Northleigh Mill – Latest News
HELLO YELLOW DAY – 9th OCTOBER 2026
Friday, 9th October, it is Hello Yellow Day – an annual event organised by the charity Young Minds. This year arranged by our very own Debs at Northleigh.
This year it will be the tenth anniversary of this event and our students and staff came in to school wearing yellow and making a donation.
Young Minds is a charity that supports the mental health of young people and this year their theme is inclusivity and challenging stereotypes.
The charity operates a website with help and support for young people, their parents and carers. If we manage to raise just £15, this will pay for a one hour telephone call for a young person contacting the Helpline. I am pleased to say Northleigh has raised an amazing £138.12!
NORTHLEIGH MILL OUTDOORS – 8th OCTOBER 2026
The fantastic weather throughout September meant plenty of opportunity to play outside …
And Lola took full advantage of catching up with pals too!
NORTHLEIGH MILL CREATIONS – 7th OCTOBER 2026
Our students at the Mill have been extremely busy and productive.
In cookery they have made savoury pizza muffins; blackberry and apple crumbles (using blackberries from our own bushes and donated apples) and finally nectarine meringue nests.
Then over in the Gardening department, they have created watering cans out of empty plastic milk containers; they have cleared dead Summer plants to make way for planting Spring flowering bulbs; bird feeders have been created and much discussion has taken place about future garden projects.
In Creative Crafts, our Mill students have enjoyed making food items out of felt; egg box animal portraits and jewellery crafts.
Whilst in Art & Photography, they have focused on colour mixing and studying the Camera Obscura.
A camera obscura is a darkened room, box, or tent that uses a tiny pinhole or lens to project an inverted image of the outside world onto a flat interior surface.
NORTHLEIGH DRIVEWAY EXPANSION – 1st SEPTEMBER 2026
We gave our driveway at Northleigh Mill site a makeover to widen it and enable two-way traffic. Northleigh Mill is nearly up to capacity this term, which will mean an increase in traffic, so this project will come in very handy.
NEW GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMP – 28th AUGUST 2026
Andy (Maintenance Manager) has been over-seeing the installation of a ground source heat pump at Northleigh Mill School, and this is certainly not a project for the faint-hearted as it involves digging up an entire field.
However, it will mean that we can get rid of our oil fired central heating, which will not only save us money, but also dramatically reduce our carbon footprint and bring us up to the same green energy standard as our Northleigh House site.
THANK YOU JLR – 25th AUGUST 2026
Our final Summer holiday volunteers before term began, were a brand new group of volunteers from JLR who came for two days. They kicked off the day emptying furniture from the final classrooms at Northleigh House to receive new flooring; then they cleared the field, where the ground source heat pump had been installed, of bricks and debris, ready for re-seeding; next they planted daffodil bulbs and finally, they put back all the furniture in the classrooms that now had brand new flooring fitted!
NEW GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMP! – 20th AUGUST 2026
Work is now underway at Northleigh Mill to install a ground source heat pump, as we already have at Northleigh House.
This four week job will ultimately mean that we can get rid of our expensive oil fired heating system and polish our green credentials.
Staff and students at both school sites are keen to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible and look after our beautiful settings, so it will be great to see the end results of this project.
THANK YOU JLR – 15th AUGUST 2026
Over the space of two days, this team from JLR came to work at Northleigh Mill. The garage was cleared of rubbish, sanded down and prepped in anticipation of its transformation later this Summer into the Northleigh Mill Wellbeing Hub.
A 16’ high hedge was cut down to a more manageable size; the driveway was weeded and spruced up; much needed watering of a newly planted hedge was undertaken and a football goal, donated by a family in Claverdon was erected and of course ‘tested’.
I happened to be there on one of the days this team were at the school and it was incredibly hot, so fantastic work all round in those temperatures!
THANK YOU WARWICKSHIRE SPURS – 10th AUGUST 2026
Northleigh is very proud to announce that over the next 12 months, Northleigh House & Mill Schools will be the chosen charity of ‘Warwickshire Spurs’ – the official Tottenham Hotspur supporters club. A club for local supporters to join and get priority access to match day tickets and special supporter events.
Over the next twelve months, the proceeds from any club social events, fun days, challenges and auctions will be donated to Northleigh.
Huge thanks to one of students’ dad, Mark, for proposing us.
THANK YOU – KNOWLE MALE VOICE CHOIR – 7th AUGUST 2026
A huge thanks to the Knowle Male Voice Choir, who donated the proceeds of their wonderful concert, held on 20th June, to Northleigh.
A whopping £1000!
NORTHLEIGH GO-APE TRIP – 5th August 2026
There was a much-anticipated joint Northleigh Mill and Northleigh House School trip to Go Ape.
NORTHLEIGH MILL FAMILY TEA PARTY 2nd AUGUST 2026
Staying with Northleigh Mill, staff and students enjoyed an Afternoon Tea Party, to which families of students were invited.
The students loved being able to show their parents around the classrooms and outside spaces and afterwards everyone sat down to a gorgeous homemade afternoon tea.
A beautiful celebration for everyone.
CRAFTS – 1st AUGUST 2026
At Northleigh Mill, they have been very busy during the last few weeks of term.
To follow are a selection of photos showing examples of their work in Art & Photography, Textiles and Gardening.
This colourful, seaside themed clay bowl was designed and painted by a student.
A keen photography student has been photographing birdlife, including the swifts currently fledging in the barn at Northleigh Mill.
One student has been channelling his inner Banksy and producing some great graffiti spray art!
We’ve been decorating pebbles to place in the planters, And upcycling old wellies to create new planters!
TNORTHLEIGH MILL SPORTS DAY CERTIFICATES 24th JULY 2026
Northleigh Mill’s hosted it’s inaugural sports certificates awards event for our wonderful students.
NORTHLEIGH SUMMER FAIR – 20th JULY 2026
We had an absolutely tremendous day.The sun shone. The people came. And we enjoyed celebrating all things Northleigh.
We also raised just under £2500 for the school, which is amazing.
I will let the photos tell the story but firstly a few mentions and thank yous.
Firstly, thank you all the people who entered bakes in our first ever Great Northleigh Bake Off.
Big thanks to our Guest Judges – Sarah and Lucy from Corner Cottage Bakery in Leamington for attending the fair and judging.
Huge thanks once again to all of you lovely people who donated raffle prizes.
LOLA – 2nd JULY 2026
The last word today comes from Lola, one of our school dogs.
She would like me to remind you that the Northleigh Summer Fair will take place on Saturday 27th June and can you please save the date as she has been making a lot of effort to be fete-ready.
ART CREATIVITY! – 1st JUNE 2026
In the garden “Bugginham Palace” has been having some renovation work and Evan and Mabel have created some upcycled bird feeders out of lollipop sticks and Lego.
Meanwhile Bertie’s sunflower is currently in the lead at 7cms tall … more on the Great Sunflower Race in the next newsletter!
TEXTILE MARVELS – 2nd JUNE 2026
In Textiles students created their own embroidered letters whilst one student designed and made his own pencil case.
PHOTOGRAPHY CYANOTYPES – 1st JUNE 2026
In Photography, Thomas has created some fabulous cyantopes using the sun and Isaac created some cool images using colour filters
ART CREATIVITY! – 1st JUNE 2026
In Art, they have been studying the illustrations of Georgina Luck and have used her work to create their own Art using “Alice in Wonderland” as the theme.
And one student made a rather delicious looking cake sculpture!
THANK YOU COTALITY – 30th APRIL 2026
Some more thanks too for our good friends at Cotality who sent a team over as part of their regular team-building/volunteering initiatives.
Andy our Maintenance Manager took full advantage and set them to work planting a new hedge at Northleigh Mill.
200 trees later they were undefeated and even said they had enjoyed themselves!
Here’s a photo of the team before the work began and an after photo in front of a hedge that they hope the new one will soon start to emulate.
THANK YOU! – 22nd APRIL 2026
Huge congratulations and big thanks to Mabel’s dad who successfully completed the Stratford upon Avon Marathon in April. He has raised over £700 for Northleigh too. Whilst his fundraising page is now closed, you can still follow the link below to donate directly to Northleigh if you would like to:
MILL CREATIVITY! – 20th MARCH 2026
Here is a round up of recent activities at Northleigh Mill.
In Art our students have been studying the works of Claes Oldenburg and Peter Anton and making their own giant food sculptures.
In Crafts it was a hive of activity making Mother’s Day cards and pompom cupcakes.
Textiles was all about designing and creating pencil cases using fabric paints.
Photography was learning about the history of the camera and how the camera operates.
And in Gardening our students have been busy bees upcycling materials to make tin can planters, bird feeders and toadstool sculptures.
Easter Fun! – 18th MARCH 2026
Over at Northleigh Mill – students enjoyed the run up to the Easter holidays by taking part in an Easter Hunt. They had to solve clues and complete challenge activities to find the hidden Easter chicks.
WORLD BOOK DAY – 20th MARCH 2026
On Thursday 5th March it was World Book Day and each of our school sites celebrated in style.
Both teachers and students enjoyed dressing up as their favourite book characters, as well as bringing in props that reminded them of their favourite books.
Breaks and lunchtimes involved fun quizzes and puzzles and much discussion was enjoyed about all things literary.
A really great day.
THANK YOU NATIONAL GRID! – 20th MARCH 2026
Big thanks here also to yet another group of volunteers from National Grid who came to work their socks off at Northleigh Mill.
As ever Andy greeted them with a warm welcome – and a big list of jobs!
They managed to clear the garage and make it useable; cut back the overgrown back yard so it could be used for outdoor games storage and lastly, but most importantly, they created and built a ‘bug hotel’ called ‘Bugginham Palace’. Our students are so pleased with it and are keen to see how it develops.
THANK YOU! – 18th MARCH 2026
Big thanks go to Mr and Mrs Middleton who very generously donated a piano to Northleigh Mill School.
Our students were thrilled and created a special thank you card for them.
MILL EXCITEMENT! – 6th MARCH 2026
It is wonderful to see the new members of staff and new students settling into their new home.
Here are some examples of their work and projects, including Arts & Crafts, Wellbeing, Playtime with Lola one of our ‘adopted’ school dogs, Computer Programming and Cookery.
EASTER LOLA – 15th MARCH 2026
Lola our resident therapy dog has recently turned into the Easter Bunny!
LAMB SEASON 10th MARCH 2026
We are very lucky to be able to visit the farm next door to school to appreciated their gorgeous lambs!
