St Ambrose College

Andy Burnham Visit

This term, we were honoured to be joined in school by Metro Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. He accepted an invitation from our Edmund Rice International Group to come and talk to us about our work to combat homelessness in our city.

Mayor Burnham has prioritised reducing homelessness during his time as Mayor, even donating a proportion of his salary to supporting homelessness services around Manchester. When two of our Year 7 students, Valentine Carroll and Isaac Marlin, wrote to him on behalf of the rest of the group, he was very keen to come in and meet the students.

During the visit, members of the ERI Group presented some of the activities they have undertaken to raise awareness about this issue amongst their peers. These included a PSHE lesson taught to all year groups (written by the ERI Group), presentations on homelessness during our Advocacy and Inclusivity Week, and our Sleepout.

Mayor Burnham was then grilled by the students on what politicians are doing to solve this social justice issue. They certainly didn’t let him off the hook with their questions! However, you could tell that Mayor Burnham enjoyed engaging with them, and he even promised to return to school with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, whose task it is to review and implement the new Labour government’s policy on homelessness.

The condition is that we produce a high quality, creative research piece focusing on ending child homelessness in Manchester. Currently, over 550 young people are homeless in the city. The ERI Group believe we can make a big difference to this number and persuade policy makers to support the efforts of charities.

Visit to Relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis

Our Chaplaincy Group joined students from other Shrewsbury Diocese schools at St Anthony’s Church in Wythenshawe to venerate the relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis as part of its tour of the country.

Known as ‘God’s Influencer’ because he used social media to evangelise, Carlo Acutis was born in London to Italian parents. In 2006 he died in Italy from leukaemia, aged 15, after launching a website that catalogued every reported miracle connected to the Eucharist.

In 2020, Carlo was beatified after the healing of a Brazilian was attributed to his intercession. In May, Pope Francis approved as miraculous, the healing of Valeria Valverde, a 21-year-old Costa Rican involved in a cycling accident. Hearing her daughter was likely to die during emergency surgery, Valeria’s mother prayed for her at Blessed Carlo’s tomb in Assisi. That day, Valeria began to breathe without artificial assistance. Due to become the first ‘millennial saint,’ Acutis could be canonised during the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year.

Our students loved meeting like-minded people from the other Diocesan schools, and found the time for personal reflection, private prayer, and activities focused on Blessed Carlo Acutis profound and meaningful. The display explaining the miracles he catalogued was fascinating and Mass, attended by almost 1000 pilgrims (many of whom had travelled from as far afield as Germany and Scandinavia), was an uplifting symbol of faith and community.

Edwin Sabu, a Year 9 student who helped decorate the church for the occasion, said “This was very important to us because we can relate to someone so young who was also so close to God. He particularly appeals to us because he is from only a few years ago. He played computer games, played sport, just like us. But he also did something important and holy with his life.”

During the four days of public prayer, veneration and devotion at St Anthony’s in September, Bishop Mark Davies said: “What makes Carlo Acutis stand out as a witness, was what lay at the heart of his life, his interior life.  For this young man discovered the Heart of Jesus in the silence of the Eucharist; in the daily offering of the sacrifice of the Mass; in commitment to personal prayer; in the frequent confession of his sins as the path to holiness; and in love for Mary, the Mother of Christ and our Mother.

“And this Love overflowed from his heart in a desire to share this same love, indeed, the great miracle of love, which is the Eucharist, with all his contemporaries, indeed with all the world via the internet.  A love which overflowed in the ordinary duties and details of life in care of friends; in standing up to bullies; and in his practical concern for the poor.”

Year 7 Retreat

 All our Year 7 students had the opportunity to take part in a residential Retreat at Castlerigg in Keswick during the final week of Half Term. As they were divided into their Houses, it was a great chance for them to make new friends and meet new people.

Each House spent 24 hours at Castlerigg, enjoying fun team-building activities, games based on scripture and prayer, and plenty of reflective space to talk and share their individual life journeys. The theme of this year’s Retreat was ‘Hands, Head, and Hearts’. However, the most popular part of the programme was football in the park, followed by free time in Keswick itself. Predictably, most of them seemed to be drawn to the famous Old Friar’s sweet shop!

Keswick is a lovely place to be on Retreat as it features some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. A visit there is not complete without a walk to the banks of Derwent Water to appreciate the serenity of the lake and views of the surrounding mountains.

Back at Castlerigg, any residential Retreat brings with it the excitement of shared rooms! It’s not always easy to persuade the boys to go to sleep, but those late-night conversations and midnight feasts are memories they will keep for a long time!

Jack and his Retreat Team did an amazing job planning and delivering the sessions, not least as repeating the same process for Ignatius, Newman, Aquinas and Augustine Houses is a major challenge. All the staff who took part had a brilliant time as well and couldn’t resist getting involved in the team challenges with the boys!

Sleepout

 In November our ERI Group organised our annual Sleepout on the school grounds to raise awareness about homelessness. The group worked extremely hard promoting the event and making others aware of it in school. It was fantastic that six staff also took part, showing that the message is permeating throughout our school community.

When we gathered on the Friday night, we were greeted by a Zoom! call from Cormac McArt who contextualised the issue of homelessness and shared the creative work he has done with the Edmund Rice Network in Ireland and England. Then, the students spelt out the letters of our slogan, “Every child deserves a safe home to grow”, using sleeping bags!

From there, they visited our very own ‘soup kitchen’ for some sustenance before bedding down on cardboard on the playground for the night. It was a little warmer this year, but damp and dreary, nonetheless. It was still a real challenge for students to get to sleep after the midnight ‘lights out’ call! Amazingly, we all got a few hours’ sleep before waking up to a ‘breakfast service’ at 5.00 am! There were plenty of bleary eyes when parents collected the students at 6.00!

The students understand the importance of ‘walking in the shoes’ of the marginalised as a way of getting to grips with justice issues. They also appreciate the importance of such acts of solidarity in living out Catholic Social Teaching principles and the Eight Essentials.

As Barney Magher, in Year 10, says: “It’s essential for Catholic schools to have social justice groups. It’s one thing to learn about your faith, but it’s another to act it out in daily life. As St Francis of Assisi said: ‘Always preach the Gospel, using words when necessary.’ We must use our religion to promote positive change in the world.”