On Thursday 16th October, the business department organised a fabulous trip for year 10 students at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy, to visit Entrepreneur Live! student conference,  at Star City in Birmingham.

There were many inspirational speeches from the entrepreneurs – including; Micha Quashie, Arnold Du Toit, Ross Kemp, Rob Tomming and Zoe Jackson.

They shared a range of intriguing stories with them, of how their products got developed and how their businesses hit off the ground.

Mr Bentley, Mrs Curtis and Mr White accompanied the students and the conference was enjoyed by all. It gave the pupils a real insight into what it takes to start up your own business.

Pavan Suniar 10JM said: “The most inspirational speech for me, was Arnold Du Toit, the inventor of the electric golf trolley. He went into detail about his product and how it progressed in stages. He also told us how he met Richard Branson and that whilst he was trying to impress a customer, the brakes failed on the trolley! It was from this moment that Du Toit progressed in his business and is now a very wealthy man, worth over a million pounds.”

On Monday evening, pupils and parents from St Edmund’s Catholic Academy, along with various other primary and secondary schools from the Wolverhampton area, attended the Wolverhampton Deanery Cafod Harvest Mass at St Anthony’s Church.

St Edmund’s students were chosen to do the readings and Lara Poiblanc from Sixth Form, read beautifully as well as taking our gift up to Bishop David during the offertory.

Bishop David spoke to all the students about how each school had raised money and Lara told him how we had been collecting loose change within our forms and that we will be continuing to do so for the rest of the year.

Bishop David homily reminded us of many things: not just to be thankful for our many gifts – from crops to food and water, but also to pray for those less fortunate, especially the people suffering in Gaza, Syria and other countries.

A particularly moving part of mass was talk of planting a ‘seed’. The Bishop spoke about a farmer planting a seed and being able to see his crop grow, but remembering that, sometimes, we can’t always physically see the ‘seeds’ we have planted grow right before our very eyes, but instead, are able to see the affects later.

Special thanks must go to Trevor Stockton, the Cafod Coordinator and schools volunteer for Wolverhampton Deanery, who has organised these masses for 14 years, and who we saw retire on Monday. We thank him for all his hard work and dedication. And finally, a big thank you to Father Brendon Corrick and his team for hosting such a lovely Mass.