St. Edmund's in the Community

Other Cultures Evening

As a school and as a parish we are becoming much more multi-cultural and because of this we have found that there are many cultural differences which need to be addressed.

Together with Father Ged Murphy, our school and parish priest and St. Malachy's and St. Patrick's school we organised evenings where these differences, especially around discipline and the law could be openly discussed.

Parent's were invited to attend St. Patrick's Church for a bite to eat and a liturgy, before beginning the group discussions.

A parent from St. Edmund's spoke to the group about how CARITAS have helped her and her family, this was lovely to hear. This event was well supported by both parents and staff from all three school.

As well as ensuring we have strong parish links we also like to work closely with the GMP and the PCSO's for Monsall and Harpurhey.

The PCSO's often come and visit the school and sometimes stay for our Good Work Assembly on a Wednesday.

As a school we follow and promote the Gospel values and encourage the children to think 'What would Jesus do?' but we understand when outside of school there are a lot of other pressures they may face.

In Nursery and Reception their topic was 'people who help us' so the PCSO's were invited to come in and talk with the children about what they do. By building these relationships when the children are young, it sets a strong foundation for the future.

Adactus Housing and Branley Homes

We were contacted by Branley homes to see if we would like to become involved in the landscaping of new housing on the corner of Monsall Road and Emmett Street East by planting trees and plants. Of course it would be hard for all 240 pupils to go down to the site so it was decided that we would run a competition to choose 10 lucky pupils to plant trees.

The younger children were asked to colour in a picture of a tree-house and they were judged on their colouring skills. KS2 children were set the challenge of designing their own tree-house and drawing a plan, explaining what each part was and how it worked.

It was a very hard decision to make as we have so many creative and talented children in our school but in the end they were chosen. We were rained off a few times but finally managed to get down to the houses one crisp December afternoon!

This was another great opportunity for our children who live very close to the city centre to get hands on with God's creations we talk about with them in class.

                 

    

Children from Year 6 were extremely lucky to take part in a real-life television interview for the BBC’s Inside Out programme! A section of our classroom was transformed into an interview room with cameras, a director and interviewer all in place ready to film. The children were asked questions about child poverty in the North West region and what they thought about those living in deprivation. It was the talk of the class for a couple of days and the children loved seeing themselves on the big screen. What an experience!

 

The Lalley Centre

The Lalley Centre opened in the autumn of 2007 and the centre was officially blessed by the Bishop of Salford in February 2008. The inspiration for the Centre came from the Catholic Children’s Rescue Society in Salford Diocese as an outreach project in the wider community.

The Centre is situated in an area of the basement of St. Malachy's School where a warm, friendly and comfortable room is available with chairs and tables and facilities for making tea, coffee and toast. There is also an office where clients can discuss their problems with the 2 professional social workers. The Centre provides a range of services - parenting, welfare benefits, debt management, help with filling in forms and access to a Credit Union.

St. Edmund's children appreciate the hard work that the Lalley Centre do and offer their own help for those who are less fortunate than themselves by holding regular food collections throughout the year.

Since Greater Manchester Police relocated their Headquarters to Monsall we have developed a great relationship with the Police and extended our links to the community even further. Year on year we participate in the Christmas celebrations at the Police station where the children are invited to sing for the officers - they aprticularly enjoy our version of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. 

Sharing yet more of our musical skills, our Ceili band are often asked to go and perform for some of the events that the Headquarters host - the children are always thrilled at the prosepct and are often treated with a tour of the CCTV suites or even to setting off a siren or two! 

The children really enjoy visiting GMP Headquesters and our singing and playing are just a little pay back for all of the fantastic work they do to keep us safe in our local community!

We always jump at the chance to help others in the community but when we were asked by GMP to take part in their Christmas Advent Calander we were so excited!  The children thought it was like being a part of a real-life detective drama - especially with all of the film crew and cameras! The children worked for days to produce some brilliant acting and we definitely have some BAFTA award winners in the making!