13 June 2024
Dear Parents, Guardians and Students/Annwyl Rhieni, Gwarchodwyr a Myfyrwyr
If only we could bottle the energy and exuberance of youth!
I often wish I could bottle some of the amazing energy expended by the young people of Llanishen High School. And that’s exactly how my sneak peek behind the scenes of the choreography and orchestra in their rehearsals for the summer production of Footloose left me last week!
Not only that, I also found myself transported back to 1984 and a movie theatre where Kevin Bacon fought the good fight for Rock and Roll and Dancing! Will they dance at prom? If you’re not a child of the 80’s, you’ll have to wait and see!
Who would have thought that 40 years later, the production would be coming to the West Wing Stage at LHS. Get your tickets for 9th, 10th or 11th July… 7pm start!
In anticipation, let me take you behind the scenes in rehearsals and start by introducing some of our new Year 7 talent!
A bumper crop for the summer 2024 at LHS!
The summer term at LHS screams ‘summer production!’ And it also screams ‘polytunnel and garden abundance!’
The polytunnel and its surrounding garden at Llanishen High School has progressed in a huge way over the last two terms. The variety of produce that has been planted by the students is more varied than ever. The food department are really looking forward to being able to cook with the seasonal produce that we pick.
We currently have sweet peppers, garlic, a wide variety of beans, pumpkins, sweetcorn, watermelons, aubergines, climbing strawberries and peas and chillies all growing beautifully inside our polytunnel.
Out in the garden there have been big changes to the infrastructure as well. Our path is now almost all the way around the garden, giving students easy access to our newly constructed raised beds. Our Year 10 Construction class helped Mr Hurford and Mr Owen to build them and they are now full of British vegetables, such as potatoes, white cabbage, carrots, onions, brussel sprouts and cauliflower.
The students have also been planting wild flowers ready to be transplanted outdoors in our wild flower meadow which is one of the next exciting developments in the garden. Poppies and cornflowers accompany a myriad of other wild flowers that we are growing from seed.
The composter in our zero waste garden is now ready for our peelings!! It looks smart and will help us significantly in our mission to recycle our food waste. We will now have home produced compost for our vegetable moving forwards.
Here it is in all it’s glory!
The new dry stone wall feature with climbing beans is finished and looks superb. Huge thanks to Mr Hurford and the Key Stage 3 students for building it
The next photograph made me stop for a moment. It is one we should keep for posterity.
It is probably one of the last photographs we’ll capture from our school garden that has the tax offices in the distance!
And a final few…..
Whist we are over in the geographical area of Health and Wellbeing, we wish we had the power to bring you smell. Mrs Pettit was very proud of her Year 12 A Level group who tackled complex bakes this week. The smell in the room was like an artisan bakery!
An update from our amazing HIRB!
This leads perfectly on to the creative exploits of the students in our Hearing Impaired Resource Base this week. They have enjoyed masses of outdoor learning opportunities this week. They’ve been exploring our beautiful local areas, putting in a shift with the new dry stone wall feature, and tending to the pumpkin patches.
Most importantly, someone has to check the levels of comfort of the camping chairs at Mountain Warehouse!
And if the earlier references to Footloose didn’t take some of you back to your formative years, surely this next feature will. Shell art! When they haven’t been out and about, our HIRB have been teasing out their creative sides with these unique shell boxes.
School Essentials Grant
Finally today, please continue to share the link below as far and wide as possible.
The School Essentials Grant is available to eligible families on lower incomes with children attending school from reception to Year 11. All looked after children also qualify for the grant of:
- £125 per learner
- £200 for learners entering Year 7
The 2023 to 2024 scheme has now closed but applications can be made for the new grant year from 1 July. Details are available on local authority websites via the link below:
School Essentials GrantI look forward to bringing you more news and updates next week.
Thank you for reading/Diolch am ddarllen,
Mrs Sarah Parry, Headteacher