A huge shoutout to our amazing year 9 pupils A Phelps, A Bashir, D Tojo, G Dhillon, G Singh, J Kaur, M Copeland, S King, T Jones and D Eghwere who were incredible in welcoming pupils and staff from a school in Germany this week.  The above pupils were brilliant buddies, and it was great to see these pupils making our visitors feel so comfortable and included in the Smestow community.  

All pupils took part in a harry potter workshop on Monday which involved them conducting various fun experiments, they also had a very informative presentation led by the German pupils about the education system, culture, history and food in Germany. On Tuesday pupils also had a fantastic day out visiting the University of Birmingham, taking part in a master class and also a trip to Lapworth museum where they explored wonders of geology and natural history. What an excellent week of learning and cultural connection it was !
Thank you, Year 9, for your excellent work as buddies. You have made a real difference, and we are incredibly proud of the way you embraced this opportunity and showed such brilliant Smestow values. Your welcoming and caring attitude has left a lasting positive impression on our German visitors. 

All schools across our Trust have been working collaboratively to recognise and celebrate key dates in the PSHE calendar. These are in addition to other events that will also be taking place in our individual schools. We are very proud to share our Matrix Academy Trust Personal Development Calendar which gives details of the events where our schools have come together to produce a wide range of activities for our pupils. These events will be recognised through a combination of assemblies and form time activities as well as their importance being widely publicised through our social media platforms and in schools through displays, posters and TV screens. For some events, there will be additional activities planned such as competitions to engage our learners in the real meaning of these days.

There is a wide range of days recognised to acknowledge different faiths and groups as well as promote very important themes such as equality, diversity, wellbeing and British Values. This project epitomises the real spirit of collaboration in our school as well as our commitment to ensuring that our pupils have the knowledge and skills to not only keep themselves safe but be ready and able to make a valuable contribution to society.

The Year 11 GCSE Religious Studies group recently visited Guru Nanak Gurdwara and the Old Church in Smethwick to support their studies in Christianity and Sikhism. We received a warm welcome and were given insightful talks about each faith and its place of worship. During our visit to the Gurdwara students also had the opportunity to experience Langar. We would like to express our gratitude to both for their hospitality.

On Monday 24^th March 8 year 10 students were taken to the University of Wolverhampton for a maths competition where they were split into two teams, competing against 6 other schools.

The competition consisted of 4 rounds, where the students were exposed to different mathematical tasks, challenging them to think outside the box and approach tasks in teams to solve and score as many points as possible. After four rounds, our teams placed 4th  (team A) and 6th (team B) out of 14 teams. Both teams won a round each but unfortunately struggled with the broken calculator round. The students had a great day out and thoroughly enjoyed the trip and the competition.

All of our students represented the school proudly and showed the Smestow Values throughout. They were a real credit to the school and themselves.

Team A

J. Oziga

R. Finlayson-Palmer

E. Khoso

F. Zirta-Gimbien

Team B

A. Kumar

E. Randhawa

D. Singh

S. Singh

6 of the pupils in attendance were from Graiseley house and Mr Patel proudly presented certificates of attendance in house assembly this week. Students were also presented with a certificate for winning Round 1 and round 2.

This evening, staff participated in a carousel of good practice delivered by each other. We have been privileged to have staff share their best practice in delivering our five Smestow teaching principles of review, share, chunk, check and practice to ensure that our pupils are engaged fully in their lessons and developing their curiosity for their subjects.  Thank you to those members of staff who ran stalls for good practice and well done to everyone for their hard work this evening.

Year 7s are officially coding pros in the making! Today they took control of Robodog using programmed instructions. Making it move and wag its tail! From logic to loops, they're learning how tech comes to life, one line of code at a time. 

#STEMinAction #RoboticsInClass #FutureEngineers #SmallPeice

Last week our year 11 Geographers had the opportunity to complete their Human Fieldwork investigation around Wolverhampton City Centre. During their fieldwork, students were assessing the impact of regeneration on Wolverhampton by conducting environmental quality surveys, speaking to members of the public asking their thoughts and opinions about the topic, plus creating sketches of the sites that they visited. Students were very well behaved with me members of the public praising individuals to staff. The weather was sunny and so it was a very enjoyable experience for all involved!

Staff and pupils were invited to wear blue socks to raise awareness of World Autism Day taking place today. Neurodivergence recognises and values the varied way we all think, learn and behave. Here at Smestow Academy, our values include equality and respect for all and welcoming and caring environment - by wearing our blue socks we have show our support for those diagnosed with Autism on this significant day!

#SmestowAcademy #SuccessAchievedTogether #WorldAutismDay #BlueSocks

With our reputation for being at the forefront of workload reduction, Matrix Academy Trust is delighted to have another resource published in the Department for Education’s Workload Reduction Toolkit. The resource - which helps make the most out of valuable Senior Leadership meeting time. - originated at Smestow Academy in Wolverhampton and has been shared with all of our trust schools - and now nationally!

The summer exam season is almost upon us and our Year 11 and 13 pupils are working hard to ensure that they achieve the best grades possible so that they can continue to do amazing things when they leave Smestow Academy.

We understand that this can be a worrying and upsetting time for our pupils and whilst we offer lots of support in school, we want to be able to support families too.  We are pleased to be hosting a parent and carer information session in school on 9^th April, in partnership with Reflexions.  Places are limited, so we would ask the parents and carers of our Year 11 and Year 13 pupils to check their WeDuc for the link to secure a space.