Aston Villa

This Academic Year we are working with the Aston Villa Foundation. Scott our coach comes into school every Thursday and is working with different children every half term. 

Through our work with the foundation we are also attending a variety of events that they organise.

Our Christ the King Bear

In 2017, Birmingham Children’s Hospital brought the streets of Birmingham alive with ‘The Big Sleuth’. Artists and organisations were given the opportunity to paint a design onto a Bear of their choosing and the money raised from the purchase of the bears would fund the hospital.

More than 50,000 school children also designed and painted bear cubs to be exhibited in museums, parks, shopping centres and libraries. 

We asked the children of Christ the King to design a bear and then we collated their designs into ‘Kingsey Standing of Bearmingham'. 

An overwhelming number of children chose to emphasise the importance of our local community, depicting people of many different ethnicities and including key features of Kingstanding within their design.

One common feature was the image of the daffodil, which many children remembered planting around Conker Island in memory of Doreen Mooney, an inspirational member of our community who spearheaded the New Heights Charity which is based a few doors away from the school.

One of the many ways in which New Heights serves Kingstanding is through the community café. A number of members of our Crackers Family Forum volunteer at the café and staff regularly visit there at lunch times.                                                  

We also work closely with a number of organisations in our community including our local PCSOs and The Aylesbury Surgery. Dr. Mehta is a regular visitor to Christ the King. In addition to talking to classes, he judges our annual Easter Bonnet Parade and also leads an assembly during the Hindu Festival of Diwali to help us to understand this celebration better. 

Our Parent Forum are an incredible support to the school. Through fundraising they help to enhance the opportunities and experiences offered to children during their time at Christ the King. They also organise the First Holy Communion and Confirmation ‘breakfast’s in the hall after the celebration Masses. On our Christ the King fun day (the Friday before the end of the Church’s year) the parent forum plan and coordinate activities for the children to participate in and at Christmas they put on and help to supervise discos in the hall.

At Christ the King we welcome everyone and treat them with respect and this is one of the reasons why we have so many volunteers who come into school each week to help with administrative tasks and to hear children read. We are also never short of visitors during our World of Work Week as people are often more than willing to return each year to our friendly school. This includes seminarians from Oscott College, who visit us to tell our children more about their vocation.

Our choir are active in the local community and have been asked to represent the school at many different venues and events. In addition to singing in joint concerts with Cardinal Wiseman School and supporting Jo Boyce and One Life Music in their concerts, they have also provided entertainment at local care homes, hospitals and at Diocesan conferences.

We are proud to be part of the Archdiocese of Birmingham and a large number of staff regularly attend training and cluster events with other schools in the Diocese in order to remain up-to-date with the latest guidance. At many of these courses, learning journals showcasing our children’s work are on display as an example of an outstanding way to gather evidence of children’s learning.

In addition to this we also work closely with a group of other schools across the city as part of the Sursum Corda group. By doing this we are able to share good practice and also offer support and guidance to each other through structured review days and meetings concerning all aspects of our broad curriculum.

We also have strong links with our local secondary school, Cardinal Wiseman. Our Year 5 and 6 pupils regularly visit the school for taster days, Masses and to watch productions. The lay chaplains at Cardinal Wiseman offer lots of support for the children at Christ the King whilst on their faith journey and are a regular presence at our weekly masses. Ex pupils also return for our Christ the King feast day Mass to leading the liturgy with current pupils.

We also actively promote love and respect for all of our brothers and sisters in the world and this is enhanced by visits to places of worship. During Mission week, children are given the opportunity to visit a Buddhist centre, Sikh Gudwara, Hindu Temple, Islamic Exhibition, Jewish Synagogue and a local Anglican church, St. Lukes. Year 3 also visit both the Anglican and Catholic Cathedrals whilst on their trip to Liverpool.  Following these visits, we have received and written letters to our friends of other faiths and are always immensely proud of the attitude and interest shown by our children when learning about the major world religions.