Today we welcomed Dr Eve Griffiths and Antonia Thomas from Outreach, who delivered training to Matrix staff on understanding the effects ACES and trauma can have on our pupils' mental health, behaviour and understanding, as well as how we can facilitate restorative conversations in school.  We learnt innovative new ways to support our pupils in building and maintaining positive, healthy relationships, resolving difficulties and repairing harm when there has been conflict. Thank you Outreach!

A huge congratulations our staff who attended the annual Matrix Academy Trust long service celebration meal last Friday. They joined colleagues from across the trust at the wonderful BANK.  Racking up over 700 years’ service collectively across the trust.  Another huge thank you to you all for your continued dedication to our community. 

On 27th February, Mrs Fellows along with three sixth form students had the opportunity to take part in the Lessons from Auschwitz project which included a one-day visit to Auschwitz One and Auschwitz Birkenau. On the day we took part in a guided tour of both camps and had a brief visit to Oświęcim to visit the site of the Great Synagogue which was destroyed during the war. In addition on Sunday 3rd March, the students also took part in a live Zoom call with Holocaust survivor Janine Webber who told her story of survival during Nazi occupied Poland.

World Book Day 2024 is on Thursday 7^th March

Admissions 2024

It is National Offer Day.  If you have been successful in your application for Admission into Year 7 2024, we will write to you shortly with a welcome letter and information about forthcoming key dates.   If you have changed address since you applied, please contact us via email so that we can ensure we have the most up to date information for your child.  

If you were not successful on your application, please follow the link for information about Appeals: https://smestowacademy.co.uk/admissions/

Following a £160,000 revamp funded by its new multi-academy trust, Smestow Academy’s much-loved swimming pool has had its grand reopening.

When Matrix Academy Trust took on Smestow Academy in January 2023, they found the swimming pool to be unusable. A year on, the facilities have been completely overhauled.

Smestow Academy Headteacher Mr Chamberlain said, "For many in the area, this pool holds warm associations. But there had been no investment in more than five years. Bringing the pool back to life was a top priority when our trust took on Smestow Academy.”

Wolverhampton Councillor Wendy Thompson, who had the honour of cutting the ribbon to declare the pool open, revealed that her own children had learnt to swim in the pool. Councillor Johnathan Crofts was also in attendance and shared with the audience that he had himself learned to swim here 30 years ago.

The ceremony was also attended by Councillor Ellis Turell and the headteacher of nearby Castlecroft Primary School, Andy Dyall.

The school is seeking to provide local primary schools with the opportunity to use the facility, along with opening it up for use by the wider community.

Headteacher Mr Chamberlain said: “This reopening represents a milestone for our school, demonstrating our commitment to providing exceptional facilities that promote health, well-being, and educational enrichment.  This is another landmark in the rapid and sustainable improvement in the quality of education at our school since joining Matrix Academy Trust.

“The swimming pool has been a significant part of the school’s long history and a wonderful facility for the community for decades before. The project to bring the pool back to life has involved a full refurbishment of the changing rooms, showers, communal areas and poolside. It’s also required an overhaul to the plant machinery that runs the pool to improve efficiency and to increase the longevity of the pool. An upgrade to LED lighting and the addition of a pool cover has further reduced energy consumption, ensuring it can be run sustainably, decades into the future.”

On Monday evening our YR9 & 10 Boys embarked on their first ever competitive handball competition which was held at our Lady St Chads. The tournament was a fantastic opportunity for the lads to showcase what they have learnt in PE lessons and compete against the top schools in the city. It was very competitive with our lads getting better and better as the night went on, playing some really quick and effective handball. Our YR9 team finished 3^rd in the group where they picked up a really impressive win against Wednesfield in their last game to show that they had really improved as a team across their games scoring some fantastic goals. The YR10 team went one better and they finished 2^nd in their group which meant they qualified for the knockout stages, the lads picked up convincing wins against Thomas Telford UTC and Aldersley in their group. The boys came up against Group A winners and overall champions on the night Our Lady St Chads in the semi finals where they gave a really good account of themselves narrowly missing out on a place on the final but some fantastic play was on show. They then went into the Bronze medal match against Moreton where they lost in the last seconds of the game to a fantastic goal scored by the opposition resulting in the YR10 Lads finishing the 4^th best handball team in the city, a great achievement considering they have never played the sport competitively. All of the lads were a credit to the school and performed really well with some fantastic skill on show. 

We now move onto the YR9 & 10 Girls competitive next Monday.

Today students in years 9 and 10 watched a performance from Loudmouth which focussed on real life stories of both child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation including county lines. The students were fully engaged in watching the performances and afterwards were given the chance to ask some insightful questions to the characters. Students displayed the Smestow Values of showing our guests a Welcoming and Caring Environment and we would like to remind all parents and students that we are a Telling School and staff are here to help if students find themselves in similar situations to today’s performance. 

CALLING ALL SMESTOW ACADEMY ALUMNI

If you’re a former student of Smestow Academy, we want to hear from you!

Your experiences since leaving could help to motivate and inspire our current students to feel more confident in making decisions about their future. We’d love you to join our Alumni Network and stay connected with the school.

We’ve partnered with the national education charity Future First, who specialise in helping schools like ours to stay connected with their former students. 

You can choose how and when you help – perhaps you can act as a career and education role model, provide work experience or become a mentor in person or online.

To sign up, just follow this link and fill in the online form – we promise it will only take a couple of minutes

https://www.futurefirsthub.org.uk/register/smestow-academy

We look forward to hearing from you.

To celebrate children's mental health week this week, we are promoting positive mental health and wellbeing across the school. All pupils are invited to take part in our mindfulness challenges in return for prestigious silver commendations and they will also take part in a themed lesson, delivered by their form tutors as part of our personal development curriculum.

Here are some of our year 7 pupils taking part in mindfulness colouring at lunchtime today. This activity and "time to talk" is available to our year 7 pupils every lunchtime this week.

Our promotion of children's mental health week is another example of us upholding our Smestow values in equality and respect for all, being a telling school and providing a welcoming and caring environment.

#successachievedtogether #smestowacademy #childrensmentalhealthweek #useyourvoice