A group of year 11 students were given the chance to attend the AQA GCSE ‘Poetry Live!’ event in the magnificent surroundings of Birmingham Symphony Hall, on Friday 6th February. The event hosted several poets featured in this year’s GCSE Literature Anthology, as well as helpful hints and tips from the chief examiner.

There were performances and Q and A sessions with poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Imtiaz Dharker and Gillian Clarke, but the clear favourite amongst the students was John Agard, who closed the event with a series of mesmerising readings.

As part of the A2 History syllabus, the department organised a trip to Krakow in Poland for year 13 students. Having written a piece of coursework based on anti-Semitism in Europe during World War Two, the trip was designed to complement their understanding on this topic. During the trip, we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau, two sites of extreme significance when studying the Holocaust. Thereafter, we visited Kazimesh, the Jewish quarter of Krakow which proved to be an emotional and moving day.

Whilst there, we were also given the opportunity to eat at Klezmer Hois, a traditional Jewish restaurant; this was a fantastic way to end the day, being able to enjoy and celebrate Jewish culture in an area where Hitler and the Nazis attempted to destroy it!

The final day of our visit was spent visiting memorials of the victims of the Holocaust, as well as walking around the part of Krakow that was used as the Jewish Ghetto. Students were taken to Oscar Schindler’s factory and were able to visit a Synagogue that has remained intact despite Nazi attempts to annihilate Judaism in Poland. Overall the trip was a huge success and has allowed year 13 students the opportunity to experience the history they are learning about in the classroom, first hand.

We are pleased to announce that we have introduced a new service called ‘School Gateway’, which allows us to share information with parents more quickly and keep them informed regarding their child(ren).

Parents will be able to do the following for their child(ren):

• View achievements
• View your contact details and inform us of any changes
• View behaviour incidents
• View current assessment results
• Monitor attendance and inform us of unexplained/future absences
• Access Academy details and link to our website
• View timetable

It’s quick and easy to do. All you need are your email address and mobile number that the Academy holds on record for you.

• Visit the website: www.schoolgateway.com and click on ‘New User’. Enter your email address and mobile phone number. You’ll receive a text message with a PIN number. Use this PIN to log into School Gateway.

Over the past few weeks, Nathan Cook has been in school working with our ‘gifted and talented’ students. Nathan is working towards his ‘UKCC Level 3 Senior Coach’ qualification, and is training for the University British Championships later this month. He has a wealth of knowledge to offer our students and is very impressive when he carries out demonstrations too; a double back somersault with half a twist is but a warm up move!

It’s an exciting opportunity for our students, who have been working to develop individual moves, including front, back and twisting somersaults. Some students will be using their moves as part of GCSE Physical Education examinations. Those taking part across the range of year groups, include: Amy Cox, Abigail Caron, Paige Gostick, Morgan Lavender, Kasha McKay and Christina Clifton, to name but a few.

Paige Gostick and Page Hewitt have been working with one of our photography teachers, Mr Vaughan, within school to photo-shoot some training sessions and to develop their photography and journalistic skills – they have taken some amazing shots!

This term, Andy Salmon (AKA Sir Linkalot) came to St. Edmund’s to work with our Year 7 and 8 students.The Thinkalink programme aims to provide strategies to support students in memorising important information.  Since the launch of the company in 2009, Thinkalink have presented to 150,000 children and 10,000 teachers at 175 schools UK wide. The British Dyslexia Association believe that Thinkalink’s innovative spelling technique ‘Letter Linking‘ is ground-breaking.

Throughout the day, our students were introduced to the world of ‘Linking’ – a fun and easy way to remember any fact. Andy showed students how linking can be used to remember anything.  Students were given links for remembering tricky words, equipping them to make sense of those tough spellings that appear to make no sense.  Andy also gave students a tip for remembering over seventy years of history in just one link.The day was a huge success and students are already using the links across the curriculum.

On Saturday 31st January, eight St. Edmund’s gymnasts travelled to Fenton Manor Sports Complex to compete in the ‘West Midlands Floor & Vault Competition’. It is only the second occasion that St. Edmund’s have entered this competition and we managed to match our previous year’s performance!

Amelie Harris was St. Edmund’s first performer of the day on vault, and although it was her first real competition she performed exceptionally well, scoring 14.6 out of 16.00.  She was not fazed at all by the bigger competition, and went on to perform her floor beautifully.

This year, we also entered the Milano Competition where three gymnasts were required to perform a ‘trio sports acrobatics’ routine as well as their floor and vault. Christina Clifton, Zuzanna Laskowski and Rebecca Butler performed the best we have ever seen them, with great balance, flair and synchronisation.

Our U19 team then competed on floor and did so with style, precision and lots of extension.  Danielle Lim scored the highest on floor with 13.65 out of 16.0; very impressive as it was her first ever gymnastics competition!  All other floor routines were exceptional and the competition and level of performance was very high. Amber-Leigh Nicholls had a great competition as an individual too, and although she was injured she did not let it affect her determination to succeed. Well done!

In the vault section, all St. Edmund’s gymnasts executed their landings with precision, and again we scored well. There was some exceptional talent in the competition so we did not expect to win medals. However, the girls worked really hard and as a team and we managed to gain 2nd place, silver medal for the team performance.  Team members were Rebecca Butler, Christina Clifton, Zuzanna Laskowski, Julia deBechi, Danielle Lim and Lisa Spratt.

Mrs Cartlidge would like to thank all the gymnasts for their hard work, both during the competition and for their many late night training sessions. All has paid off, and we wish them luck in the upcoming ‘City Gymnastics Competition’ in six weeks.

“All this would also not be possible without the outstanding coaching Mrs Swindells offers to our pupils, both on a Monday and Friday night. We are very lucky to have her expertise and she is a delight to work with.  The impact she has on our pupils is immense; thank you.”

This week, we are delighted to announce that our Year 10 students have made it through to the finals of the ‘IFS (Institute of Fiscal Studies) Stock Market Challenge’, online.

We are positioned 88th in the UK (out of over 8,700 teams), and 18th in the region (Midlands and North West), comfortably beating local competitors within the area.

Many congratulations to our students, this is a superb result showing critical thinking, problem solving skills and real business acumen!

The finals will take place next month in Birmingham, where the team will be asked a number of questions, we wish them the very best of luck!

The Year 7, 8 & 9 Academy Committee was joined by Mrs Gallagher, Academy Committee Chair, at this week’s meeting.

Mrs Gallagher introduced herself, explaining her role and how her primary aim is to make the Academy a better place for children in which to learn. Discussions took place surrounding the importance of the Academy Council, and how this strategic group could be more involved in decision making, including how to monitor the effectiveness of lessons and tutor times.

Lively discussions took place around the need for a uniform review, a possible house system and pupil progression. The Council held a democratic vote and agreed that the charities for 2014/15 would be: Promise Dreams, Acorns Children’s Hospice and Save the Children.

We look forward to the next meeting.

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you will be overjoyed to hear that there will be a Harry Potter Themed Event for Year 7’s on –

Thursday 5th February

At 3.45 – 4.45pm

All Year 7 pupils are welcome. There will be quizzes, games and book readings – so why not come along and join in the fun!

Fancy dress is optional but there will be a prize for the best fancy dress outfit!

To reserve your place, please see Mrs Lowe in the Library as soon as possible.