One Family Grant

Project Title: High School Hall

About our school:

Cathays High School is situated in the centre of serving the , Plasnewydd and Cathays wards. Our school is currently attended by over 800 students, aged 11-19 years who mainly live in Cathays, , , , Tremorfa, and Grangetown. Many of these areas are economically deprived. At present over 35% of pupils at Cathays High are receiving free school meals, which is significantly above the 18.4% average for schools in (2016). The student population has more than 50 different ethnic groups represented with over 60 languages spoken in the home by children and their families. This diversity is a strength of our community and helps us to prepare our young people for life and work in the 21st century.

Our school ethos is ‘Opportunities for All’ and we believe our staff work tremendously hard at providing all students, regardless of gender, ethnicity and class, with opportunities to thrive and achieve their potential.

Our students have an extremely wide range of abilities and needs. This includes students we identify as being more able and talented that we help prepare to attend the top universities. We have a large number of families that are new arrivals to the UK and whose children need help and support to learn English. We run classes to enable the parents of these children to develop their English skills and gain qualifications too. The school houses an Autistic Spectrum Condition base, which provides specialist provision for pupils with Autism and their families. More recently, we have developed and improved our provision for pupils with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties and who may be vulnerable to social exclusion. This is to ensure that we continue to be a beacon for inclusion, opportunity and success within our local community.

Need:

In recent years our student council, consisting of form and year representatives, have requested to refurbish our school hall to provide a more inspirational environment for their productions, presentations and school events. This will help to ensure that the students can be as proud as possible of their school. We also want to provide a high quality community hub for local organisations and our partner primary schools.

Newly- refurbished, modernised facilities will encourage people of all ages to take part in various activities in a welcoming, modern environment that will boost community cohesion. It will provide more volunteering opportunities for our young people, for example, to work with local primary school children using the hall for concerts and extra-curricular clubs. Taking part in positive activities such as these will build a strong foundation for those involved and young people will become valued members of their community. This will strengthen community cohesion and reduce the likelihood of social exclusion for young people from socio-economically deprived backgrounds.

Currently, many facilities in the local area are dominated with bookings from two local universities making community rooms and halls in the area limited. Having a multi-purpose hall will mean a new and more accessible venue in the community suitable for music and performing arts groups, events and concerts, conferences, adult learning, parent groups and family workshops. This would enable us to engage with local organisations on a much larger scale than before; providing greater opportunities to broaden the horizons of our young people and better serving the needs of our community.

What we want to achieve:  A multi-purpose venue that can be used by a broad range of our community including new groups who may never have used the schools’ facilities and those from a diverse background of social class, ethnicities, religions and needs.  Engage with more community groups in the local area.  Increased volunteering opportunities for our pupils and the wider community.  Greater community cohesion and inclusion for our students within the local community.  An improved, and fit-for-purpose, environment for the students of our school and groups from our local community  Improve the feeling of pride that our students have about their school  Increase the number and quality of extra-curricular opportunities available to our young people to enable their engagement in positive activities outside of the classroom  An improved relationship between our secondary school and local primary schools.

Aim:

Our aim is to provide the local community with a safe, welcoming and multi-purpose venue that will increase their engagement with the school as well as enabling important events to take place locally. We will also provide our students with the opportunity to engage with their community in a more meaningful way, improve their experience of school and allow them to feel a greater sense of pride in their school.

Outcomes:

 More pupils participating in extra- curricular activities.  Improved relationships between peers  Improved social cohesion and integration for our students in their local community.  Improved mental health and physical well-being.  More primary schools and community groups engaged with the school.  Fewer young people engaged in anti-social behaviour as a result of participating in a range of positive activities.  950 Secondary School pupils making use of a community space for performing arts, conferences and workshops.  Increase the number of pupils engaged in at least one voluntary activity to at least 500 during the school year.  500 Primary School pupils performing on stage for their local community.  50 parents engaged with the school and community from the Czech Roma community through basic numeracy and literacy classes.  100 Volunteers and 50 parents from a BME (black minority ethnic) background organising a cultural food festival for their community in which they can showcase their traditions such as dancing, food etc. to up to 500 members of the community.  2 Weekly workshops running out of the hall for members of the community and parents who have limited English with the aim to engage 100 people.  100 pupils taking part in yearly musical productions that will be watched by an audience of 750  20 external groups using the hall throughout the year in which they can hold workshops, conferences, activities, parent groups, productions and other suitable events.

Costings:

Stage Curtains - £4000 Lighting System- £7000 Lectern Microphone System - £200 Fit for purpose furniture - £3800 Decorating - £5000 Sound System - £4000 Improved Staging - £1000 Total: £25,000

We are applying for funding & would like your input.

Please email [email protected] with your comments.