Longhill High School Longhill Falmer Road Rottingdean Brighton, BN2 7FR Tel: 01273 304086 Email: [email protected] News www.longhill.org.uk December 2016 ____________________________________________________ Hello from the Headteacher It’s the last week of the Autumn term and I’ve just passed my 100th day as Head of Longhill – and what an exciting journey it’s been! I’ve enjoyed every minute of the challenge, excitement and achievement that I’ve experienced so far and I look forward with anticipation to what the New Year will bring. I’ve had the pleasure this term of celebrating the achievements of the students who left us last summer – those students who achieved our best ever exam results – at Graduation Evening. I have high hopes that our current Year 11 students will do us equally proud and I know they have been working really hard during their mock exams over the past few weeks. Our new Year 7s have continued to settle in well, fitting in to the Longhill community and beginning to take an active role in the life of the school; Year 8 students are starting to consider their options, with their special Options Evening coming up in February; Year 9s have now started their GCSE courses – the first cohort to start this in Year 9, so it’s something new for everyone; Year 10 are also now well into their GCSE courses and are making excellent progress. We were all delighted this week to welcome so many children from the primary schools in the Deans Partnership to our Christmas pantomime. It was wonderful to watch their enjoyment of the special matinee performance of CinderAbba, which was written by our Deputy Head, Bill Holland. What a lovely lead-in to the Christmas holidays, as staff and students worked tirelessly together to put on this dazzling musical extravaganza! It just remains for me to wish you all a very merry Christmas and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year! Kate Williams Headteacher House News THE KING’S MESSENGER Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase. -Martin Luther King Jr It is nearly the end of 2016 and what a school year it has been so far! We have achieved so much as a House and together we keep growing; the Thorpe Park reward trip was a lovely treat for our most spectacular students and all the students behaved impeccably. As a House, we finally chose our charity, which is called Right Here, a mental health project for youths aged 13 to 25. This is something King students and staff felt very strongly about and we look forward to welcoming Right Here into Longhill School; they will be telling us about the good work that they do, as well as where the money we raise as a House will be going. The members of JLT and myself are working hard towards making next year’s King House day the best yet, with a fun-filled day and lots of surprises! A reminder that King House day is 13th January 2017. So please save your pennies as I will be around to collect them. Finally, I want to thank each and every member of King House for all your hard work and positivity. I’m sure that you will all bring on more of the same in 2017! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year. Ms Rhodes King House Co-ordinator Thank you for all your support this term; students, staff and parents have been brilliant supporting Nightingale and Longhill School. In particular I was very impressed with the £123 for the Poppy Appeal. Nightingale and students from other houses have made a massive contribution to the school and local community and we will be celebrating this in a year 8 assembly where they will be handing over cheques to the value of £2,000, raised from a community run. Representatives from the Royal Sussex County Hospital cardio vascular and kidney departments, along with the Wooden Spoon Rugby Football charity, will be in attendance. Many thanks to all the parents that so ably supported us and we look forward to next year’s event. We completed a charity run for Children in Need, raising £55 and I was impressed by the students’ effort and attitude. As always, it has been great to see large numbers of Nightingale students getting involved with sport, music and drama. I’m very proud of their achievements and efforts. Our Nightingale Junior Leaders team are working on a number of projects and committees to enhance school life at Longhill. They are developing their creative ideas in a number of committees such as Food, Events, Uniform, Environment, Buses and Behaviour. Nightingale students have continued to support the Rugby Football Union’s backing of Rugby at Longhill by attending after school clubs and rugby festivals. Sixty four girls and boys from all Houses have been playing competitive Rugby. Nightingale students, as well as students from other Houses, have made outstanding progress in developing their leadership skills. Years 8, 9 and 11 have been supporting the Brighton Rotary leadership award, promoting fun and enjoyable lessons in our local primary schools, teaching years 3, 4, 5 and 6. The future is looking positive as the whole House plans for February 24th, which is Nightingale Charity Day, where we will aim to support The Royal Sussex County Hospital Cardio Vascular and Kidney departments. We will also support the Wooden Spoon rugby charity. I look forward to your continued support in the future. Merry Christmas Mr N J Rolf House Co-ordinator Merry Christmas! What an amazing start to this academic year! Students within Mandela House have been extremely supportive and contributed positively within the school community. House Day Our House Day took place on Friday 18th November. Members of JLT (Junior Leadership Team) supported the Year 9 Business Enterprise students with their stalls during break and lunch time. The Enterprise students put themselves into small teams and had to come up with an idea for a stall. They were given a budget of £7 per team and they had to plan, source and buy all their resources themselves. They had to advertise and promote their stalls. This helped with their enterprise skills and running a small business to make a profit for charity. Some of the events organised were Cake Sale, Sweets in a Jar, Sponsored Silence, Face Painting, Take a Selfie, Penalty Shoot Out, Tin Can Alley, Cross Bar Challenge, Basketball Shoot Out and Lucky Dip. All of these initiatives raised an amazing £521.63 for Education in Ecuador and our chosen charity Brighton & Hove Young Carers. I would like to thank every student within the Mandela JLT, Year 9 Business Enterprise, Ms Waite and Ms Butters for their 100% effort and commitment which made this day enjoyable and memorable. Poppy Appeal Each House were given collection tins and thanks go to Baelie, Skye and Joe for taking charge of this and successfully collecting £93.47 (£39.64 more than last year). Food Drive Thank you to Mandela students/staff for bringing in food, which has been donated to a local food bank in Whitehawk. Across the Houses, we collected 383 items. I would like to wish all Mandela students and staff a fantastic Christmas/New Year and I look forward to more exciting things happening in 2017! Mrs Noble Mandela House Co-ordinator As I type this I can’t quite believe that we are at the end of 2016 already! What a fantastic year Pankhurst House has had! In the New Year we begin the planning of our House Day, which will take place on 10th March to tie in with International Women’s Day. Pankhurst JLT have already begun planning activities and events for the whole school to join in with. We will be raising money for a fantastic charity called the ‘Umbrella Project’ that provides young people, who have life shortening conditions, and their families, with tickets to fantastic concerts and events in Brighton, bringing some moments of joy and happiness to others in difficult times. I would now like to take this opportunity to say a very fond farewell and thank you to a true Pankhurst hero, Mr Emment, who leaves us this term after being our champion for over 10 years. Mr Emment has not only been a Pankhurst mentor for many years, supporting and guiding our incredible young people here at Longhill, but has also been one of the greatest supporters of our House and everything that we stand for. I would like to wish him every happiness and success for his next adventures and, on behalf of Pankhurst House, thank him for everything he has done for our young people, our charities and our House. We will sorely miss you! Finally, all that is left is to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and I look forward to 2017 together in Pankhurst. Mrs Jones Pankhurst House Co-ordinator Everyone needs to be valued This term has been a very busy one for all Houses. The Poppy Appeal has been exceptionally successful this year. The combined Houses raised a total of £439.30, with Spencer raising a whopping £109.36 of this, so a huge “THANK YOU” to all who bought a poppy. We have had a fantastic turnout for the Inter-House Dodgeball Tournament. Well done to all our Spencer students and staff who attended; it has been thoroughly enjoyable.