Catholic Life

Section 48

Our most recent Diocesan Inspection took place in February 2022. The Archdiocese of Birmingham graded Trinity as “Good” in all areas whilst judging the leadership and governance of Catholic Life as outstanding.  

The school was inspected on a new framework, more closely aligned with OFSTED in its rigour and judgements. As a result, it is more difficult to attain a Good judgement in this inspection than it has been in our previous inspections. In addition, all aspects of school life are considered including pupils' behaviour and attitudes as well as the pastoral support provided to our young people 

The inspectors noted that we are “the only school in the area that has an explicit mission to support the most needy and vulnerable”. They found from staff that “pupils show kindness to one another because of the very fact that the school is a community of faith.” Students talked “positively about their experiences, demonstrating their awareness of other's needs”.  

Leadership of the school is described across the report as “inspirational, transformational and outstanding.” The school is described as having a sense of calmness and note is taken of the reduced number of behaviour incidents. “Pastoral care is a real strength” and our most recent change in terms of the introduction of a Return to Learn room which promotes inclusion for our most vulnerable pupils is having a “positive impact”. In terms of this staff felt that our Catholic designation was “at the core of the school’s pastoral work” 

In terms of our governance their contribution is described as “outstanding” as they support and challenge me and the other Senior leaders on all areas of our work as a Catholic school effectively, enabling progress.  

S48 Inspection Report 

Please click on the link below to read about our Mission Team.

Mission-Team.pdf

Please click on the link below to read about 2025 being the Year of Jubilee. 

Year-of-Jubilee-information.pdf

To see a full list of Liturgical dates please click on the link below. 

Liturgical Calendar 2025-26

School Prayer

Born London 191 - Died Italy 2006 aged 15

Bl. Carlos Acutis lived a life of heroic holiness in the modern world.  At school, he defended other kids against bullies.  When one of his friend's parents were getting divorced, he made a special effort to inlcudee him in his own family life.  Along with his holiness, Bl. Carlos was a normal kid.  He loved to code, hang out with friends, play video games and football.  At the age of 15, he contracted leukaemia.  He chose to offer his suffering for Pope Benedict XVI and the Church.  

When a doctor asked him about the pain, he responded: "There are people who suffer much more than me!"

In his last months, he chose to make a website to categorize every Eucharistic miracle in the Church, all 136 of them.  Bl. Carlos Acutis shows a path towrad holiness in the modern world: a love for the Eucharist and a life for God:

"To always be close to Jesus, that's my life plan."

Born Skopje 1910 - Died Calcutta 1997 aged 87

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948, wearing a simple, white cotton sari with a blue border.  Mother Teresa spent several months  in Patna to receive basic medical training at Holy Family Hospital and ventured into the slums.  She founded a school in Motijhil, Calcutta, before she began tending to the poor and hungry. 

On 7th October 1950, Mother Teresa received Vatican permission for the diocesan congregation, which would become the Missionaries of Charity.  In her workds, it would care for "the hungry, the nake, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone". 

"By blood, I am Albanian.  By citizenshiop, an Indian.  By faith, I am a Catholic nun.  As to my calling, I belong to the world.  As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus."  Mother Theresa 31st August 2016

Born Poland 1894 - Died Auschwitz 1941 aged 47

Maximillian Kolbe was a Polish Cathoic priest and Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a man in the Geman death camp of Auschwitz, during Worl War II. 

At the end of July 1941, one prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts.  When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczzek, cried out, "My wife! My children!" Kolbe volunteered to take his place. 

According to any eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer.  Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. 

After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive.  The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carblic acid.  Kolbe is said to hv raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection. 

Born Darfur c.1869 - Died Italy 1947 aged 77

In 1877, when she was 7-8 years old, she was seized by Arab slave traders.  She was forced to walk barefoot about 960 kilometres to El-Obeid and was sold and bought twice before she arrived there.  Over the course of twelve years she was sold three more times and suffered horrific abuse.

In 1888, her Italian 'owner' left his daughter and Josephine in the care of the Canossian Sisters in Venice.  There, cared for and insturcted by the Sisters, Bakhita encountered Christianity for the first time.  Grateful to her teachers, she recalled, "Those holy mothers instructed me with heroic patience and introduced me to that God who from childhood I had felt in my heart without knowing who He was".  She was eventually given her freedom in 1889 and became a religious sister. 

A young student once asked Bakhita: "What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?" Without hesitation, she replied:  "If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands.  For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christion and an religious today." 

Born El Salvador 1917 - Died El Salvador 1980 aged 62

As an archbishop, Romero repeatedly spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War. 

On 24th March 1980, Archbishop Romero delivered a sermon in which he called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God's higher order and to stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights. 

Romero finished his sermon, he stepped away from the lectern, and took a few steps to stand at the centre of the altar.  As Romero finished speaking, a red car came to a stop on the street in front of the chapel.  A gunman merged from the vehicle, stepped to the door of the chapel.  A gunman emerged from the vehicle, stepped to the door of the chapel, fired one, possibly two, shopts.  Romero was struck in the heart, and the vehicle sped off. 

His Funeral Mass a few days later was attended by more than 250,000 mourners from all over the world.  During the funeral ceremony, smoke bombs exploded on the streets near the cathedral and subsequently there were rifle shots that cam from surrounding buildings.  Many people were killed by gunfire and in the stampede of people running away from the explosions and gunfire.