Thriving community spirit at St Illtyd’s
The thriving community spirit that exists at St Illtyd’s Catholic High School was evident once again in recent times with many activities that reflect the Lasallian principles.
The Illtydian Youth Podcast
The Illtydian Youth Podcast successfully published its first episode in April! After months of planning, recording, editing and promotion, the Year 11 SVP Team has managed to create enough episodes for the entire year, releasing an episode every month. All of the girls worked incredibly hard with Raihan and Stacy from the SVP Centre, bringing energy and ideas week after week despite their busy schedules. Make sure you scan the code and follow the podcast to stay up to date with the episodes, we have interviews coming up with the Head Boy and Girl, Lawrence and Briana, our very own Headteacher Mr Thomas, a live Culture Day recording and so many more guest speakers!
Year 7 & 8 Chaplaincy Teams
The Chaplaincy team’s goal last term was to continue to strengthen the link with our Catholic feeder primary schools and some of the ways they wanted to achieve that was through collective worship and collaborative activities. The Year 7 group devised a plan to ‘tour’ the primaries with a collective worship called ‘The Joys of Socks.’ The focus of the worship is to explore inclusivity with the premise that even though we are all different we belong to the same family. Once the students had delivered their message, they would then help the pupils decorate pairs of socks so that we could take them back and hang them in our chapel. So far, they have delivered the collective worship to St John Lloyd and St Cadoc’s Primary School and will finish with St Alban’s before the end of the summer term.
Whilst the Year 7 group delivered collective worship, our Year 8 team invited pupils from St John Lloyd and St Cadoc’s to the chapel for activities. The first activity started with pupils from St Albans who came up to decorate stained glass windows so we could brighten up our chapel; they did a fantastic job and their designs have lasted all term. We had the pleasure of both St Alban’s and St John Lloyd visiting us during the month of May, which is for us as it is to many, the month of Mary. The sun shone beautifully for our Mary Gardening session with St Alban’s, where members of the Chaplaincy team helped the younger children to plant sunflower seeds in pots for them to take back to school, whilst others planted beautiful summer flowers in the chapel garden. The afternoon ended with Mrs Livingston leading the procession, where pupils placed flowers from the garden at the feet of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
St John Lloyd’s visit was just as lovely in its devotion to Mary as members of the Chaplaincy team helped the younger pupils create their very own rosary bracelets. Pupils had their choice of beads and crosses and made some beautiful designs, the glow-in-the dark beads were a fan favourite.
Weekly Mass
You may recall from the last Illtydian that we held weekly Masses during Lent in the school chapel. Well, we enjoyed the frequency so much and the enrichment that it gave our school community that we decided to continue with it. There is no way we could maintain this without the wonderful support of our local priests Fr Brian, Fr Alexander and Fr Sebastian who kindly give their time, the students who help set up and assist during Mass and finally the wonderful response from all of our students and staff.
Virtue Logo Competitions
Congratulations to Luke and Sophia who have each won the Virtues Logo Competitions for the last two terms. The Virtue Logo Design is an activity that forms part of morning collective worship where pupils explore what our school virtues mean for us individually and as a school community; it is the pupil’s decision to then enter their designs into the competition.
Luke designed ‘Compassionate & Loving’ with the idea that the hand and heart symbolised the physical love of people, the cross symbolises the love of the Lord our God, surrounded by a border to tie us all in unity.
Sophia designed ‘Eloquent & Truthful’ with the idea that the megaphone symbolises voicing out God’s wisdom and affirmations. It also symbolises God’s truthfulness and that his knowledge and words are the final standard of truth.
Winning designs are framed and displayed on our virtue corridor, the designs are proudly shown on our school website, and they become the official logos of St Illtyd’s.
Youth Action Group
The Youth Action Group regrouped this term after a short break and what a comeback they had! As a group they decided that they wanted to focus on fundraising for a charity that was personal to them and to many students and staff within the school; they agreed upon the Alzheimer’s Society. The charity was kind enough to send banners, balloons and charity pots and with those the idea and organisation of a bake sale began. The YAG ended up hosting two bake sales as they sold out in the first break on the first day. Thanks to the generosity of our students, their families and staff they managed to raise a whopping £160 for the Alzheimer’s Society!
Year 6 Enrichment Collective Worship
June was a busy month for our Chaplaincy teams as they worked together to deliver the Year 6 Enrichment Collective Worship sessions. As a team we all agreed on a lively collective worship called ‘The Choice Is Yours,’ which helped them explore the impact and importance of choices for themselves, others and their future. St John Lloyd, St Cadoc’s, St Peter’s, St Alban’s and Bryn Hafod Primary School thoroughly enjoyed their session in the Chapel where one of the reflection activities was to pick from three blank envelopes. The envelopes contained three words: PRIZE, NOTHING and PIE. If ‘Prize’ was chosen then the pupil would receive a small bag of chocolates, ‘Nothing’ is as it states and ‘Pie’ meant that the pupil who made that choice would receive a ‘whipped cream pie’ in their face! It was a wonderful way of showing the pupils that the problem with making choices is we don’t often know what the impact of our choices will bring.
We followed up the worship with a puzzle activity where pupils were tasked to cut out and decorate jigsaw pieces, sticking them on to a large sheet of paper. Every Year 6 pupil visiting us over the enrichment period had the opportunity to take part in this activity resulting in a puzzle board full of colourful designs ready for us to display for their first day in September.
School Uniform Appeal
Thank you to all those who have donated so far to our school uniform appeal, your donations will make a big difference to families and carers in our school community who may be struggling. Please continue to send in pre-loved uniforms to our school reception, we are grateful for all your support.
We have been awarded the Eco Schools Green Flag
It has been a busy Summer term for Eco Club. Eco Club members started the term by preparing for a very important visit- our Eco Schools Green Flag Assessment Visit! Our Year 10 Eco Club members rehearsed a presentation for our visitor- Aimee Hallett- Education Officer with Keep Wales Tidy. On the day, pupils gave an informative presentation detailing all the work Eco Club has been involved in over the past three years. This was followed by a question-and-answer session involving all Eco Club members. Finally, we gave Aimee a tour of the school to show her our Eco Board, recycling bins and our school garden. Aimee was impressed by what she saw, and we are delighted to announce that we have been awarded our first ever Eco Schools Green Flag. I would like to thank all the Eco Club members and the Link pupils (who work in the school garden every Friday with Mr Green) for all their hard work over the past three years.
Eco Club members continued the term by conducting our annual Environmental Review of the school. This review covers various aspects of the school- water, energy, waste minimisation, school grounds, biodiversity, transport, and healthy eating & wellbeing. Based on the findings of the review, Eco Club members decided that we will begin the new academic year by tackling the topic of “Energy.”
Eco Club has also been busy out and about on two educational visits. Alongside pupils from the Link, the first visit was to Bute Nurseries in Bute Park. The Nursery produces thousands of bedding plants and supplies plants and trees throughout Cardiff’s parks and in the city centre. Our pupils toured the nurseries and learnt about what they do there. Pupils observed some of the machinery used at the nurseries and had a go at potting. We would like to thank Kevin, Ginny & James for a fantastic insight into the work of the nurseries. We would also like to thank Careers Wales and Adrian Cole, Business Engagement Adviser at Careers Wales for organising this visit for us.
Our second visit was to the Horticulture Department at Bridgend College. Pupils toured the facilities and took part in some hands-on gardening activities.
Luisa May, Community Focused Schools Co-ordinator and Eco Club Lead
Garden Update
Last year, two of our Eco Club members, Dalia Figueroa Molina and Nicolly Trajano Santos Silva, won first place in the Bridgend College Garden Design competition. In April this year, a team from Bridgend College led by Lecturer in Horticulture Anthony Davies visited the school to plant the winning design alongside Eco Club members and pupils from the LINK.
The design is called a “Healing Butterfly Garden” and is shaped like a butterfly. The plants in the design were chosen for either their medicinal properties or because they would attract butterflies and other pollinating insects. Some of the plants used within the design included Buddleia, Lavender, Sedum, Pansies, Mint, Thyme, Chives, Sage and Strawberries. Dalia and Nicolly did an outstanding job with the design.
Eco Club members and LINK pupils worked alongside Anthony and his team to plant the winning design. Pupils also learnt how to care for the plants going forward and how to keep the garden looking its best. As well as planting the design, pupils also planted other crops in our other planting beds- peas, spring onions, salad greens and rosemary to name a few.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the session, and we learnt a lot. We are delighted to say that our school garden is finally looking like a garden! We would like to thank Anthony Davies and the rest of the team - Paul, Josh and Oliver, for coming to lead the session and supplying all the plants.
This academic year, a group of St Illtyd's pupils that access the Link provision, have spent time each Friday working in our community garden. Over the year, they have been involved in many activities from weeding, cultivating soil, and filling the four raised beds with soil. These pupils have been developing gardening skills such as pruning and trimming tree branches, sowing seeds, assessing plant health and providing plant care. Taking part in these activities has also helped improve the confidence, and communication and team working skills of these pupils.
Moving forward, now that seasonal plants and vegetables have been planted, these pupils will continue to be responsible for watering, and nurturing the plants and vegetables in the garden until they are ready to be harvested. All pupils involved have done an exceptional job so far and continue to build upon the excellent work that Mr Sparrow and previous pupils had already undertaken to establish the garden. The hope is that, in the next academic year, the garden will become accessible to all pupils to use through science lessons and chaplaincy activities.
Our photos show the winning design, the work done on our gardening day with Bridgend College in April and up-to-date photos of the garden in the June sunshine.
We would like to say a HUGE thank you to Cardiff Community Housing Association who have donated £1500 for us to use towards the school garden project. We plan to use this generous donation to buy seating for the garden so that pupils can spend time out there.
Luisa May, Community Focused Schools Co-ordinator & Eco Club Lead and Kevin Green, Link Teacher
Thorpe Park End of Year Trip
On Friday 14th June, 234 pupils from Years 7 to 10 enjoyed a day out at Thorpe Park for the end of year trip. Our photos show our pupils (and staff!) enjoying themselves at Thorpe Park. Here is what two of our Year 8 pupils had to say on the trip.
“Thorpe Park was a super fun trip. I enjoyed going there as we had lots of free time to hang out with our friends and go on all the rides. All the rides were super thrilling, especially the Walking Dead ride. The Tidal Wave was also one of my favourites as we got soaked! It was a great day and I hope to go on more of these trips in the future.”
Evan Williams, Year 8
“The Thorpe Park trip was worth every penny. There were a lot of rides and a lot of places to get food. The loops on Colossus were amazing! It was a really fun day and a great way to spend time with your friends with the freedom to go anywhere you wanted in the park.”
Logan Allen, Year 8
