Pope John XXIII Multi Academy CompanyPope John XXIII Catholic Multi Academy Company -

Our Patron St John XXIII

Pope John XXIII was born Angelo Roncalli in a small village in Lombardy in Italy. He was ordained priest in 1904 and served in many places in Italy during the first part of the 20th century. He was papal delegate to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey and papal nuncio (ambassador) to France,. In 1953 he was made Cardinal and Patriarch of Venice. He was elected Pope at the age of 78 in October 1958 taking the name John, the first to do so for 500 years. Many thought he would only be Pope for a few years because of his age and health. So they were surprised when in October 1962 he called the bishops together for only the Second Vatican Council. The council lasted until 1965- he did not live to see it as he died in June 1963. He was much loved by many throughout the world, not only Catholics and was known as Good Pope John. In April 2014, he was canonised by Pope Francis alongside Pope John Paul II.

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.” Pope John XXIII

See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little. Pope John XXIII.

Pope John XXIII Catholic Multi Academy Company

The History of our Schools

The history of Catholic education in Wolverhampton is long and rich and our four schools have contributed to that: Our Lady and St Chad School was formed from the Convent of Mercy (ca.1860’s) and St Chad’s College, established in 1925; St. Mary’s and Holy Rosary have recently celebrated their 85th and 80th anniversaries, and even our ‘youngest’ school Corpus Christi has been providing a Catholic education for over 50 years. On March 1st 2015, we came together as a MAC and started out on a new era in that long history. Our schools are dedicated to Our Blessed Lord, His Blessed Mother, our diocesan patron St. Chad, and our MAC patron St. John XXIII; we invoke the prayers of all of them, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit at the start of our new journey.

Pope John XXIII Multi Academy Company.

On the 1st March 2015, Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School, Holy Rosary Catholic Primary School, Our Lady and St Chad Catholic Sports College and St Mary’s Catholic Primary School became the Pope John XXIII Multi Academy Company.

We are proud to be known after the saint, who, in our own times, ‘opened the windows of the Church’ to the Holy Spirit and a new era, and delighted that, after months of preparation, our four schools embark on a new and exciting journey together.

Why have four of our local schools become an Academy Company? The Government is of a mind that all schools in the future will be Academies. Given the sea-change in the education system in this country, it seemed to the governors, staff and parents of our four schools that, after prayer, reflection and discernment, they should be proactive and embrace with enthusiasm the Multi Academy Company model which has been carefully thought out to secure the long-term future of our Catholic schools in rapidly changing times.

The structure and organisation of the new academy has a new and unfamiliar language about it. Overall responsibility for the four schools in the multi academy falls to the Board of Directors. The Governing Body of each school is now an Academy Committee and the Headteacher is now the Principal of the school.

We are not an academy chain, nor are we sponsored by any companies and the members of the Board of Directors are not salaried, and the company does not make a profit.

The Multi Academy model fits perfectly with our own Catholic theology and faith perspective. As our bishops stated in ‘The Common Good in Education’ of 1997: ‘no school or college is “an island, entire of itself.” It means that no governing body, no individual group of parents, has the right to disregard the good of another institution…..On the contrary, all are responsible for all. The duty to care for the other lies at the heart of the Church’s social teaching.’

Our MAC Prayer

God our Father, your servant, Pope John XXIII, when first he became a Bishop, took as his motto,
Obedience and Peace.
Obedience meaning to ‘listen together’

Pope John always tried to listen to what God was asking of him and his prayer was,
‘May my feet be swift to spread peace and the good things of God’

This is our prayer today

Lord, bless our children and young people of the Pope John XXIII Multi Academy.

Be with us all on our faith journey and, in our teaching and learning,
help us to listen to what God is asking of us
and, in all that we do, may we be eager to
spread peace and the good things of God.