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Welcome
 Dear colleagues,
I am glad to introduce our second edition of The Beacon. Our focus this term is on the work that we are doing in our schools and across our Trust to improve the built environment. This is a story about making a little resource go a long way. As with far too many aspects of our national life, we don’t have income that matches the challenge. We have some wonderful new buildings but we also have a lot of estate built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and all the challenges that brings.
The good news is that we have excellent people in our estates team who are agile and skilled in prioritising the projects that make the biggest difference to pupils and colleagues in schools. You will see in the publication that we have spotlighted a few of these from LED replacement, to toilet refurbs.
The biggest projects offer greater scope for creativity and transformation. After the drama and disaster of the fire at Yatton, comes the opportunity and prospect of the rebuild. And at Churchill Academy we have taken over the old leisure centre from North Somerset with an investment from the council and are creating a superb new facility for the school. I am really proud of LSP’s track record in delivering excellent value and creating better and beautiful spaces. Enjoy the read.
Gary Lewis
Chief Executive
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OUR SUSTAINABILITY JOURNEY
In March 2022, LSP published it’s Carbon Reduction Plan, setting out the ambition to be carbon neutral by 2035.
Decarbonisation plans have been commissioned for every school within the trust to support with clear actions, together with carbon savings, to help work towards our carbon neutral goal.
The information in these plans has helped inform the decisions around programmes of work we’ve supported schools with. This has led to the roll-out of the LED lighting programme that will be coming to a close of the first round.
We are also pleased to be working towards a Trust-wide solar solution, providing renewable energy to schools to save both energy and carbon. The Trustees have agreed to progress this programme and we are in the process of surveying sites before installations can take place.
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Work is ongoing to rebuild Yatton Primary School following the fire that happened in May 2023. The Trust is currently engaged in a Project Management tender process to select from a series of designs for the new build. This process is important in ensuring that the rebuild is done to the best possible standards and efficiency for the schools and its students. Once a company has been selected, the chosen design will be put forward to planning, and the works will begin.
In the meantime, students are Yatton Primary have been provided with a new temporary site (see photos). Our priority throughout has been ensuring students have a welcoming, safe environment in which to learn, and the school and LSP Central Team have worked hard to ensure this. We look forward to sharing updates as we progress further with the rebuild project.
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We’re thrilled to see the Churchill Sports Centre Project at Churchill Academy & Sixth Form is nearing completion.
Since Covid, the Churchill Sports Centre hasn’t re-opened and has been the centre of numerous discussions in order to secure its future. In June 2023 it was agreed to transfer the building over to the LSP and to commence a programme of works to bring it back to be a fully usable space.
As part of this work the pool has been filled in and the space converted into a multi-purpose hall. Over the seven month project, works started with repairs to the roof to ensure it’s watertight, followed by internal structure adjustments to make a more flexible use of the space, including dance studio and office space, basing the PE department in the building. To date, the scaffolding has come down, the floor has been laid in the new Pool Hall, and the heating system is being commissioned to ensure all of the new areas are serviced. The final parts of the programme include replacing the external doors and windows.
The centre is already in use by the Academy for examinations, with the facilities also being able to be used for community hire in due course. We’re excited to see the project come to fruition and deliver extended facilities to the students at the Academy, as well as support the local community as well.
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As part of our plan to be a more sustainable Trust, we have undertaken a Trust-wide LED lighting programme. Stage one of the plan has included retrofitting the primary schools, looking to improve the educational environment as well as saving energy and money.
Estimated savings to date are projected to save 56 tonnes of CO2e, and over £200,000 for schools. With educational finances under so much pressure, this will be a much-needed saving that not only supports schools but also supports our overall journey to be more sustainable.
Stage two of the programme will look at updating lighting at our secondary schools.
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The Estates Team have been busy over the past year refurbishing and updating the toilet facilities across various schools in the Trust. Here are just a few examples:
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Backwell School
At Backwell School, a number of indoor toilet blocks have been completely refurbished - including the full redesign and rebuild of toilets in the House Blocks. Students can now use modern, individual toilets which are a huge improvement on the former facilities. Specially manufactured outdoor toilet blocks have also been introduced to the school site. All of the new toilet facilities have been built and designed with a focus on safety, safeguarding and minimising opportunities for vandalism.
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DURING: Indoor toilet refurbishment in progress at Backwell School.
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AFTER: Some of the finished, refurbished toilets at Backwell School.
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Chew Valley School
At Chew Valley School, as well as refurbishing the student toilet facilities in the original (1958) school building (see images below), we took the opportunity to replace all the old pipework and install a new cold water main through the building. With the new pipework installed we removed all the old galvanised pipework which supplied water to the old toilets from a large header tank in the roof space, decommissioning the old cold water storage tanks.
The hot water provision has also been changed from a large central hot water storage tank heated from the gas boilers to individual electric point-of-use water heaters on timeclocks in each of the new toilet areas. This will reduce the volumes of stored hot water and help toward our net zero journey.
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BEFORE: Original 1958 L-Block Girls Toilets at Chew Valley School.
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AFTER: Refurbished L-Block Girls Toilet Facilities at Chew Valley School.
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BEFORE: Previous L-Block Boys Toilet Facilities at Chew Valley School.
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AFTER: Refurbished L-Block Boys Toilet Facilities at Chew Valley School.
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The team at Aspens work hard to provide all of our schools with food options that are tasty, healthy - and better for the environment too.
With an increased focus on plant-based recipes and seasonal produce, Aspens work hard to make our menus more sustainable.
By making lots of small changes, we can make a big difference. Aspens work closely with clients and suppliers to be as environmentally friendly as they can.
Single use plastics are being phased out, sustainable vending introduced and Aspens give preference to products made from recycled materials.
Improvements from Aspens carbon initiatives have resulted in:
- 3 Metric tonnes of reduced single-use plastic
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7,000 Kilos of reduced CO2 emissions in the last year
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1.2 Tonnes of excess packaging removed through supply chain
Find out More
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Don't forget, if you need space for a meeting, conference or concert, a wide variety of equipment and facilities are available to hire through our schools:
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CHURCHILL ACADEMY & SIXTH FORM
Facilities available for hire:
- Theatre (Seats up to 300)
- Dance Studio
- Sixth Form
- Gym
- Library
- Classrooms
Find out More
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BACKWELL SCHOOL
Facilities available for hire:
- Sports Hall & Indoor Sports Facilities
- Theatre & Dance Studio
- Conference Facilities
- Meeting Rooms
- Outdoor Sports Facilities
Find out More
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GORDANO SCHOOL
Facilities available to hire:
- Hall with staging, lighting and sound system
- Conference rooms
- Lecture Theatre with sprung flooring, staged seating and sound system (Seats up to 250)
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We're proud to have some brilliant Business Partners who support our schools in all kinds of ways, and this year has been no different.
On February 8th, we hosted our first Business Breakfast of 2024, at Gordano School. A big thank you to all of our staff, colleagues and business partners who came along, as well as our wonderful speakers, who did an amazing job of inspiring us all.
Also in February, ParentPay sponsored our Student Leadership Conference, providing a tasty pizza lunch for all the students in attendance. Thank you ParentPay!
We would also like to say thank you to following companies, who sponsored the purchase of Android Tablets that will allow our site staff to access IamCompliant training across all of our sites.
- Purgo
- Cornish Garden Services
- Edmond Shipway
- 3Cherries
- 2IT
These tablets will ensure all our staff are able to access valuable training resources whilst on the move around school sites. Thank you!
Finally, we would just like to say a big thank you to all of our Business Partners for their continued support over the past year.
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LSP STUDENT LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
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Churchill Academy hosts LSP Student Leadership Conference
On Thursday 8 February, Churchill Academy and Sixth Form was delighted to host the second LSP Student Leadership conference.
The conference involved 85 students from across the trust from year 7 to 13. Student leaders from each school presented on the theme of “The challenges and achievements of student leadership”. It was inspiring to see our student leaders presenting with such confidence and clarity and to hear about the challenges of leadership, how these can be managed and their achievements as student leaders.
The conference provided a tremendous opportunity for the students from the Trust's schools to interact together both whilst working, and also over a lunch provided by Parent Pay.
Read full article
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LSP Business Breakfast 8 February 2024
Lighthouse Schools Partnership held the first Business Breakfast of 2024 on Thursday 8 February at Gordano School. Over 100 Business Partners and education colleagues attended the successful event.
Our main speaker at the event - Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset and Chair of the Bristol Future Talent Partnership, Mohammed Saddiq - provided an engaging and inspiring talk on the benefits to businesses getting involved with communities to help address issues of inequality and social mobility.
A big thank you to everyone who attended - and an extra special thank you to our speakers.
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Positive Changes at Blagdon Primary School pt 2
STAFF FOCUS - Jenny Campbell, Headteacher & Kerrie Burnell, SENDCo, Blagdon primary School
Following on from the first part of their interview in the last edition of The Beacon, we spoke to Blagdon primary School Headteacher, Jenny Campbell and SENDCo Kerrie Burnell, about some of the positive changes they have made to the school site and within the local community:
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Blagdon has been a member of the LSP since October 2019. What positive changes or benefits have you seen, in that time, with regard to the site and school building:
Jenny (J): Anyone who has visited our school will know it is a very different place to the school I inherited when I arrived in 2019! At that time, children got wet in classrooms when it rained due to rotten windows and roof leaks, one classroom had been abandoned due to dry rot and all were tired and badly in need of updating. Gary Lewis once referred to it as being a ‘very depressing school to be in’ but thankfully, that is no longer the case!
LSP led the renovations to the Victorian part of the school with part of the money secured for the transfer to LSP as a sponsor-led academy and our various building work has been ongoing since! With old Victorian buildings there is always something needing repair. The larger jobs have been trust led and, while there have been issues at times, such as bats causing roofing work to stop for a year, the improvements are visible. This has allowed us to focus on the learning environment and ensure that it is what we want for our children and provides a better working environment for our team.
How have you embedded Blagdon Primary within the community it serves?
(J) Due to the previous inadequate Ofsted, we knew we had quite a lot of work to do with the community. A single word can do a lot of damage. Parents with children at the school were less concerned in some ways that the wider community who had made judgements based on a grade, as they knew their children were happy and enjoyed coming to school. During covid, we were visible, being seen delivering food parcels and supporting children with home learning and even leaving out seeds for children within our school and wider community so they could take part in a sunflower growing competition. This in combination with writing short articles in the parish magazine meant that word quickly got out about what we were doing. The older residents of the village whose children had left school long ago wanted to do their bit in return by donating laptops for children learning at home so they too could feel a sense of helping while stuck at home. This quickly turned into some significant fundraising for us, publicised by a member of the local community, both donating money for IT equipment and books for our library. In return, we have visibly thanked the local community through social media and with personal thank you letters and emails.
Kerry (K): I think our doorstep visits we’re really appreciated by the community at a very difficult time and it was quietly observed by the wider community. We have a number of ideas to expand these community links further.
(J): More recently, we have ensured we have maintained our historic links with community groups such as the village lunch club by singing Christmas carols, taking part in Apple Gifting and taking a copy of our Nativity for them to watch. We also take part in the Blagdon Lantern Parade annually as well as in the church fair by restarting May Pole Dancing in the last few years. As part of this, I have made sure that, as Head, I am always visible at these events and, where possible, other members of staff also take turns to come along. We have also welcomed local people into school for visits to see us in action and started PTA events that welcome other members of the community in, such as Curry Nights, Quiz Nights and our recent one, the Village Dog Show.
(K): Within our curriculum work, we have ensured that we use aspects of the local community and our local experts too. This includes visiting and using Blagdon Lake as part of our work in science, local walks to look at human and natural features and inviting members of the Blagdon Local History Society in to talk about the history of the village and school both in Victorian times and during the Second World War. We have also ensured that every class has a minimum of one planned opportunity a term for parents to be invited in to take part in learning and another for governors to come in and get fully involved in school. These have been done across our 2-year cycle, ensuring that these key events don’t get missed off during a busy term. This was a big piece of work at first, but has been incredibly beneficial.
(J): Welcoming our pupils from Ukraine, becoming a School of Sanctuary and receiving our Platinum Award for Play from OPAL have also all been celebrated far and wide and raised our profile locally. Thinking back to developing our school vision, outdoor learning and play were key parts of what the local community wanted from its school. It is fair to say that the perception of the school has shifted and the recent Ofsted is the final piece of taking our ‘good news’ stories out into the community. In turn, this will now spread and hopefully increase the stability of our pupil numbers.
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Paint Pals Intergenerational Art Project
Pupils from High Down Junior School have been making regular visits to Portishead's Norewood Lodge Care Home as part of Paint Pals, an intergenerational art project aimed at bringing together young and old. The children and residents exchange postcards and paintings and come together to participate in art workshops. It has been wonderful to see how these relationships have grown through successive visits.
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Year 5 Net Zero Workshop
On Monday 4 March, Year 5 students at High Down Junior School undertook a Net Zero workshop and were given time to consider how we can make the planet a better place by reducing our carbon footprints, using wind turbines and solar panels to defeat climate change.
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Poetry Publication Success for Whitchurch Primary's Year 5 class
Last term, the year 5 class at Whitchurch Primary submitted entries to the young writers “Once upon a dream” poetry competition, and over 20 of their poems have been selected to be published in a new poetry book.
A huge well done to the entire class, who all worked incredibly hard and produced some outstanding poems, and also to their teacher, Abi Champion, for her enthusiasm, inspiration and dedication. Well done all!
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St Andrew's Primary School host World Book Day Breakfast event
This World Book Day, St Andrew's Primary School welcomed their families into the school for a cooked breakfast. The event was an opportunity for families to connect with the school together in an informal way. It is always one of the highlights of the school year at St Andrew's!
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High Down Infant School enjoy Bedtime Stories Event
On Thursday 7 March, High Down Infant children were invited back to school to enjoy bedtime stories and a hot chocolate, to further celebrate World Book Day. During the day, children and staff dressed as their favourite book characters and shared some of their favourite stories.
The evening event was a success thanks to the staff and kind generosity of the PSA for hot chocolate.
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St Andrew's Year 6 Greek themed evening
Each year, Year 6 pupils at St Andrew's host a meal for their families at the school. This year, they prepared a three-course Greek dinner, preparing and cooking all of the food, as well as being waiting staff, and performing songs and a dance.
The event raised £440, and staff and families were very proud of the Year 6 students' achievement.
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Northleaze Primary School Choir Scoop Award at MidSomerset Music Festival
Northleaze Primary School Choir have gone from strength to strength, having returned triumphant from the Midsomerset Music Festival in March. The student travelled to Bath Pavilion performing two songs in front of a number of other schools, parents and spectators, including an adjudication panel. We're delighted to announce that they won their class, receiving a certificate of distinction and a trophy. Well done Northleaze Primary Choir!
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Churchill Primary School Wins South-West Football Championship Title
In a remarkable display of skill and teamwork, Churchill Primary School has emerged victorious as the south-west football champions, proudly representing Somerset. The school's triumph on the field has earned them the prestigious opportunity to compete in the national finals, taking place at Derby County’s renowned Pride Park, in May 2024.
The squad of talented players exhibited exemplary sportsmanship and dedication throughout the competition, demonstrating admirable values both on and off the field. With an impressive record of six consecutive wins, the team's performance saw them conceding only one goal in the entirety of their campaign.
Under the guidance of their coaches - Mr Davis and Mrs Churchill - they displayed remarkable teamwork, resilience, and determination, securing their well-deserved victory in the south-west championship.
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