Our Journey Together

As we move into the final term of the academic year it is a good time to reflect on the successes of

our first two terms as a Trust. This newsletter will give you an insight into the work which is taking place across all our 25 schools. As you will be aware the St Ralph Sherwin Wheel (the symbol of our Trust) has started to make its way around our schools. Myself and Joe Hopkins, our lead lay chaplain with members of our Executive team travelled to St Margaret’s in Glossop to present the wheel to the smallest school in our Trust. Joe has created a liturgy, which schools can adapt and which tells the story of St Ralph Sherwin and what the wheel means to us. From

there, it will make it way to all corners of the trust and finish by being presented to me at our next Feast day celebration on Monday 2 December at the Winding Wheel theatre in Chesterfield. A particular highlight last term was our trip to the national Catholic youth gathering of Flame at Wembley arena. We are particularly proud of the fact that we took 52 representatives of the Trust from four of our secondary schools. We are very grateful to the parishes of St Josephs the Worker, Burton upon Trent; St Peter and St Paul, Swadlincote; St Joseph’s, Derby; St George’s with Holy Spirit, Derby; St Alban’s, Derby; St Hugh’s Barrowash; St Anne’s Buxton; and our Lady and St Joseph, Matlock; who donated to the cost of the coach. We are also grateful to the Catenian association in Derby for their very generous support.

Two further highlights for this term will be on June 7th when we have our pupil celebration event at Pride Park Stadium. This day will be a celebration of and a day to inspire our calling as missionary disciples.On June 23rd we shall have our Diocesan Pilgrimage to Rodsley (Birthplace of St Ralph Sherwin); and sponsored walk for the Trust charities of Bluebell Wood and Rainbows. I would like us all to keep in our thoughts and prayers all of our young people who are sitting SATs, GCSEs and A levels, in fact any public exam this term. It can be a time of great stress for them and we need to support them in any way we can. I hope you enjoy reading this edition of our magazine.

Sean McClafferty

MAY 2019 ISSUE 4

- news from across the St Ralph Sherwin Trust

MUMS GO BACK TO THE CLASSROOMMore than 140 mums, grandmas, aunties and female relatives went back to the classroom to spend the day with pupils at Saint Edward’s Catholic Voluntary Academy.The school, in Swadlincote, invites female relatives to attend lessons with pupils to give them an insight into their learning as part of the special day, which has been running for more than seven years. A separate day for male relatives is held annually in June.

The whole day had a Science theme and there were astronaut training workshops as well as arts and crafts activities and an outdoor rocket launch. Headteacher Jayne McQuillan said the day was a fantastic event which helped to foster a sense of

family within the school.She said: “There has always been strong sense of family and community here and a day like this just builds on that.”

Joe HopkinsTrust Lead Lay Chaplain

Reflections: Easter, Exams and Excitement

Happy Easter!Though Easter Sunday may seem a long time ago now, we celebrate Easter for 50 days right up to Pentecost Sunday on 9th June. Celebrate is definitely the right word that we should use for this time of year even though many of our pupils are facing exams!This time of year can be one of the toughest and stressful times for our pupils and staff. Everyone wants to do their best and is fearful of not living up to their potential. I see this mirrored with the Apostles too. After Jesus’ death they felt they were completely at a loss, the wider group of followers were looking to them about what to do next and they didn’t know. They may have wondered what it meant for them now Jesus had died, did they go back to tax collecting and fishing? What joy they must have felt then when they encountered the risen Jesus. The celebration that they joined in, and we aim to live out too, is not a celebration of something done and dusted. They were celebrating because of what was to come.Consider just three of Jesus’ followers, the Saints, Mary Magdalene, Peter and Thomas. St Mary Magdalene was one of the first to see the risen Jesus, he didn’t come looking for her, she was already at the tomb. She had been released by Jesus from demonic possession, she had been an outcast from society and seen as an untouchable. Jesus had freed her, not just from the spiritual demons but from the mental and societal demons too. With Jesus succumbed to death did she fear she would also be held captive again. Her joy in

seeing that Jesus, this wonderful saviour, was alive, is not just because he is her friend, it is also because his promise is true. This freedom she had received was even guaranteed to not only last but increase. St Peter had been one of Jesus’ closest friends and he publicly denied and rejected Jesus when he needed a friend most. The guilt that must have racked him, it is no wonder that he went running to the tomb to see if it was true. Out of everyone, St Peter meets the Risen Jesus most, Jesus rebuilds St Peter’s faith and confidence

not in Jesus but in himself. He would lead the Church after Jesus goes to heaven. St Peter’s encounters with Christ shows that no matter how big we mess up we can still celebrate what is to come because if we are open to him God will get us back on track. Finally St Thomas gets the nickname doubting Thomas, as he missed the Apostles’ first meeting with Jesus and refused to believe them until he could touch the wounds of the crucifixion. St Thomas has a different nickname in the Gospels though, he is known as the twin. Knowing many twins I have seen that sometimes they can feel they lack their own personal identity and desire to be seen as different from their twin. I wonder if in Jesus, St Thomas was able to discover this and become the man he was made to be not just a copy of his brother. It could be that with Jesus having died he felt he had lost this hope, and it was almost easier to accept that than hope again.In Encountering Jesus all three

of the disciples had the same reaction, profound joy and the desire to go and tell others. Their celebration was because Jesus could be trusted, their lives were going to change for the better and know joy (and challenges) beyond imagination. Easter wasn’t, and isn’t, an end; it was, and is, only the beginning. Another analogy we can draw is the Christian understanding of what marriage is. On the wedding day the celebration is not about the relationship to that point, it is about the change of life and celebrating about what is to come.So how in the preparation for the dreaded SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels do we celebrate what is to come? In the same way the Apostles did, by turning to the Holy Spirit. Like many students they wondered were they ready for the challenge ahead of them. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to make them ready. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in us (to paraphrase St Paul). This term we also begin our first phase of being missionary disciples, the difference between a disciple and a missionary disciple is a missionary disciple has met the risen Jesus, the one who is glorified and bears the marks of the cross. They are the ones who run from the tomb joyfully to look to the future and see how they can make Jesus present in a world that needs them. This is why we celebrate in a term of stress and fear because these exams will end and they will enable us to go out to have the impact on the world that only we can, as missionary disciples of the Risen Jesus. Confident in the knowledge that we face these challenges filled with the Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead!A happy Easter once again, and I pray all in our big family will be empowered by the Holy Spirit! 

“This time of year can be one of the toughest and stressful times for our pupils and staff. Everyone wants to do their best and is fearful of not living up to their potential.”

A Year 9 student at Saint Benedict Catholic Voluntary Academy in Derby helped to raise almost £1,000 for homeless people by

sleeping outside all night.Evie Baker took part in the YMCA Derbyshire Sleep Easy along with her mum and mum’s work colleagues from Elliot

Mather. The group slept out all night, along with hundreds of others, at Derbyshire County Cricket Club’s ground.

Evie’s sleepout raises money for charity

Students at Saint John Houghton Catholic Voluntary Academy are to forge links with the Royal British Legion after meeting two of the organisation’s members.Arthur Norman, 86, and Paul Scott, 67, met

members of the school’s Justice and Peace group and students studying history.The pair first came into contact with the school when they helped provide poppies on Remembrance Day.

In preparation for Lent ,St Elizabeth’s in Belper had a retreat day with Sr Dorothy Paul, a Franciscan Sister whose Order started our school and still plays a part in our school family.

We had a great day, gospel stories, Christian music and dance, learning about the beatitudes as a way to happiness, we even had games and talked about the kind of person we want to become.”

On the Wednesday of Holy Week all the priests of the Diocese gathered with Bishop Patrick at St Barnabas to celebrate the Chrism Mass. Represent-atives from parishes all across the Diocese as well as the convents, monas-teries, friaries and hermit-ages; communities such as the Briars and University Chaplaincies joined them to pray for our Diocese. The Chrism Mass is when the Priests renew the vows they made when they were ordained and the oils that are used in the Sacra-ments of Baptism, Con-firmation, Ordination, and the Anointing of the Sick are blessed and consecrat-ed. It is a wonderful cele-bration of the diversity and

university of our Diocese. Each year some school pupils are chosen to carry forward the offertory, this year Ella and Finlay from St Alban’s represented not just their school, or the 8,000 pupils of our Trust but every school pupil in the Diocese! They were they youngest pupils to do this in many, many years and were brilliant at it. Ella and Finlay, you were so good and did us all very proud.

Joe Hopkins.

Photo courtesy of Mazur from the Catholic News.

At English Martyrs’ we invited children to be Parish Ambassadors to continue to build links from our school to the parishes, to inform our community of what is happening in school and invite them to our events and celebrations.

In each edition we will run a profile on a member of our Trust. This edition we focus on Trust Finance Director Phil Curtis.

In the next edition we will profile Trust Board Vice-Chair Peter Barnes.

Personal I am originally from Nottingham and lived in Leeds with my wife Lisa and two children Ella-May and Fionnlagh, before relocat-

ing to North Nottinghamshire. I read Electronic Engineering at the University of Leeds before completing a Doctorate in the same subject. I went on to work with the University of Manches-ter as a researcher in the fields of electronic metamaterials and terahertz technologies. Having decided I needed more excite-ment in my life I retrained as an accountant and took up a post of finance assistant at an acade-my in Leeds.Where are you based?St Katherine’s House in Derby and St Margaret’s in Glossop.What is your vision for the St Ralph Sherwin CMAT and the schools within it?My role is to ensure the Trust is financially secure in the long term which is about under-standing the schools, pupil numbers and modelling the

projected income and expendi-ture and making sure resources are directed to where they are needed. The vision for the fi-nance function is to support the schools in the day to day order-ing and paying bills as well as to set and monitor budgets.Can you tell us about your role day-to-day?My day is typically split be-tween developing financial plans and supporting the fi-nance team in setting up the new systems and processes. This leads to many meetings with schools, external agencies and other FDs from within the diocese.

Budding mathematicians from five Catholic schools in Derby took part in an inter Maths Competition hosted by St John Fisher Voluntary Catholic Academy. Each school team consisted of a pupil representing each year group from Year 1 to Year 6. The pupils had to answer a range of challenging questions, some as a team and some individually. It was a close competition but St George’s Voluntary Catholic

Academy won the prestigious trophy for the second year running! All teachers were extremely proud of their teams and the resilience they demonstrated and parent spectators and competitors enjoyed the experience tremendously. Maths Leads Mrs Hume and Miss Walker said: “ Here at St George’s our pupils have a love of mathematics and I think this shone through today.”

World Book Day 2019

Monica Barnes, one of our year 6 pupils at Saint Mary’s, New Mills, was so concerned about climate change, that she wrote to the local MP. This resulted in Ruth George MP coming into school to answer any ques-tions the children had about climate change and any other issues, which concerned them. As a result, both Monica and our school were cited in one of the parliamentary debates as evidence that children are concerned for their future.

St Benedict CVA

St Anne’s CVA

St Charles CVA

All Saints and St Margaret’s

St Joseph’s CVA Matlock

A sponsored silence, a bake sale and a tuck shop are just some of the fundraising events organised by stu-dents at St Philip Howard Catholic Voluntary Academy in Glossop.Every form across the school was asked to come up with their own ideas to raise money for CAFOD, the Catholic international develop-ment charity in England and Wales.The form that raises the most mon-ey will receive a prize and the fund-raising drive is led by students in the school’s chaplaincy team (pictured below).

St Mary’s CVA in Glossop is planning a week long series of events to celebrate its 50th anniversary.There will be a history themed dress up day and street party, a creative day, a mission day, a community and aspiration day including a football tournament and sports festival. At the end of the week the celebrations will culminate in a Mass led by Bishop Patrick McKinney at St Mary Crowned Church, followed by a picnic and celebra-tions on the school field.

Happy 50th birthday!

PHOTO GALLERY

The sun came out in Ilkeston as St Thomas’ had a Zumba-thon for Rainbows. All children dressed in rainbow colours.

Bow, the Rainbow mascot, came along as did Ali Furlong from the charity. It was a great day and it raised over £2,700!

Pupils raise more than £2,700

Joe Hopkins writes, ‘In March we began the tour of the St Ralph Sherwin Wheel around the Trust, beginning with St Margaret’s School in Glossop.The St Ralph Sherwin wheel may look like a funny thing but it is a symbol of the community of St Ralph Sherwin Catholic Multi Academy Trust. It was used the first time the headteachers of our schools met together last year, and was shown when every member of staff of our schools met together last December. When the teachers gathered together to pray, the wheel was used to help them think about

what it meant to be a part of a family of schools that we call the Multi Academy Trust.The centre of the wheel is called the hub, this is the people who work for the Trust in the finance team, the human resources team, the directors of performance and standards, the estates team the Lead Lay Chaplain and Mr Mc-Clafferty, who oversee the work of the schools and are responsi-ble for making sure every pupil has the best opportunity to live out God’s calling for them. The hub has to be strong to sport the poles that come out, these are called spokes. Each of these spokes repre-sent our schools. Each spoke is different but all are needed for the wheel to work. Some of the schools are in the country and some are in the middle of the city, some schools are small with 20 pupils and some are big with 1348; some schools are second-ary with pupils up to the age of

19 and some are primary schools with nursey children as young as 3! Each school will get some time with the wheel and get to decorate it and add to the scrap books, adding their own identity to it.The final part is the rim of the wheel, this is the communities that we support, the people in the cities, towns and villages that connect to our schools. The parishes and the families are all connected as being part of the one family of God and the hub and the spokes help them move, and fulfil their calling.The wheel will be passed from school to school with pupils de-livering it to the next school and praying together as well as shar-ing the story of the CMAT and their own school identity. It will complete it’s journey when we gather in December as a whole staff community to celebrate our feast day.’

Lentern liturgies at Christ the King CVA

St Alban’s CVA Lentern promise cross

St Joseph’s DerbyRainbows donations

St Mary’s DerbyParliament Day

Special Mass at St Thomas More and presentation to Mrs Ryan

Holy Rosary Odd Socks/World Down’s Syndrome Day

The St Ralph Sherwin prayer took centre stage at our Lenten Creativity Day!Children from six of our primary schools in the northern region came together in friendship and creative harmony to produce a permanent piece of artwork based on our CMAT prayer. The schools involved were All Saints’, Glossop; St Anne’s, Buxton; St Charles’, Hadfield;St Mary’s, Glossop; St Mary’s, Marple Bridge and St Mary’s, New Mills. Taking our Academy ‘wheel’ (currently travelling between our schools) as a unifying link,

the children created a quartet of colourful canvases to remind us all that we are called to do God’s work ‘today rather then tomorrow’. The circular image will hang proudly in the CMAT office base at St Margaret’s in Gamesley.To maximise the artistic flair in the room, a fine array of handmade Easter cards were produced by the children, enabling us to share Easter blessings across the Trust.The day was framed, suitably, by a beautiful liturgy led by Joe Hopkins - reminding all present of the beauty of God’s world and that each person

is afforded unique gifts and talents.The pupils thoroughly enjoyed their day. They made the most of the opportunity to forge strong links with their peers from other CMAT schools- even opting out of break time to continue with craft activities alongside each other!We look forward to replicating this occasion in the south of the Trust later in the year, when we can create another masterpiece to reflect our togetherness in faith within the St Ralph Sherwin family of schools.Fionuala Boucher

We would love to share your good news across our trust so please submit items and photos to pr@srscmat.co.uk. We will try to use as many as we can. Thankyou.

When did you join St Edward’s?I first joined St Edward’s Catholic Voluntary Academy in 1972 as a pupil (pictured below).What was it like to return as a teacher?It was strange to come back to work here after being a pupil and although the buildings had changed I still felt that family feeling that I’d experienced when I was young and I think that’s partly because the Catholic ethos runs through everything we do here, we are such a strong community.What are your memories of the school as a pupil?I was well looked after here. We had great links with the church and the convent across the road, it was all quite joined up. When I was a pupil things were very different. There have been a lot of changes since then. When I started, the school building was completely open plan and there were two classes in the infants. We used blackboards and the teachers were nuns, who were

very good to me. I remember school trips to York, London and a particularly memorable journey on the ferry to the Isle of Wight.Did you always want to be a teacher?I went from St Edward’s to Blessed Robert Sutton CVA, in Burton, and originally wanted

to become an interpreter.I wanted to be an interpreter and work for the World Health Organisation in Geneva but

someone said I would make a good teacher. I did my PGCE in Derby and I loved every minute of it. It was hard but so rewarding. That’s what I love about teaching, it’s the difference that you can make. When you see a child’s face light up when they understand something, I don’t think you can every underestimate that.What does the future hold for St Edward’s?These are exciting times and it’s great to have such supportive staff here. We are at full capacity throughout the school and looking forward to receiving a positive outcome in our next Ofsted inspection. We have converted to an academy and being part of the Trust provides us with great support. There is a real momentum here at the moment.

Headteacher Jayne McQuillan is a former pupil at St Edward’s CVA and is celebrating 10 years in charge there. Here she tells us what makes the school so special to her.