A group of enthusiastic pupils at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy have been getting stuck in and growing fresh vegetables to make a curry, as part of National Curry Week.

Heather Rous, retired Science teacher of the Academy and who runs the garden club added: “We run the garden club every Wednesday lunchtime – where we grow marrows, courgettes, parsley and spinach and as it is national curry week, we wanted the students to contribute in making their own lunch as the cooks made a curry this week.

The students really enjoy planting seeds and seeing them grow; in particularly it was lovely for them to see the curry produced with the vegetables they had grown!

Miss Mifflin and the  A Level Art students from across the consortium of St Edmund’s, S. Peter’s and Wolverhampton Girls’ High, braved the weather this term and took a train and tube visit to a collection of galleries across London.

Students visited the Natural History Museum, where they saw collections from the natural world. They walked across London to the Saatchi Gallery to visit a collection of modern art instillation, and finished the day at the Tate Britain where they visited the old master from the 18^th Century through to modern day artist, including visiting this year’s Tunner prize entries.

They all had a brilliant day and enjoyed seeing the wonderful art displays across London!

A group of eager students at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy have been taking part in the practice round of the IFS (Institute of Fiscal Studies) stock market challenge online.

We entered 8 teams of aspiring stock brokers, which included: 4 students, drawn from years 10,12 and 13 ranging from Economics and Business Studies students.

Congratulations to the winning team for the practice round, which were the  ‘Fantastic Four’, a group of year 10 students: Cameron Uppal, Diarmuid Hehir, James March and Tiahne Addo.

They finished first in St Edmund’s Academy, 48th in the region (out of 809 teams)and 308th in the UK (out of 4005 teams). They also beat the only other local school participating in the competition, Wolverhampton Grammar.

The real competition started this week and will run for the next three months, our students are all geared up and ready for the challenge!

Last Thursday our Under 13’s Rugby players went to Highfields for the first of this year’s tournaments.

With half of Year 8 on a trip, and Soccer fixtures for Years 7 and 8 – it was difficult to get a team but we managed to get 8 boys on the Mini-bus.

Our first game was against Deansfield and St. Edmunds dominated possession. Tries from Bill Rowley and Azif Mir gave us a 10-0 lead before a late consolation from Deansfield made the final score 10-5.

Aldersley were a strong second opponent but some excellent tackling kept the score at 0-0 until late in the game. However, the pressure finally told in the last couple of minutes and two tries made the score 10-0 to Aldersley.

As we only had 8, there wasn’t the opportunity for substitutions so St. Edmund’s got to the last game bruised and weary. Overall, a tremendous final effort meant that tries from Connor Heaney and Tom Kosiorek gave us a 10-0 victory.

Two wins out of three was a fine effort and training will now take place every Wednesday lunchtime in preparation for the next tournament.

Well done to;

Dan Alcaraz                             Sahib Duhra                            Connor Heaney

Tom Kosiorek                          Adam Langston                       Azif Mir

Destiny Osazuwa                     Bill Rowley

Last week some of our Year 8 pupils went along to Carding Mill Valley as part of their Geography trip. It was an opportunity for them to gain first-hand experience of fieldwork by getting into the river and taking various measurements.

The pupils will use this information to produce a coursework style project in which they will write about their hypothesis, a description of what they did, draw some graphs to show their results, and evaluate their work to say what they did well and what they would change.

The students had a fantastic time and really engaged in the activities that they were doing. They displayed fantastic skills of teamwork and spirit, not to mention their determination to complete the climb to the top of the mountain!

Many of the students returned to the coach with a huge sense of achievement stating that:‘it was the best trip they had ever been on’ and ‘that was awesome Miss, can we come back again?’ A great experience had by all.

From tutus to tiaras, today teachers and support staff at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy held a ‘Pink Friday’ in aid of raising funds for Breast Cancer awareness.

Organised by Lay Chaplain, Debra Ferris, she said: “I have recently joined St Edmund’s as their new Lay Chaplain and I had asked the staff to let me know if they wanted to raise any money for a cause. One of our Modern Foreign Languages teachers asked for a ‘Wear it Pink Day’.

Most of us know someone who has been affected by Cancer and my mum is in remission at the moment, so we decided at our next Staff Inset Day we would have a bit of fun and raise money at the same time. Everyone got into the spirit wearing something pink; the Principal gave a gift to the ‘best dressed’ and enjoyed all the pink sweets on their tables to keep them going through the day.”

All proceeds will go to the breast cancer support charity, Breast Cancer Care.

Last night we held our Open Evening for prospective parents and their children. With more than 400 people attending, we really showcased why St Edmund’s were one of the UK’S most improved schools in England.

The atmosphere was buzzing with families enjoying the St Edmund’s team spirit and a range of activities and talents being displayed. These included: crazy science experiments, food tasting, teachers dressed as Egyptians and many more.

The feedback was very positive with many parents commenting on how impressed they were with our excellent facilities. One parent said: “Everything was perfect and we have had a lovely evening.”

Overall, the evening was enjoyed by all and we’d like to thank pupils and staff who contributed their time in making it a success.

Five home-grown stars of the Commonwealth and Invictus Games were honoured in a special civic ceremony last week in Wolverhampton.

Commonwealth gold medallists Matthew Hudson-Smith and former student of St Edmund’s Catholic Academy – Kristian Thomas, joined silver medal-winning cyclist Andy Tennant, bronze medal-winning wrestler Chinu Singh and Invictus Games wheelchair basket-ball gold medallist Andrew Roberts as guests of honour of Wolverhampton Mayor Councillor Michael Heap.

“These young men are role models for our youngsters,” the mayor said.

Gymnast Thomas, who picked up gold in the team event and two silvers in the vault and horizontal bars in Glasgow, described the ceremony as a ‘proud moment.’

Photograph courtesy of Wolverhampton Chronicle