The Langley Legend!

Launching The Langley Legend RESEARCHED, CREATED, DESIGNED

BY LANGLEY STUDENTS: THE FIRST EVER LANGLEY NEWSPAPER

‘The Langley Legend provides a positive platform for young people to express their voices and build their confidence. I hope that this will be a more positive platform than social media, and that many members of our community will engage with the publication.’

- Miss Kavanagh

Langley Legends We are the Langley Legend, and this is the first edition of our newspaper. We are a group of Year 9 and Year 11 students who have worked alongside Miss Kavanagh to produce, what we hope, is something that all Langley students will read and enjoy. The Langley Legend is committed to sharing all different aspects of student life, and giving you a voice.

Designing this newspaper has been a brilliant experience for all of us, and a real team effort. Below, we have included what the Langley Legend means to some of our reporters.

‘Being involved in writing the first edition of the Langley Legend has definitely helped in developing my reporting skills, and I am very grateful to Miss Kavanagh for always giving helpful advice and tips when reporting on different issues. In addition, being a member of the student team which is dedicated to giving our Langley students a voice is something that I am very proud of, and I cannot wait to start writing the second edition!

- Aoife McNamara ‘For me, the Langley Legend is about encouraging students to write and I think that’s a really positive thing that the school is doing.’

- Hattie Payne ‘The Langley Legend provides a positive platform for young people to express their voices and build their confidence. I hope that this will be a more positive platform than social media, and that many members of our community will engage with the publication. I am very proud of the young journalists who have started the club with such enthusiasm, and am so excited for our first edition to be shared with you all.’

- Miss Kavanagh - The Langley Legend

By Aoife McNamara

Highlights of the Year So Far

By Jasmine Cannon

If you are interested in debate club, come along after school Even though we’re only one term on a Thursday, and go to E7, through, this year seems to be while for chess club just go going brilliantly. to the library on a Thursday A lot of brilliant staff members lunch, and for newspaper joined this year, including Mr club, speak to Miss Kavanagh, Cadney, who runs the library or simply go to IT4 on a and chess club, and Mrs McLarnon, Thursday lunchtime. We’ve the head of English and so did also had many exciting trips, a fantastic new class of Year 7s. such as the trip to the WW1 They are doing a brilliant job battlefields for year 9, and adjusting to Langley! the year 11 trip to the Royal So far, many new clubs, such as Shakespeare Company to debate club, newspaper club and chess club have opened! These see a Christmas Carol. excellent clubs are incredibly From the sports awards in interesting: debate club has a November to Langley’s Got new interesting topic each week, Talent in October, this year in newspaper club, you get to has been filled to the brim help make the school newspaper, with exciting events! With and in chess club, you get to play activities such as the Year fun games of chess with friends!

7, 8 and 9 residentials and Clubs are a great way to meet the Year 9 trip to Germany like-minded people, and make on the horizon, we can be new friends! sure that this year will be even better than the last!

Year 7s’ First Impressions Of Langley

By Hattie Payne As the end of the Autumn term drew closer, we were interested to find how Year 7s were adapting to life at Langley.

We wanted to discover what their original impressions of our school were and how they feel about it now.

This is an interview with a student in 7K, Charlotte.

Charlotte said that Langley was her first choice on her application and she came to the open evening as a Year 6. There she found the teachers to be nice and the school appeared to be good.

Moving on to her first day, she had three lessons of form in the morning, graphics design and RE. She enjoyed these lessons, and found them interesting.

After the day had ended, she felt excited for the next and happy. The social aspects of the day had also gone well for Charlotte who made two new friends.

At first she found the school a little daunting and the building to be huge. She got a little lost at first but had a map to use.

Now Langley is less huge and she has adjusted well to life here.

She loves her art lessons which she didn’t have many of at her primary. At her old school they didn’t have much humanities either and she is enjoying the wider variety of subjects. She doesn’t particularly like PE lessons as she isn’t very sporty.

But finds most other aspects of her day to be fun.

She believes the canteen food to be better than that of her primary. During breaks and lunches she spends her time with her friends in the canteen and looks forward to the time off lessons.

Charlotte’s experience here reflects just how great this school is. Hopefully the rest of her school journey is just as positive as it has been so far, with many amazing memories, fantastic trips and enjoyable lessons!.

Year 11 Mock Exams

By Alice Bristoll

Just a few weeks after Year 11 mocks finished, students were feeling a sense of relief which soon turned into stress for the next set of mocks in just a few weeks’ time. Feelings before December mocks were ones of anxiety, fear and nervousness as seen in these responses from students: “extremely stressed but gives good idea of what to expect in the future.” “feeling lots of pressure.” “optimistic and excited for results but the amount of work is tough at times.” “good as it prepares you for the real thing.”

Although mocks just recently finished, the pupils of Year 11 are revising content for February mock examinations. We received a variety of responses when asking students how they felt after the exams: “not happy knowing we have more.” “relieved but nervous for results.” “frustrated and rewarding.”

Some felt awakened and comforted however the sense of stress is still looming. As we arrive to the last few months of our Langley experience, revision sessions continue, to provide students with support and hope for their exams!

Good Luck to all of Year 11!

Langley’s 2022 Christmas Traditions

By Elizabeth Baptiste

The Christmas spirit at Langley School was palpable last year.

The Christmas tree in the foyer sparkled with lights and colourful baubles. A member of the newspaper club has been talking to year 9.

Students and teachers on how they spent their Christmas holidays. The results from both students and teachers have been amazing! Here are some people and here is how they spent their Christmas!

The students of Langley School were really excited last year and here are some of the traditions that were included.

Imogen in 9S has described how she decorated the tree in the last weekend of November.

Elizabeth in 9E has a long list of traditions including role playing the nativity story every Christmas eve, dancing round the Christmas tree to a traditional song with mini presents for each person in age order, and baking Christmas cookies and Lily in 9K bakes gingerbread on Christmas eve.

Sophia in 9U opens stockings with her family and goes to church on Christmas Eve. Also, displayed in her house, every year, she has a real Christmas tree.

Meanwhile, Amelia in 9G puts up her Christmas tree in the first week of December and she goes to church on Christmas day and has a big Christmas dinner afterwards with her family and friends. Jasmine in 9G has explained that she always wakes up extra early on Christmas day!

In 9E, Bella has explained how she had a great time with her family with her annual lucky draw.

The Christmas spirit was full of excitement for the teachers too!

The head teacher Mrs Thorpe boxes on Christmas Eve with pyjamas and Christmassy things!

Go out for lunch on Christmas day with family!

By Aoife McNamara and Sophia Rose

Year 9 Noughts and Crosses Trip

On Wednesday 16th November 2022, Year 9 students visited The Alexander Theatre in Birmingham to watch Noughts and Crosses live. Pupils had been reading the play in drama lessons, and both analysing and re-enacting a multitude of different scenes. It was a highly enjoyable evening, and both students and staff loved watching it. Split into two halves, we followed along the dual narrative of the protagonists Sephy and Callum, in Malorie Blackman’s society of opposing racial power struggle. It was interesting to see a world that reversed racial stereotypes and supremacy - where black people who were represented as Crosses, ruled over white people who were represented as Noughts. Seeing the scenes we had recreated brought to life really inspired us, while demonstrating a life pursued on stage. We have received a wide range of reviews following the performance, from students across Year 9, but have included some of our favourites below: ‘I loved the amazing performance and their choreography for the shops exploding! It inspired me for my own re-enactment of the play’s scenes in Drama and gave me loads of new ideas.’

- Amelia Giles 9G ‘In my opinion, I felt the drama production was a really incredible trip as it taught me a lot about controversial topics like racism, terrorism, death, imprisonment and that has inspired me to be a better person.’

- Abi Williams 9G ‘I think it was a really interesting and engaging performance. It dealt with some really key issues that are relevant to all of us. It was a good opportunity for our students to see how effectively you can take a play from a page to the stage.’

- Mrs Aserie: Acting Head of Drama Overall, the Noughts and Crosses play was a really fun and interesting trip that inspired many of our Drama students. We would love to have the opportunity to go on many more trips like this, and are very grateful to Mrs Aserie, Miss Keogh, Mrs Attenborrow and Mrs Boyle, for organising it.

Holocaust Memorial Day

By Hattie Payne The 27th of January marks Holocaust Memorial Day, chosen on this date to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945. On this day we remember and reflect upon the millions of people who lost their lives in this genocide in the hope that such violence and murder will not be seen again.

It is difficult to determine exactly how many people were killed during the Holocaust as there is no single document that gives a precise number. As the Nazi reign drew to a close, many documents of the killings were destroyed but it is estimated that over 6 million Jewish people were killed.

About 1 million of these murders occurred in Poland at the Auschwitz Birkenau. There were also many other groups targeted by the Nazis. These include people with disabilities, those with Socialist and Communist beliefs, Soviet prisoners of war and members of the LGBTQ+ community amongst many others. As time progresses historians may uncover more documentation but there will never be an accurate count of those murdered in the genocide.

Some of our students attended a memorial service held by the Solihull council on the 26th and read poems they had written for a competition. George Vulcan, a Holocaust survivor, spoke during the service, online. He recounted stories of his experiences and hardships and told how his family was split up and many were killed. The students read their poems aloud in the council chambers which impressed all those listening. One of the students who attended described the experience as eye-opening. She said she found it ‘surreal’ listening to the tales of a person who lived through such horrors and found it upsetting that anyone ever had to go through something like this.

The Holocaust was a brutal section of our planet’s history but it is important that each year we recognise the cruelty and ensure that we never repeat such violence and discrimination.