AFTER being appointed as the official head teacher just a few weeks ago, Rhys Evans believes that everyone should “have a slice" of St Julian’s School and come in and see the good work the school is achieving. Alice Rose finds out more.

St Julian's School, which is one of the largest secondary schools in Newport, is made up of three buildings, with the main one having opened in 1941.

With over 1,600 pupils from the ages of 11-18 and around 250 staff, St Julian’s has a busy atmosphere.

Head teacher, Rhys Evans said he is proud of the school and what it has achieved.

“What I’m proud about and what I can say with confidence to anyone is that people should come in and see what we do,” he said.

“What we’ve always been as a school is open, welcoming and honest."

The school is known for its Learning Development Centre (LDC), which has 50 to 60 pupils with moderate and severe learning disabilities who are from all different areas in Newport.

The LDC has been running for over 10 years and is based in a separate area of the school with six classrooms, a meeting space and an office.

With St Julian’s being known as Newport’s main LDC, the head of department, Carolyn Cook, believes it offers a wide variety of learning.

“We cover all of Newport and teach a range of subjects, from numeracy to literacy, art, science and Welsh of course, along with using a lot of visual aids in our classes.

“In key stage four we also offer entry pathways right up to BTECs.”

Another unique aspect to the school is their support network team, known as BEST.

The BEST team, which stands for the behaviour, emotional and support team, are made up of separately employed workers, who spend their time around the site and in their own office working to support student’s emotional needs.

They deal with a range of problems that students may have, including bereavement, eating disorders and self-harming to name a few.

The team wear pink and purple tops so students are easily able to recognise them if they are in need of advice or help, and are said to be the only type of support network separate to teaching staff in Newport.

One of the members of BEST, Louise Paske, said the team help with as many problems as they possibly can.

She explained: “We work with social services and school health services, including charities like Barnados to provide the best support we can.

“We aren’t teachers so we have a blind timetable so to speak, and that means we can deal with issues as soon as possible.

“Things like friendship issues are a regular occurrence, and we can deal with it and chat with them together."

The team have their own office and phone line for parents to contact if they are concerned about their child’s welfare, or think they need a bit of support.

As well as this the team provide food and toys if parents are struggling with finances.

“We put food parcels together and can help give children breakfast in the mornings,” she added.

“We had a request for toys recently, so we provide extras like that as well.”

The school is spread out across three different buildings, including the main building, the Jubilee building and the technology block, which the school are hoping to extend so more workshops can take place.

With various activities and classes taking part in the different buildings, one thing that many classes use is the Google Cloud, as St Julian’s is one of the several Google Reference Schools in Newport.

In April last year the school was the only one in Wales to be chosen to be part of an educational roadshow, which was hosted by Google.

Built like a “school of the future”, the dome and school linked up with a French school to allow language club members to live chat to pupils across the channel.

Dave Beesley, one of the media teachers at the school, said the school have been set up with the Cloud for a year or two now, and it has been much easier for the students to use.

“If I want to share something with the class, instead of printing it out 30 times I can share it via the Cloud, so it gives every single student their own copy that they can edit and send it back to me." he explained.

“It’s fantastic that the students can collaborate on projects together as well and work together.”

The school is also community based, holding an annual community dinner for members of the public, pupil’s parents and local businesses in the area and in Newport.

The event, which has been going for around three years, is entirely hosted by staff and pupils from the school and offers a free three course meal.

Guests can then watch music performances from students, and a “Day in the life of St Julian’s School” video created by the Media department and students.

Ryan Owen, senior team member at the school, said: “It’s a really great event to help bring everyone together.

“We invite different people each year so everyone gets a chance to be a part of it.”

With the school having so much going on, head teacher Mr Evans believes it’s hard to choose a part of it he likes the best, but it always has a positive atmosphere.

He said: “It’s like asking me to choose which pupil is my favourite, it’s impossible.

“If you come into the school you get all aspects of it, and you’ll see something really positive always taking place.”