Lighthouse News
Lighthouse News
Spring newsletter 2024
Autumn newsletter 2023
Tesco Stronger Starts Scheme for a Student Sensory Wellbeing Garden - 2 October 2023 to mid January 2024
Please see below for details of the Tesco stores where Lighthouse School is part of their Stronger Starts Scheme.
Tesco scheme from 2 October 2023 to mid January 2024
Our 2024 school calendar is now on sale.
To purchase a 2024 school calendar via Parent Pay, please click on the link below:
Summer newsletter - July 2023
Please click below to view our latest newsletter:
School Focus Article - May 2023
Please click below to see the school feature in the Yorkshire Evening Post:
Spring Newsletter - March 2023
Please click below to view our latest newsletter:
Amazing news - One of our students has received a silver CREST award for his engineering project
We thought you might enjoying reading about one of our students and their amazing Science project in the press.
George’s Biscuit Dunking Machine
Autumn Newsletter - December 2022
Latest newsletter
Progress Review Day - 3 Jan 2023
Progress Review Day Booking System
Summer Newsletter - July 2022
Spring Newsletter - April 2022
Christmas Newsletter - December 2021
Christmas Newsletter 2021New Schools Network - Celebrating a Decade of Success
New Schools Network - Celebrating a Decade of Free SchoolsSpring 2021 Newsletter
Autumn 2020 Newsletter
Safeguarding Week
It’s Leeds Safeguarding Week and our Home Learning menu will include tasks across a wide range of subjects to raise the awareness of Safeguarding for our young people.
The work our students do this week around Safeguarding will then be collated and a short video will be created that will be shared with our families and staff.
Lighthouse Lockdown News
Lighthouse school continues to provide virtual learning and wellbeing safeguarding support remotely to all students.
The school building will be open for children of keyworkers and a small number of identified children every weekday 9:30am - 2:30pm.
Lighthouse Lockdown News
Lighthouse school continues to provide virtual learning and wellbeing safeguarding support remotely to all students.
The school building will be open for children of keyworkers and a small number of identified children every weekday 9:30am - 2:30pm.
Lighthouse Lockdown News
Lighthouse school continues to provide virtual learning and wellbeing safeguarding support remotely to all students.
The school building will be open for children of keyworkers and a small number of identified children every weekday 9:30am - 2:30pm.
Beacon: Family Support
As a school we have been working towards a change in how we promote family support. Beacon is the new umbrella title for family support in school. We wish to be a ‘beacon’ for families and help navigate and signpost support available. Beacon will be a place for families to be able to access;
- Support from other parents
- Teen Life parent programme
- Social events
- Parent Hub information
At this current time we will be exploring and launching family support. We will keep you updated regularly but we are planning;
- Virtual parent Q&A sessions
- A closed Facebook parent group
- Linking resources that would be supportive on our
- school website and school Facebook page
- Exploring how to continue to run our Teen Life programme remotely
- Uploading some top tips videos from our school staff
- to support our students whilst at home
We will be sending details to our parents and carers today about our new Facebook Group just for Lighthouse School parents and carers
Summer Newsletter
Summer 2020 Newsletter Issue 1
Lighthouse school continues to provide virtual learning and wellbeing safeguarding support remotely to all students.
The school building will be open for children of Keyworkers and a small number of identified children every weekday 9:30am - 2:30pm
Lighthouse school continues to provide virtual learning and wellbeing safeguarding support remotely to all students.
The school building will be open for children of Keyworkers and a small number of identified children every weekday 9:30am - 2:30pm.
Easter Holidays
Lighthouse School will be closed for the Easter Holidays as there is no key worker families require provision.
The Safeguarding team will remain available so if you have a safeguarding concern please contact:
Week commencing 6th April: 07926 489735, 07849 398593 or 07754 871437
Week commencing 13th April: 07857 548803 or 07926 489736 or 07857 549282
School Closure
Lighthouse school continues to provide virtual learning, wellbeing and safeguarding support remotely to all students and families. The school building will be open for Key workers’ children and those risk assessed as highly vulnerable week commencing 30th March - 3rd April 9:30am -2:30pm.
School Closure
Lighthouse school continues to provide virtual learning, wellbeing and safeguarding support remotely to all students.
The school building will be open for key workers’ children only 9:30am - 2:30pm.
School Closure
Lighthouse School will remain closed to students and staff on Monday 23rd March 2020 as the school is deep cleaned.
Please see this letter for more information COVID-19 Letter to parents 20th March 2020
School Closure
Lighthouse School will be closed on Friday 20th March 2020 to all students and staff.
The school will continue to provide daily updates to parents.
School Closure
Lighthouse School will be closed on Thursday 19th March 2020 to all students.
The school will continue to provide daily updates to parents.
School Closure
Lighthouse School will be closed on Wednesday 18th March 2020.
For more information please see:
Letter to parents 17th March 2020
The school will provide daily updates to parents.
Celebrating Futures Week
What a fantastic week we had last week celebrating ‘Futures week’ in school in line with National Careers week!
Each morning during Form time, all students across the school engaged in various careers related activities including exploring their dream jobs, looking at key words, understanding who helps you in the community, job related crosswords and more! This sparked loads of great conversations between staff and students about their career pathways and how they came to working at Lighthouse.
We also launched our ‘Internal Jobs Board’ which has been a huge success already!
Our internal jobs board advertises different job roles within our school that students can apply for to help prepare them for their transition into adulthood. It is open to all students and is designed to help develop independent work skills, taking responsibility and will look great when they create a CV for a future job or college application.
Marriott Careers Visit
Massive thanks to Annabel, Jayne and their associates at the Leeds Marriott Hotel today for welcoming nine of our students on a fantastic careers visit.
The trip really inspired and opened the eyes of the students to the wide range of roles and environments that hotel work offers - as well as the benefits of working for a great company such as Marriott.
Mosaic Project Launch
We launched a very exciting mosaic project this week and were extremely grateful to the fantastic partners and experts who joined us in school to provide some fascinating insights and inspiration to help in the project planning.
Seventeen Key Stage 4 & 5 students spent the afternoon with an Archaeologist, Surveyor, Artist, Historian and colleagues in various roles from our fantastic new neighbours at Stonewater, who have sponsored the project and are developing one of the sites near to the school for social housing.
We can’t wait to get started on the mosaic design work now. Watch this space as the project takes shape, with a view to three mosaics - designed and made by our students - being installed in one of the finished buildings in summer 2020!
Lighthouse PTA Christmas Fair
Exam Results 2019
Congratulations to all our students who took their exams in the Summer term. They all did really well and achieved fantastic results. Exams can be very stressful, but our students worked hard to develop strategies to support them and worked hard all year to prepare for them.
| Maths | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Qualification | Level | Students | Grade |
| GCSE | Foundation | 2 | 3 |
| Higher | 1 | 5 | |
| Functional Skills | Entry 2 | 3 | |
| Entry 3 | 6 | ||
| Level 1 | 3 | ||
| Level 2 | 2 | ||
| English | |||
| Qualification | Level | Students | Grade |
| GCSE Language | 1 | 5 | |
| 1 | 3 | ||
| 1 | 1 | ||
| GCSE Literature | 1 | 4 | |
| 1 | 3 | ||
| Functional Skills | Entry 1 | 1 | |
| Entry 2 | 2 | ||
| Entry 3 | 4 | ||
| Entry Level Certificate | Entry 2 | 1 | |
| Entry 3 | 1 | ||
| Science | |||
| Qualification | Level | Students | Grade |
| Cambridge Technical Certificate | Level 2 | 1 | Pass |
| 1 | Merit | ||
| Cambridge Technical Extended Certificate | Level 2 | 1 | Merit |
| Entry Level Certificate Single Award | Level 2 | 3 | |
| Entry Level Certificate Double Award | Level 2 | 2 | |
| Level 3 | 2 | ||
| Art | |||
| Qualification | Level | Students | Grade |
| GCSE Art and Design | 1 | 7 | |
| GCSE Photography | 1 | 8 | |
| Media | |||
| Qualification | Level | Students | Grade |
| BTEC Creative Media Productions | Level 1 | 2 | Pass |
September 2019
The school is now closed for the summer holidays. We look forward to welcoming students back to school in September.
4th September 2019 - New Year 7 students
5th September 2019 - Key stage 3 and 4 students (Year 7 - 11)
6th September 2019 - All students in school including Key Stage 5 (Year 7 - 14)
We hope you have a lovely summer break.
Summer Shine Club
Lighthouse School Summer Shine Club runs for three days from 24th - 26th July.
24th July - Xscape Leisure Complex. The students will take part in a range of leisure activities
25th July - Bolton Abbey. The students will be able to complete outdoor activities and walking
26th July - Summer Festival at Lighthouse. There will be Festival Food, Live entertainment, Arts & Crafts, and much more.
Post 16 Transport update
From the Leeds City Council Website:
“Following decisions taken in June and November 2018, the phasing in of proposed changes to the provision of school transport for students over 16 with special educational needs and disabilities in Leeds has been paused.
Young people entering post-16 education in the 2020/21 academic year, along with those already in post-16 education, will continue to receive transport assistance under the provisions of the Children’s Transport Policy, November 2015 until they leave post-16 education.”
To find out more, please go to the Leeds City Council Page
Lighthouse School Spring Fair
Lighthouse School PTA invite you to join us at the Spring Fair on Saturday 18th May 12pm - 2pm.
All the usual stalls and activities including:- craft, tombola, cakes, toys, books, dvds, face painting, games to play & things to make PLUS Lunchtime refreshments and students singing!
School Closure Tour de Yorkshire
On Friday 3rd May students will be leaving school at 1:15pm due to the travel disruption caused by Tour de Yorkshire. Local Authority Transport have been notified and have confirmed they will collect all students from school at 1.15pm to transport students home. If you normally collect your child from school at the end of the day please can you do so at 1.15pm.
Autism Awareness Week
It’s Autism Awareness Week and here at Lighthouse we are taking part in a range of activities celebrating neurodiversity. This week we will be singing, creating animations and posters, writing poems, creating art work, researching famous people with a diagnosis of Autism, and many more activities. It’s a wonderful opportunity for our students to celebrate their uniqueness and the fabulous contributions they make.
Fundraising for Cash For Kids
Lighthouse School is one of the schools chosen to take part in the School Challenge, raising money for the Radio Aire’s Cash for Kids campaign. The 6 schools who raise the most money will receive prizes that will help the school.
Fundraising will start on Monday 25th February until Friday 22nd March.
You can donate via the Cash4Kids website
Brick 42 - The answer to everything......Lego
On Sunday 17th February, Brick 42 will be holding an event at the White Rose Shopping Centre from 11.30am - 3.30pm in the central atruim. They will be selling products, some made by our students, as well as having a lego and duplo play table. They will also be running fun competitions such as the speed building challange to see if you can build a model quicker than our master builder, guess the number of lego bricks in a jar and a minifigure challange.
Phones are now working
Our phones are now fully working
Phones currently not working
We are currently experiencing some technical difficulties with our phone system. Calls to school are currently not being received. Our technical team are looking into it as a top priority.
If you have an urgent call to make to school, please call our school mobile on: 07570 851203
School Closed - 1st February 2019
Lighthouse School is closed today due to significant amounts of ice on Hospital Lane making the road too dangerous for vehicles to access the lane into school. If you have an urgent safeguarding concern, please email the safeguarding team or see Leeds Safeguarding Children Partnership
Compass House - now with branding!
Compass House (the ‘pop up’ shop planners) now have branded T-shirts! They are working hard planning an amazing Christmas Shop that will be in Kirkgate Market form the 10th to the 14th December, 10am to 2pm each day. The shop will contain items created by students and will be staffed with students when it is open.
This is a fantastic collaboration between Lighthouse School and the Specialist Inclusive Learning Centres in Leeds.
Pop Up Shop
Lighthouse students are working in partnership with Leeds City Council and four of the city’s Specialist Inclusive Learning Centres to plan and run a ‘pop up’ shop in Kirkgate Market from 10th-14th December. Today the planning team met at the market to view the space for the first time and were very excited about how many of our handmade gifts for under £5 we’ll be able to sell there. Next we need to plan the rotas for the shop and start making more gorgeous gifts!
Lighthouse School PTA
Everyone is welcome to join the PTA for their Annual General Meeting on Thursday 8th November at 2.30pm.
The PTA continues to grow in number and success. Last academic year, we rasied over £7,000. The money is being used to buy a wide variety of resources and equipment to support all the students at Lighthouse School.
Come along and find out more.
Exam Success
Congratulations to all our students who received their GCSE results today. We are delighted to announce a 100% pass rate. Every single student was successful and all their hard work paid off. We are so very proud of you!
Summer Fair
Thank you to everyone who supported our Summer Fair. We raised an amazing £890.13.
Summer Fair: 7th July 12pm - 2pm
Save the date! 7th July 2018
Our school summer fair this year is happening on Saturday the 7th July 2018, 12pm to 2pm
We will also be having a non-uniform day on Friday 29th June, where students will be bringing in chocolate for the fair
Parental Controls for Consoles
Keeping young people safe online is very difficult, especially when students use consoles. Here is a handy document that shows how to set up parental controls for a variety of different consoles.
Parental Controls for Consoles
MindMate Friendly!
Lighthouse School is now officially MindMate Friendly. We have been assessed by MindMates and have been recognised as showing Good and Outstanding practice in all areas of the SEMH (Social, Emotional & Mental Health) portion of the Healthy Schools check.
Next step - MindMate Champions! MindMate Champions
Easter Activities: Shine Club
Building on the success of previous shine activities the school will be running the usual Easter Holiday Shine Club scheme. We have filled our holiday scheme with lots of exciting activities to keep the students entertained for the duration. Shine Club will be running on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th April this year, going to Doncaster Dome and X-Scape. Easter SHINE Booklet FINAL BOOKLET
Autism Awareness Week
To celebrate Autism Awareness Week, students will be doing a range of activities in school across next week. This will culminate with an open afternoon on Thursday 29th March 2018 for parents/carers to see their child enjoying and achieving in school.
During the afternoon there will be an opportunity for parents/carers to join subject classes, visit an exhibition of students’ work and participate in some of the enrichment activities that school provides. There will also be a range of refreshment provided, for a donation to schools funds.
The event will run from 1:15 till 3:00pm and parents/carers are able to leave with their son/daughter if they wish to do so after 3pm
The school will also be exhibiting at the Leeds Bigger and Better show on Tuesday 27th March 9:30 - 3pm. We would encourage parents/carers to attend. The event has two main guest speakers, an “autism tree”, short speeches from local autistic people and over 30 stalls from services throughout Leeds .You can find out more information at: http://biggerandbetterinleeds.org/event/2018-2/
Art Society Visit
The Art Society Leeds have very kindly donated £250 to the school for art materials. The Arts Societies bring together like-minded people to enjoy the arts and work on heritage preservation projects. Our students have been asked to submit some of their art work to be displayed at one of the Art Society’s meeting.
National Careers Week
We had an incredibly successful end to careers week, with a Careers and Enterprise Fair. Students and parents got to visit stalls from a wide range of organisations and also buy items from our Lighthouse Enterprise stall. Parents also had the opportunity to learn more about the supported internships available through Lighthouse Futures Trust.
A huge thank you to Lighthouse Futures Trust, Autism Bricks, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds City College, Mencap, Specialist Autism Services and Leeds Apprenticeships.
National Careers Week
It’s National Careers week from the 5th to the 10th of March and we have an exciting week planned!
All lessons will include links to relevant careers and on Friday 9th March there is a Careers Fair for students and parents, with colleges, apprenticeship providers and the Lighthouse Futures Trust attending. Our Enterprise Students will also have a stall selling the items they have been making in their Enterprise Lessons.
The Fair is open to all parents in the afternoon. This will be a great chance to see what opportunities are available for your child in the future and to talk about careers, college, apprenticeships and supported internships.
School closed 8th March
As a result of closure of local schools effecting our essential services as well as the severe weather regretfully the school will be closed to all for the full day.
School Late Opening
School will be closed to students until 11am. Parental decision to bring students in after that time based on safety grounds. updates will be issued if any changes to this.
School Open
Lighthouse School is fully open tomorrow 5th March for all students and staff. We have checked school and surrounding roads and it is now safe for transport to access.
School Closure 2nd March
Lighthouse School will be closed to students and staff on Friday 2nd March due to the severe weather. We are hoping to be open to all on Monday 5th March, weather permitting.
School Closure 1st March
Due to the continuing severe weather, Lighthouse School will be closed to all students and staff on Thursday 1st March. The Key Stage 3 Subject Surgery scheduled for after school will be rearranged to a later date.
School Closure 28th February
Due to severe weather, Lighthouse School will be closed to all students and staff on Wednesday 28th February
Leeds Safeguarding Week
Lighthouse students have taken part in the Leeds Safeguarding week, creating posters for our safeguarding display.
To read more, visit the Leeds Safeguarding Children Board website here Leeds Safeguarding Children Board
Ofsted November 2017 "This school continues to be good"
We are delighted with the result of our recent Ofsted inspection.
- Your school is clearly putting its motto, “inspiring bright futures”, into practice.
- Leaders have created a positive climate throughout the school so pupils enjoy learning and being creative.
- Since the last inspection, teaching has improved so that pupils make rapid and sustained progress.
- The staff provide a wealth of support to pupils throughout the school day, both in terms of curriculum and well-being.
Read the inspection report: Lighthouse School Leeds
Christmas Fair
We had a tremendously successful Christmas Fair on Saturday with more people than ever coming to try their luck at the Tombola, buy handmade gifts from our students and experience our amazing Immersive Room.
Thank you to everyone who came to our Christmas Fair. We raised £1,751 which is over double what we raised last year and is more than any other of our previous events. The support and generosity of everyone is very much appreciated and the money we raised will help make a real difference to our young people.
Thanks to all the students and staff who helped out - we couldn’t have done it without you!
Official Bench Opening.
One of our students’ family has made a donation in memory of her Uncle. They donated money to purchase a pair of beautiful hand-carved benches for students to use at break and at lunch time.
These benches will give our students the opportunities to sit together and to practice their social communication and they really do look wonderful in our grounds.
We had a wonderful Official Opening of the Benches, which the family, the PTA and our Principal, Emma Sullivan attended and our student photographer took photos.
Thank you to Mrs Saville and the PTA for arranging this wonderful gift
Exams Success and Leavers Celebration
This year was the first year that a large number of our students took part in formal examinations. They all worked extremely hard and that hard work was rewarded. 100% of all students entered achieved a GCSE in RE and Computing and in Functional Maths and Environmental Studies. The vast majority of students were also successful in their Functional English, iMedia and GCSE Leisure and Tourism qualifications.
We also say goodbye and good luck to our first 6th form leavers with a Leavers’ Prom and a presentation at the end of the year. We wish them the very best of luck and every success in the future.
Shine
We spent the day exploring the ruins and having our lunch in the open air. Then onto Billy Bobs and the Play Barn, where staff and students had an absolutely fab time!
Summer Fair 2017
Thank you to all who supported the Summer Fair
Options Evening
We recently welcomed our Year 9 and Year 11 students and parents/carers to their options evening. This event gave parents, carers and students the opportunity to see what the students would be studying in the core subjects of Maths, English and Science, as well as looking at the various option subjects the school will be offering from September 2017.
Katie Parlett MBE
We are thrilled that our very own school founder, Katie Parlett, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s honours list 2017. We are sure you will join with the school in passing on our congratulations to Katie on this great achievement.
Golden Owl Awards
Lighthouse School at the OSCARS! A group of our key stage 3 students wrote and starred in their own film which was entered into the Golden Owl Awards. The film won Best Action Film! A small group of students and staff attended the awards ceremony at Leeds Town Hall with students accepting the award on stage with a speech.
Image view
School Closure