LLAIS LLAIS LLANGATWGLLANGATWG VOICEVOICE AUTUMN TERM 2017

ANNUAL PRESENTATION EVENING The evening of October 26th saw Llangatwg hold it’s twenty sixth Annual Presentation Evening at the School Hall in the presence of distinguished guests and parents. Mrs Hughes and Mr Shaw once again expertly managed the proceedings and provided eve-ryone with an enjoyable (but warm!) evening of celebration. Nearly 200 awards of various size and nature were presented to the pupils of Llangatwg, in recognition of their hard work and effort throughout the past year. Receiving the Examinations Award for her impressive GCSE achievements was Ffion Davies who gained a total of 11A* & 1A with a Distinction in Additional Maths. The Headteacher’s Award for outstanding contribution to all aspects of school life went to last year’s Head Boy Jack Groth. The Ray Preece Award for Endeavour was won by An-drew Williams. The Blaenhonddan Community Award was won by Emilie Macey in recognition of her contri-bution to the school and her involvement within the community. Libby Herbert received the Young Achiever Award and also the Jean Foulkes Creative Arts award for her work in the school productions. Congratulations to all the pupils who received recogni-tion of their hard work. Llongyfarchiadau i chi gyd.

HEADTEACHER’S REPORT :

Dear Parent / Carer This must be the longest term that we have had in school in a very long time. Such a late finish to the term is a challenge as I think that both children and staff are exhausted. This newsletter shows clearly how much has happened this term, and how many various opportunities the children have been offered. The last official event of the autumn term is the annual Christmas concert which always a very special occa-sion. The pupils have been busy practising their various items and I am sure that we are all in for a wonderful treat. Llangatwg is a school that we are all very proud of. The staff work tirelessly for the benefit of the pupils and having worked in several schools myself, I know how much dedication and effort is put in by all the staff in this school. The vast majority of pupils appreciate this fact and work in partnership with us, together with their extremely supportive parents. This fact has been most recently seen with regard to the canteen issue, where the vast majority of pupils and parents have been supportive and rational, secure in the knowledge that we will always work in the best interests of the pupils as a whole. Finally, I am pleased to inform you that Llangatwg has been categorised by Welsh Government as a Green A performing School, the highest status possible. This categorisation is based on how well pupils achieve at the school set against a range of performance measures, as well as assessing the standard of leadership within the school. This is something that as parents you should all be proud of, as it is your children who have helped the school achieve this status. May I wish you all a merry Christmas and happy and healthy new-year! Nadolig Llawen! Alan L Rowlands Headteacher

Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

Samantha Hardy won first prize for the Aberdulais National Trust Art

competition at KS3, which was very pleasing. Harvey Mayberry Thomas, Charlotte Britton and Ellie Christie were runners up. All winners were pre-

sented with family membership to Aberdulais Falls and a cash prize which was excellent.

Year 11 produced wonderful

art works of their coursework,

the variety of outcomes is

pleasing to see, with more

learners opting for 3D Ceram-

ics this year. There are some

images on the art depart-

ment’s Twitter page, please

follow @llangatwgart.

Pupils also en-

joyed engaging

in Welsh medi-

um activities

with the ‘Urdd’

and in the Welsh

department. Saesneg

Pupils enjoying creating original ‘Swmae ‘acrostic poems in the

English Department.

Technoleg

Pupils beimg creative in Textiles creating felt leeks

Technoleg

Pupils pictured designing and making @Shwmae’ badges

Year 7 pupils enjoyed a wide range of Welsh medium activities promoting our language and culture.

On Wednesday the 25th of October the music department was paid

a visit by representatives from Only Men/Boys Aloud. Many pupils from year 7, 8, 9 and 10 took part in a morn-

ing of exciting musical workshops and activities. Year 8 pupil Jacob Thomas said “I had a lot of fun and learnt a

lot from Craig and Aled, I am now a member of the Neath branch of OBA.” “They made learning music and songs

fun through games; the games were the

best bit!”- Luke Murnane year 8.

MUSIC NEWS Year 11 pupil, Libby Herbert, recently auditioned for the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre (aka WGYTC) during the half term holi-days. I’m very pleased to say that Libby has been accepted into the com-pany and is now going to be a part of their Winter Course, with perfor-mances during February next year. Libby says “I can’t wait to be involved with such a professional and exciting company!”

Autumn Term 2017

Yr 7 Lunchtime Dodgeball

Tennis News Well done to the year 8 girls and year 9&10 boys for taking part in the national schools

tennis final in September at David Lloyd Cardiff.

Run For Fun Club

Yr 7 & 8 Netball KS4 Basketball

Yr 9, 10 & 11 Girls Project

This term we have started a 16 week girls project for Years 7,8 & 9 to encourage girls to take part in physical

activity. This term we introduced yoga and Clubbercise. Each week the girls had incentives to take

part including t-shirt, waterbottle, earphones, and If the girls took part in 5 or more sessions they will have the opportunity to attend a Christmas Shopping trip to

Cardiff in December. The club will continue after Christmas for those interested.

Our target in 5x60 this term was to set up a community basketball club to encourage

boys aged 13+ to attend in the evenings. We have had a great turnout and all boys have

attended 10 sessions or more and taken part in community fixtures against Pontardawe,

Cymmer & Baglan. They will receive a hoodie

The Friends of Llangatwg group consists of a combination of caring, enthusiastic and supportive parents, carers,

students, teachers, staff, family and members of the local community. We are always looking for new members

to join. Our aim is to help support our students in whatever way we can, particularly by encouraging and provid-

ing closer links between home and school.

Friends of Llangatwg have worked really hard this term to organise many events to raise money. I would like to

say a huge thankyou to all members who have given up their time to attend meetings, help organise events and

helping out where possible. THANKYOU!

COME & JOIN FRIENDS OF LLANGATWG Come and be part of our team. You would help make a real difference to the school and would be helping at

times the school needs you most. Contact us below, even if you want to volunteer for an hour!

All time volunteered will be gratefully received. Go on...get in touch with us.

Christmas Nights at St.Fagans The Welsh Dept and Friends of Llangatwg run a

trip for parents and pupils to go to the St. Fagan's Christmas Nights in December. It was a fun night had by all, we sang Christmas carols in

the church, decorated gingerbread biscuits, visited Santa, wreath making, folk dancing, craft

stalls and much more.

Christmas Shopping Trip to Cheltenham November 2017 Friends of Llangatwg run their annual Christmas Shopping trip in November and it was another huge success! This year we went to Cheltenham. with a whopping 79 people booked on. There was lots of fun on the bus with a Christmas quiz, bingo and raffle. Everyone had a fantastic time in Cheltenham and are looking forward to next years trip.

FOL Community Christmas Fete What a huge success the Christmas Community Fete was this year, thankyou to all FOL members, staff and pupils who helped out on the evening. It was such a fantastic atmosphere and a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.

ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY GREEN PLAN IT CHALLENGE Some of the pupils attending the Pupil Support Centre have been very busy getting involved in a national project run by the RHS where schools have been asked to design a garden and transform a part of the school grounds. They have been working with two professional horticulturists in planning and modelling their gardens. They also vis-ited Bristol to present their ideas to a panel of judges. This was a huge challenge for many of them but they per-formed brilliantly. Now the hard work of digging begins!!!

MacMillan Coffee Morning – September 29th Llangatwg School was proud to take part in the annual coffee morning in sup-

port of the MacMillan nurses. Pupils enjoyed a variety of cakes and refreshments. Staff also enjoyed a coffee morning at break

time with a variety of tasty delights to sample. Many thanks to everyone who supported this

successful event and the school raised a very pleasing £131.01 towards the MacMillan Appeal. Diolch yn fawr!

Black History Month On Wednesday 22nd November the Chamber Choir and

School Rock Band took part in the Black History Month

concert at Pontardawe Arts Centre. The Chamber Choir

sung ‘One Moment in Time’ by Whitney Houston and the

School Rock Band (which have only just been formed back

in September) performed ‘If I Were A Boy’. It was an excel-

lent performance.

Year 8 have had many opportunities this term these include being involved in the restart the heart day, the Myriad project, STEM activities, PSE day where it was all about a healthy life-style for year 8. The year team Captains are working on a ques-tionnaire to determine if bullying is a problem at Llangatwg and if pupils understand truly what bullying is. This is all in response to the Anti –bullying policy going on at Llangatwg. The year 8 forms have been involved in collecting for the Mr X appeal. All forms have enthusiastically collected for their known child. Also pupils gave generously for the Chemotherapy unit on non-school uniform day.

Llangatwg has a sister school in China! Following a visit by Mrs

Ballantine as part of a

UK delegation to China

with the British Council

at half term, Llangatwg

is now twinned with a

school in China. Mrs

Ballantine travelled with

13 other teachers from

across the UK to Ningbo in the province where she

visited schools, met staff and pupils and observed

lessons. In an official signing ceremony at the Uni-

versity of Nottingham Campus in Ningbo, Llangatwg

became twinned with the Affiiliated School of Ning-

bo University. We are very excited to share projects

with the school in the years to come.

Welcome to Jessie, our Chinese teaching asisstant. We are delighted to welcome Miss Ziping Gu (Jessie) to Llangatwg. Jessie joins us for this academic

year to deliver Mandarin lessons and Chinese culture to pupils across the school. A number of pupils

in Years 7, 8 and 9 have already had the opportunity to learn some Mandarin and experience some

Chinese Culture sessions. Jessie also offers an after school session every Thursday in Room 09. All

pupils, staff and parents are welcome to attend these sessions. Jessie has already made a valued con-

tribution to the life of the school by helping at our European Day of Languages celebration and at our

PTA Christmas Fayre. We hope she will continue to enjoy her time with us at Llangatwg.

A visit from Spain. In September, we

were delighted

to welcome a

group of 13 girls

from Vigo in

Northern Spain

to Llangatwg for

3 weeks. The girls

were doing a

homestay in

Swansea to improve their English speaking skills and we were delighted to give

them the opportunity to experience life in a Welsh comprehensive school . The

girls attended lessons with Years 10 and 11 and also delivered Spanish taster les-

sons and an introduction to their area to pupils in Years 7 and 8. They thoroughly

enjoyed their experience and commented on the warm welcome they received

from staff and pupils.

Holocaust Exhibition – Imperial War Museum As part of their studies, pupils from Years’ 9, 10 & 11 GCSE Religious Studies and History classes visited the Holocaust Exhibition on display at the Imperial War Museum on Friday 17th November. This ex-hibition contains both victim and survivor be-longings taken from the concentration camps themselves and even one of the cattle train trucks used to transport victims of the Holocaust to their fate. Many of our pupils found it a very

mov-ing and thought provoking experience and have learnt a great deal from it, on both a school and personal level. Despite a 6:00am start, Llangatwg pupils were enthusiastic about their work both in the Holocaust galleries and in the main museum

displays eg the “Family at War” house, the planes, tanks and other military vehicles and the World War One Experience. They were given a lesson by specialist Holocaust teachers and then did the audio tour of the ex-hibition. At the feedback sessions at the end of the day our pupils were praised for their knowledge and sensitivity to the topics dis-cussed as well as their excellent behaviour. As usual when I take Llangatwg pupils on visits they are a credit to the school. All of the staff who

accompanied the pupils can feel very proud of them.

Photography Club Photography Competition Winners

This term’s winner of the Photography Club competition is Megan Hunter- Rowe with this beautiful autumn scene of

Llwyn-On Reservoir, near Garw Nant Country Park in the Brecon Beacons.

The runners up, also with very impressive images, were

Elian Hooper and Skye Weaver. The quality of the images was very high and all the more remarkable given that the

winners were all in year 7. Mr Evans and Mr Hansen are looking forward to judging

the next competition entitled ‘Season’s Greetings’. Entries

for this are due by the closing date of January 31st 2018. All

pupils are welcome to attend the photography club and to

enter our competitions.

European Day of Languages On 26th September, we once again celebrated

the growing diversity of languages and cultures at

Llangatwg by celebrating the European Day of

languages. Pupils from Spain, Lithuania and Syria

treated us to tasters of typical snacks from their

countries and Mrs A Lynch, our LSA who comes

from Russia and Jessie our Chinese teaching assis-

tant provided pupils with typical Russian and Chi-

nese snacks and a fascinating insight into their

cultures. It was a great occasion and a lovely way

for us to get to know the wide range of cultural

backgrounds our pupils come from.

Etwinning The department continues to make links with

schools across Europe and beyond through

Etwinning, an opportunity provided by the

British Council for schools to link up and partici-

pate in joint projects. We have been successful

in a funding bid from the Lefevre trust for

£10,000 to arrange a visit to a link school in Paris

and we have links with other schools in France

and Spain. With Mr Isaac's help we will be mak-

ing a Skype call to Paris during our digital tech-

nology week at the end of term and we also

hope to link up with our partner school in China.

We also have plans to apply for Erasmus funding

to allow more visits to be made to other coun-

tries for both pupils and staff.

Year 10 Hospitality students received a talk from Melanie Jenkins our local

Environmen-tal health

Officer about her Job role

providing

useful infor-mation to

assist stu-dents with

their studies

Well done the year 7 girls games class who participated in a

sponsor netball shoot out and netball match in aid of Children in

Need and raised a staggering £401.44

Congratulations

to Olivia Jones

Year 8, who

came first in the

under 13’s

School Trampo-

line Competition

in Cardiff.

Also to James Thomas

who was selected to

play Cricket for Wales

at Under 13 level.

Well done both!

Llangrannog – Rhagfyr 15 The Welsh Department recently took 60 year 7 pupils to the Urdd camp in Llangrannog for a day of exciting activities, team building exercises and opportunities to further develop and use

their Welsh lan-guage skills. All pupils had a very enjoyable day and a worthwhile experience. Pupils enjoyed a wide variety of activities ranging from ski-ing, tobogganing, go karting, high ropes, assault courses and much more.