We were delighted to welcome Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales to our new school on 3^rd October 2023, who were visiting Cardiff to mark the start of Black History month.

As part of their visit, they met and chatted to groups of 6^th form pupils about the various courses they were studying from further maths, sciences and forensic science to Spanish and English literature. The Prince had a lengthy discussion with members of our ESOL group learning about their various journeys to Fitzalan from different parts of the world and how they were embracing their opportunity to learn in this new environment. Both the Prince and Princess then engaged in a lively debate about the pros and cons of books versus eBooks.

The royal party then enjoyed learning about the developments in Tiger Bay as part of a lesson in the new Immersion room and spoke to numbers of pupils who have really interesting stories about the experience of family members who came to this area from different parts of the world.

The heart space was then the destination for our visitors to see our steel pan band and the Fitzalan Finches choir in action before being played out into the plaza area by the Indian drums. Nearly 1400 pupils were able to enjoy this aspect of the visit by filling the heart space. As the group then made their way to the beautiful pupil gates they were able to see all of the external spaces in action with sport, drama and gardening all being demonstrated. Just before the visit ended, our visitors met and chatted to the project architects from Austing Smith Lord, the project team from Kier and the designer Lara Sparey and pupils who had worked together to produce the pupil gates. They then signed our visitor book and accepted a beautiful replica of the gates as a momento of their visit.

A great day for everyone. Diolch yn Fawr to our guests!