Celebrating the Welsh language at St Illtyd’s

The community at St Illtyd’s Catholic High School have been very proactive in taking steps to help preserve their unique culture by promoting the use of the Welsh language.

The Welsh Department has been busy with a variety of activities throughout the year. On 24th January, we celebrated Dydd Santes Dwynwen — the Welsh Patron Saint of Love. To mark the occasion, we held a card-making session where pupils designed their own cards and wrote messages and poems on red hearts. These heartfelt creations were then displayed on the doors for everyone to enjoy.

Criw Cymraeg

We are thrilled to announce that a Criw Cymraeg has now been established in our school! The members are: Isabelle & Logan (Year 11), Kiera (Year 10), Izzy & Hunnie (Year 9), Lexie, Hope & Estrella (Year 8), and Evie, Taleah, and Lexi (Year 7).

The Criw Cymraeg will play an important role in encouraging and promoting the use of Welsh throughout the school. Recently, they led assemblies for all year groups, highlighting the importance of speaking Welsh — not only for future opportunities but also to help preserve our language and culture. They also shared ways pupils can support Welsh language development across the school, and even included a fun, interactive quiz to get everyone involved!

At the end of a successful week, the Criw Cymraeg were proudly presented with their new badges.

As part of their efforts, they’ve reminded all staff and pupils to use the Welsh phrases of the week:

"Syniad da" – A good idea (pronounced: Sun-yad dah)
"Dw i ddim yn siŵr" – I'm not sure (pronounced: Doo-ee thim un shoor)
"Mae'n flin 'da fi" – I'm sorry (pronounced: Mine vleen da vee)

And during Dydd Santes Dwynwen, we focused on the word "Cariad", which means love, but is also used to refer to a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Bore Coffi Cymraeg / Welsh Coffee Morning

The Welsh Department recently hosted its first Welsh Coffee Morning, designed to give staff the chance to drop in and enjoy a chat in Welsh — whatever their level of fluency. Our Criw Cymraeg were on hand to offer support, helping to start conversations and encourage everyone to get involved. It was a lovely opportunity to promote the use of Welsh in a relaxed and friendly setting.

We’re already looking forward to the next session!

Eisteddfod

This year, our School Eisteddfod was a great celebration of Welsh culture and talent, with a variety of competitions and activities that engaged both Year 7 and Year 8 pupils.

Pupils took part in a range of competitions designed to highlight their creativity, language skills, and artistic talents. Events included recitation, creative writing, art, music, dancing and singing, giving pupils the opportunity to participate and contribute to the spirit of the Eisteddfod.

It was wonderful to see pupils embracing the Welsh language and culture with enthusiasm. The recitation and singing competitions were particular highlights, showing the dedication and confidence of our pupils when performing in front of an audience. The art and creative writing entries displayed an impressive level of imagination and effort, and judges were very impressed with the quality of work submitted.

Pupils competed for points to earn awards for their house teams, and it was encouraging to see friendly competition throughout the event. Logan was the overall winner of Year 7 competitions and Daniel was the winner for Year 8. Both pupils entered a variety of competitions both off stage and on stage and were the worthy winners of Dewi the Dragon and an Amazon gift card. A special commendation also to Jacob Woodward who won first prize in Welsh for creating a Welsh shield and to Ibrahima Sano and Aishafode Sano for creating wonderful models of geographical features in Geography.

We are proud of all pupils who took part in the Eisteddfod this year. It was a valuable opportunity for them to engage with Welsh heritage, practise their performing skills, and gain confidence in performing and presenting their work.

Thank you to all the staff who helped organise and run the competitions. A special thank you to the Music Department for all their help. We look forward to seeing the Eisteddfod continue to grow in future years!

Clwb Cymraeg

The Clwb Cymraeg continues to thrive and takes place every Wednesday afternoon after school. Pupils have the opportunity to engage with the Welsh language through a variety of games, arts and crafts, and quizzes. The club is led by the Welsh department and Menter Caerdydd, an organisation that promotes and encourages the social use of Welsh across Cardiff.

Promoting Welsh

As Welsh continues to be an important part of education in Wales, many children are learning the language in school. However, learning Welsh at home can make a huge difference in building confidence and fluency. If you would like the opportunity to learn a bit of Welsh at home to support your child with his or her studies, why not use Duolingo, a free and accessible tool to help you do this. Duolingo is a free app that parents can access on smartphones, tablets, or computers.

Megan Gwynne Carroll, Head of Welsh

Daffodils

During Maths lessons, pupils from 7E and 7G made paper daffodils to celebrate the Eisteddfod. They had to calculate measurements and quantities to make their beautiful creations. Well done to all!

Agnieszka Kaczmarska, Teacher of Science and Maths

CyberFirst Girls Competition – Late nights and new languages

Ten Year 8 girls participated in the CyberFirst Girls Competition, an annual cybersecurity contest for schools organised by the NCSC in the UK. This competition is designed to introduce 12/13-year-old girls to the field of cybersecurity, encouraging them to explore potential careers in the industry. The girls tackled a variety of challenging tasks, including password analysis, logic gates, binary analysis, and cyber awareness.

Throughout the competition, the participants showcased exceptional problem-solving, critical thinking and teamwork skills. Their dedication to the team was evident as they sacrificed ten days of breaks, lunches and late nights learning new skills in programming languages alien to them to work on the competition tasks, demonstrating a united front.

It was a close race to the wire between team 2 and 3. Commiserations to Team 1 and 2, who also embraced the challenge and, in the process, increased their cyber awareness. Overall, the girls' commitment and achievements in the competition are truly commendable and to the victors in Team 3!

Melanie Hopkin, Subject Leader of ICT and Business

Scribblers Tour 2025

On the 6th February 2025, a group of 15 Year 7 and Year 8 pupils were given a wonderful opportunity to attend the Scribblers Tour event which takes place at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

The pupils had two creative writing workshops delivered by two amazing and gifted writers. The first session was delivered by Steve Camden who covered the concept of creativity should have no limits and allowed the pupils to create their own world. The second session was delivered by Liz Hyder who got pupils to give a backstory to a certain item she gave out and it allowed the pupils to explore their imagination.

Both sessions were immensely engaging, and the pupils really enjoyed their day out. Olivia in Year 8 commented on the day saying ‘The Scribblers trip was very fun and inspiring to see. One of my favourite parts was when we looked at a stone with a hole all the way through it and we had to use our creative minds to think of a story if we found the stone’.

On the 13th February 2025, a group of 15 Year 9s also had the incredible opportunity to attend the Scribblers Tour event. Their sessions were presented by two different but still immensely talented authors.

The first session was delivered by Jenny Valentine who taught the pupils how to create a character and gave them some great advice on how to break down characterisation. The second session was delivered by Ashley Hickson-Lovence who read the opening to his book ‘Wild East’ which is inspired by a tragic loss of his best friend. His session allowed the pupils to open up regarding people they cherish and want to acknowledge, as well as, showing them that not all poems have to rhyme.

Again, both sessions were brilliant, and our pupils thoroughly appreciated the day out at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Kadi in Year 9 commented about the day saying ‘The Scribblers Tour was such an inspiring and encouraging experience to write poems and tales using our imagination. The author of ‘Wild East’ had presented his book to us using very emotive language and a tone of voice which I think triggered us all somehow. The tour helped us gain knowledge about how different authors have different paths to writing the amazing books they publish. Even though it was educational, it was such a fun and one in a lifetime event to be a part of’.

Thank you to Mrs May who organised the trip for our KS3 pupils to relish in creativity for the day. Also, a big thank you to the pupils who attended the trip as they were well behaved and respectful to the university staff and authors. Lastly, a massive thank you to Cardiff Metropolitan University for inviting us to Scribblers and the Hay Festival for organising the event, the pupils absolutely loved receiving their free book and the opportunity to have it signed made it extra special.