely Easter hamper packed full of goodies!

British Science Week (BSW) is a ten-day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths – featuring fascinating, entertaining and engaging events and activities across the UK for people of all ages. The event takes place from 13 – 22 March.

BSW provides a platform to stimulate and support teachers, STEM professionals, science communicators and the general public to produce and participate in STEM events and activities.

The Science department at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy have been putting on some fantastic experiments for students to come along and take part during lunch time. These included; the Balloon Kebabs, Air Bazooka, the Potato Challenge and many more!

The C.I.A Chaplaincy in Action team and some of the students from the St Clare’s Success Centre have been working on prayers, which they have been writing on different colour balls. This gives them time to focus on what they are writing about and helps them to reflect on the prayers.

With all the different colour balls, they have produced a lovely Giant Rosary. Here is Carina, Diya, Shanieka, James, Inderpal and Aniqe proudly showing the finished product.

Six GCSE PE students were given the opportunity to be assessed in Canoeing as part of their practical portfolio. The first part of their assessment took place at the Wildside Activity Centre during last half term, where they spent the day with their instructor, Nick Goodall. They learnt the basics of canoeing and successfully gained the British Canoe Union One Star Award.

The morning of the second day was spent on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal recapping on the skills learnt. After a very quick lunch, the students canoed on the River Penk, overcoming the different challenges a river demands. The weather was certainly challenging on day two and all six students did well to complete the day, with smiles still on their faces. Well done to Nathan Evans, Joe Hobday Marriott, Joshua Jomy, Dan Mason, Stefan Orjally and Sim Sumen.

Miss Buckle would also like thank Nick, for being the instructor and to Mr Playford for helping out on both days.

Very early on Saturday 7th March, a coach from the Birmingham Catholic Youth Service, came to collect 9 of St Edmund’s students and 3 staff members to take them to ‘Flame 2’, the National Catholic Youth Day at the SSE Arena in Wembley.

Wearing their black t-shirts with pride, they were part of 8,000 young Catholics who had joined together to celebrate with joy the mercy of God.

During the day there were times of silence, joy, dancing, prayer, adoration, music and great energy.

There were many inspirational speakers and presenters, each with their own message. To name a few: Fr Dermott Donnelly, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Baroness Sheila Hollins, David Wells, Fr Timothy Radcliffe, Cardinal Vincent Nicholls and two Grammy Award singer and musician Matt Redman . They even had a message from Pope Frances and became the biggest tweet of the day #FLAME2.

Our very own Archbishop Bernard Longley sat amongst us and didn’t mind the odd ‘selfie’ with the young people.

Deb Ferris Lay Chaplain quotes: “We were blessed with great weather and each of us experienced the ‘flame’ inside of us to go and ‘Live life to the Full’ John 10:10.”

St Edmund’s Year 10 and 11 students took part in the Wolverhampton City Dance Festival at Codsall High School on Wednesday 4th March.

The students have been rehearsing for this festival for a few months during their PE dance lessons, lunch and also after school. All this hard work paid off because their performances were outstanding.

Natasha Clarke, our dance specialist and Mrs D’Agostino who accompanied them were extremely pleased with all the girls after their stunning performances. Year 11 girls dancing to ‘All that Jazz’ were superb, so professional and they danced with confidence in their amazing costumes.

Year 10 girls preformed a well-rehearsed and emotional piece to an Usher track and Fern Nicholls in Year 11 performed a fantastic solo piece to Chandelier. Fern has put a lot of time and effort into practicing for her solo piece and it was a stunning performance. She had the crowd off their seats, cheering at the end!

Well done to everyone and hopefully the girls will continue to keep up the hard work with some new dances next year.

Special thanks go to Natasha Clarke for all her hard work in PE dance lessons and to Mrs D’Agostino for taking the dancers to the show.