Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
The growth of WM education in Caerffili
The recent announcement of details of the Welsh Government's £144.8m allocation of funds to be spent on new schools or improvements to schools was welcome, although not all of the bids were successful.
Among the Local Authorities that didn't win funding was Caerffili. It's bid included three projects, and details of them are here. The Council identified its top priority as improving Welsh-medium provision, based on the St Ilan/Plas-y-felin sites.
St Ilan's School was closed in 2007. It is the cluster of buildings in the top right of the picture, with the original block on the right and newer additions to the left and top. Plas-y-Felin Primary School is on the left of the picture, and Ysgol Gymraeg Caerffili is at the bottom right.
I don't particularly want to focus on the details of the bid—except to say that it does seem an obvious site to develop, as St Ilan's has been standing empty for almost three years—but to draw attention to the Appendix at the end of the report which, in the Council's words, "illustrates the growth in Welsh Medium education and the urgency for additional secondary places within the County Borough".
The first table shows the growth projection for Caerffili's existing WM Secondary:
| Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni - Pupil Projections | |||
| Date | No. on roll | Capacity | Surplus/Excess |
| September 2009 | 1341 | 1448 | - 107 |
| September 2010 | 1410 | 1448 | - 38 |
| September 2011 | 1441 | 1448 | - 7 |
| September 2012 | 1447 | 1448 | - 1 |
| September 2013 | 1503 | 1448 | + 55 |
| September 2014 | 1540 | 1448 | + 92 |
| September 2015 | 1663 | 1448 | + 215 |
| September 2016 | 1763 | 1448 | + 315 |
| September 2017 | 1906 | 1448 | + 458 |
| September 2018 | 1999 | 1448 | + 551 |
| September 2019 | 2113 | 1448 | + 665 |
It is relatively easy to project secondary numbers, because they reflect the growth in primary numbers. The next table shows how primary numbers are increasing, the jumps tending to reflect when new WM schools are opened.
Canton Schools ... More condemnation
In response to Carwyn Jones' decision to reject Cardiff's proposal for schools' reorganization in Canton, the Association of Directors of Education in Wales issued this news release today:
The Welsh Assembly Government's decision to reject Cardiff Council’s proposals to reorganise primary schools flies in the face of the need to continue to raise educational standards, reduce surplus places and meet the targets in the recently published Welsh-medium Education strategy, One Wales and the 21st Century Schools initiative.
The Welsh Assembly Government and Ministers have over the last few years made it clear to local authorities that they need to ensure efficiencies are realised and that they must reduce the number of surplus places. This decision from the Assembly Government is contrary to these requirements.
The outcomes of recent Estyn local authority inspections have been critical of progress by local authorities in addressing school organisation issues. The biggest impediment to reorganisation is the complex and bureaucratic processes in place at the Welsh Assembly Government which are required to achieve school closures and a reduction in surplus places.
There are numerous examples of individual Assembly Members opposing school closures within their own constituencies. This type of opposition merely adds to the difficulty of the process.
When a proposal goes through the statutory process even when there is only one objection, a very detailed report is required by the Welsh Assembly. Once it has been submitted to the Welsh Assembly, it can take up to a year to be processed and for authorities to receive a response. In contrast the initial and statutory proposal at local authority level, in often very hostile meetings consulting with the pupils, staff, governors, parents and the wider community, has taken a mere 4 to 5 months.
Whilst most proposals are eventually accepted, the rejection of the Cardiff proposals not only sets the authority back several years but leaves everyone questioning the level of commitment by the Welsh Assembly Government. If Cardiff decided to appeal this decision and proceed to a Judicial Review then ADEW would support the authority.
Now is the time to question several aspects of the current process.
The process needs to be speeded up and if it remains as currently, then there needs to be capacity to deal with proposals in a timely manner. Currently the time spent waiting is totally unacceptable.
In the past at least 10 local objections were required before the Welsh Assembly were required to rule on the proposal. Now it is one objection and this can be from someone with a very tenuous link to the schools. This needs to be reviewed.
More importantly, should the decision making process provide an approach which is independent of the political whim of the Welsh Assembly Government?
Chair of ADEW
Richard Parry, Strategic Director for Education Swansea City and County CouncilVice Chair of ADEW
Dr. Brett Pugh, Chief Education Officer Newport City Council
I also found this statement from the Welsh Local Government Association ... with apologies for it being a few days old:
WLGA calls for a complete national review of school closures policy in Wales
The retrograde and questionable decision by the Welsh Assembly Government to reject Cardiff County Council’s plans to modernise English language provision and to expand Welsh-medium education in west Cardiff yet again exposes the yawning gap between national rhetoric and local reality on the issue of surplus school places.
WLGA Education spokesperson Cllr. Peter Fox stated:
"Local authorities in Wales have been constantly exhorted by Ministers and the Schools Inspectorate Estyn to deal with the issues of surplus school places which are costly and in some cases have led to poor educational outcomes. Yet time after time, once a set of closures are proposed across any part of Wales we see Assembly Members leading campaigns to keep these same schools open. The rejection of Cardiff’s proposals calls into sharp relief the question of meaningful shared commitment at government level. This is despite consistent evidence by Estyn highlighted above which has been presented to Ministers.
"In addition, the bureaucratic process to close a school is one of huge complexity and adding to this is the emerging problem of the very slow turnaround of decisions by the Assembly Government on appeals. As a consequence this whole process is in danger of turning into an expensive waste of time. It is vital that proper consultation occurs with parents and we readily understand that many feel passionately about their local school. Local government wants a new positive rationalisation process working with parents, governors and communities to establish new structures and functions and making better use of the assets. That said the art of government is about difficult financial choices particularly in a time of massive resource constraints, in Cardiff’s case the Assembly has ducked this choice and have no alternatives to offer."
Wrexham fails a hundred children a year
On Monday, the Daily Post carried this story about Welsh-medium education in Wrexham:
Wrexham council accused of dragging feet over Welsh language education
Education consultant John Morris, who has worked in schools and colleges across the country, fears Wrexham is leaving many families out in the cold who want their children to be educated in Welsh.
He said he had been contacted by a number of parents who had tried to get their youngsters into Welsh schools only to be turned away. And he claimed the local authority was not doing enough to ensure there would be adequate provision to meet demands for Welsh language education in the future.
Mr Morris said: “I have had families come up to me and tell me they haven’t been able to get their children into schools with education provision in Welsh language. People have seen the success of schools in Wrexham which provide Welsh language provision such as Ysgol Plas Coch, Bodhyfryd and Morgan Llwyd. But schools are completely under resourced to cope and at Plas Coch they have put up two mobiles because of the extra demand."
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The authority’s Chief Learning and Achievement Officer John Davies, said: "The authority is still in the midst of carrying out a feasibility study on a range of possible sites and locations for a new primary welsh-medium language school in Wrexham. This should be completed within the next few weeks. Once this is completed a report will be submitted to the executive board in late April, where members will agree on a preferred option. The authority will then carry out a full consultation, which will seek the views of a wide range of stakeholders about that preferred option.
"There is sufficient accommodation in our Welsh medium schools to meet the current demand. All pupils who have applied for places at Welsh medium schools in Wrexham next September have been allocated places and two of our Welsh medium primary schools still have some places available."
This sounds suspiciously like a case of "he said, she said". Whenever anyone makes an allegation there'll always someone available to deny it, and the average reader is left with no means of being able to judge who is telling the truth. But, happily, it only takes a little research to get the facts.
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The current situation is that Wrexham has five Welsh-medium primary schools, although there are also two very small rural schools which teach in Welsh. Wrexham publishes the admission number for each school in this document, together with the number of applications for places in September 2009:
Plas Coch ... Admission number 27 ... Requests 57
Bodhyfryd ... Admission number 46 ... Requests 49
Bryn Tabor ... Admission number 42 ... Requests 31
I D Hooson ... Admission number 29 ... Requests 39
Cynddelw ... Admission number 18 ... Requests 6Total admission number 162
Total requests 182
This shows that the number of requests for places exceeds the number of places normally available. However it should be noted that the Ysgol Bodhyfryd website says that the school now has an admission number of 60, to refect the fact that temporary space has been found from somewhere. As mentioned in the story, Ysgol Plas Coch also has two temporary classrooms.
So Wrexham have just—but only just—managed to find places for those who have made formal admission requests. However they are very obviously heading directly for another crisis since three of the Council's WM schools are already full for this coming September, and it is almost certain that one of the two remaining schools with places mentioned by Mr Davies is Cynddelw which is in Glyn Ceiriog, some 25km away from Wrexham itself. Therefore only one of the four schools in or anywhere near Wrexham has any space left ... a full six months before the start of term.
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But this is only a part of the picture. Back in December I wrote this post about Wrexham's belated proposals for increasing the number of WM places available. In it, I mentioned that Wrexham had conducted a survey of parental preferences of parents of very young children in October 2007, and the headline percentages were given in this news story from RhAG. I did try to find a copy of that survey at the before but it wasn't anywhere on Wrexham's website. But I've checked again and am pleased to say it now is, click the cover to read it:
The survey is particularly relevant now because the children in question are those born between September 2005 and August 2006, those starting formal education this year. The main figure is that the parents of 269 children would be very or fairly likely to send them to a Welsh medium primary school if there was one within 2 miles. This is not an extrapolated figure, it is the actual number of responses. The response rate was only 32% and it would be inconceivable that all of the remaining 68% would not want to do so. So that 269 is a minimum figure.
But the sustainable admission number of all WM schools in Wrexham is only 162, for although the temporary accommodation might allow for the figure to be increased for a year or so in the short term, there are seven year groups in total. So at a minimum there are at least a hundred children whose parents want them to have WM education, but for whom there are no spare spaces. That is solid proof that John Morris is right to say that parents are being turned away.
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So what is happening? I think the main reason for the difference is that parents usually make informal enquiries in the first instance. If they are told that the WM schools near them are full (and Wrexham have confirmed that three of the four in or near Wrexham already are for next September) they will simply not bother making an official application.
Another important factor is that if parents have been unsuccessful in getting their children into WM nursery education they might well feel that their children have already fallen behind, so that even though they might have wanted WM education a couple of years ago they now feel it is too late to catch up. This is very well illustrated in the diagram below, which shows that only 4% were able to get their child into a WM nursery or playgroup, which is very low even though about half of the parents thought their children too young to send to a nursery/playgroup at the time. To my mind this shows that we must make Parent and Toddler groups, called Ti a Fi (you and me) in Welsh, and nursery provision a priority.
But what surprised me most from the survey was the almost total lack of information given to parents by the Local Authority to enable them to make an informed choice. This is from the report:
Information for choosing a Primary School
2.12 Respondents were asked if they felt they had received enough information to make a decision about primary education for their children. The majority (64%) did not feel they had enough information to make this decision (Figure 14).
2.13 89% of respondents did not feel they had received enough information about the schools in their area. Only 74 respondents (11%) felt they had enough information regarding schools in their area (Figure 15).
2.14 An even higher percentage of respondents (94%) felt they had not received enough information regarding the application process for primary education. Only 40 respondents (6%) felt they had enough information on the application process (Figure 16).
2.15 Furthermore, 93% (579) respondents had not received information on Welsh medium schools (figure 17).
To my mind this borders on wanton negligence by Wrexham Council. It makes the figure of 44% who did respond positively all the more remarkable, and this lack of information might well be why the overall response rate only reached 32%.
All these factors act to reduce the numbers that make official applications for WM places, and I think it is reasonable to say that local authorities take advantage of this as an excuse for not supplying the number of WM places they should.
Now in Wrexham's case, the local authority do realize that they need to act, even though they have been leaving it rather late. They are currently consulting on these three options:
• building a new 1FE (210 place) school at Gwersyllt
• increasing capacity at Ysgol Plas Coch from 1FE to 2FE (420 places)
• building a new 1FE school at Gwersyllt and increasing capacity at Ysgol Plas Coch from 1FE to 1.5FE (315 places)
I think that the third option is clearly the best, because it provides more WM places than the other two. However, even if it is approved, it adds only 45 places per year to the 162 places currently available. It would still leave a shortfall of at least 60 places each year.
That means at least one more two form entry (or maybe two one form entry) WM schools are required in Wrexham simply to meet the demand that was surveyed back in 2007. One small amendment that would go some way to help would be to add this as fourth option:
• building a new 1FE (210 place) school at Gwersyllt and increasing capacity at Ysgol Plas Coch from 1FE to 2FE (420 places)
New Welsh-medium schools in Swansea
A few years ago now, Swansea was one of the first local authorities to conduct a survey asking whether parents of very young children wanted them to have a Welsh-medium education when they reached school age. It wasn't particularly publicized at the time and I first heard of it almost a year later, when it was mentioned in this news release on the RhAG website. The headline figures were that 28% of parents wanted to send their children to WM schools no matter how far they had to travel, but that this figure would rise to 38% if a WM school were available within easy travel distance.
I wrote about it on the WalesOnline forum, crunching some numbers from documents on the Swansea website to conclude that, even using the worst case figures, Swansea would need to open some new WM schools:
The number of children in primary education in Swansea is set to reduce from the current 17,611 to 17,364 in 2011 ... an overall reduction of about 250 in three years. This means it should be possible to close a couple of English-medium schools (because the total demand for EM education will fall by 700 in the same three years and Swansea already has more than 3,200 surplus primary places) and convert them to WM with minimal inconvenience.
A few months later, in March 2009, Heini Gruffudd of RhAG published this paper on where new WM schools were most badly needed. This was no doubt in response to the fact that Swansea themselves had not come up with any public proposals for new WM schools ... even though the original survey had been done in 2007. It was good that Swansea conducted the survey in the first place, but it is a pointless exercise unless they are then prepared to act on its findings.
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In the meantime Swansea, along with most other local authorities in Wales, were faced with a huge number of surplus of spaces in their schools, meaning that some schools would need to be closed. They put forward proposals for closing three primaries—Cwm, Arfryn and Llanmorlais—in March 2009, but because of objections each of these was eventually referred to the Education minister in the Welsh Government for a final decision. On Friday, Leighton Andrews made the first of these decisions, as reported here:
Cwm School closure is confirmed
Welsh Assembly Government agrees to close Cwm Primary School
As might be expected, the people who objected to the proposal won't be happy with the final decision. But the fact is that Cwm Primary is only about 300m away from Cwm Glas Primary, which is itself just about large enough for the children from both schools. The decision was inevitable.
The picture above shows Cwm Primary, Cwm Glas Primary is below.
No school closure decision is easy, but what has happened does open up a solution to Swansea's problem of where to open at least one much-needed WM school. At present there is no WM school at all in East Swansea, at least not until you get as far north as YGG Lôn Las in Llansamlet. The RhAG report I linked to shows that a considerable number of children from Bon-y-maen have to travel 2km or more to get to YGG Lôn Las, and that some even travel 6km or so from St Thomas:
74 children from Bonymaen attend Lôn-las and 20 from St. Thomas. 9 children from St. Thomas attend Bryn-y-môr. 103 children from these areas suggests that there are sufficient numbers here to support a Welsh medium school, and quick growth could be anticipated.
So we have the bizarre situation where some parents are up in arms because their children will have to travel a maximum extra distance of just over 300m to get to Cwm Glas, while there are easily enough local children in Bon-y-maen who are currently having to travel many times further by bus or car to get to the closest WM school, but who would be able to walk if the Cwm buildings were to become a WM school. And for the community as a whole it's surely better for the buildings to remain in use, for they will be just as much available for community use outside school hours as they are now. To me, it's an obvious solution to a pressing problem.
Cwm Primary is closing simply because the numbers wanting EM education do not justify two EM schools with so many surplus places in such close proximity to each other ... but its closure opens up the opportunity for Swansea to provide more WM places in accordance with the wishes of the 28% of parents that want it for their children.
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At just about the same time as the closure of Cwm was confirmed, Swansea announced some other plans for the expansion of WM education:
More Swansea school closure plans announced
As part of the council's plans to shakeup education in the city Pentrepoeth Infants and Juniors, and Graig Infants schools will close and a new all-through primary school will open on the Pentrepoeth sites.
... If the plans are given the go-ahead, the council wants to open a Welsh Medium school on the vacated Graig school to meet what councillor Mike Day, cabinet member for education, called "the continually growing demand for Welsh Medium education in the area."
... Current figures from Swansea Council show that there is enough capacity in a new primary school incorporating facilities at Pentrepoeth infants and juniors to include children from Graig infants.
Graig Infants currently has 51 full time pupils, but capacity for 113
Pentrepoeth Infants has 98 pupils with capacity for 123
Pentrepoeth Juniors has 239 pupils and capacity for 276
As the figures show, the children currently at Craig infants can be accommodated at a combined Pentrepoeth Primary School. It is just over 600m away. The current Graig Infants is more than half empty and although, as the picture below shows, it isn't big Morriston has the most crying need for more WM provision. There are no WM schools in Morriston, but last year there were over a hundred children from Morriston travelling outside the area to get a WM education.
So this isn't really a closure. Converting Graig Infants to a small WM primary will comfortably fill what is currently a very under-used school with local children. To me, it again seems obvious. It's perhaps smaller than would be ideal ... but Swansea aren't coming up with any other ideas.
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In conclusion, Swansea conducted their initial survey in 2007, but no new WM schools have been opened in response to that survey (Llynderw was already under construction). Therefore plans for the next few WM schools are long overdue.
The decision to close Cwm opens the very real possibility of a new WM school being set up in September this year. That is an opportunity that must not be missed. Swansea's intention is for the Pentrepoeth/Graig reorganization to happen by 2011. That's possible but not definite, because the decision making process can take a long time if the matter has to be referred to the Assembly.
And there are other possibilities ... but they will depend on the outcome of decisions which have not yet been taken.
Update on new Welsh-medium schools
Having talked about education in Euskara (the Basque language) last week, I thought I should balance it by talking about some developments in Welsh-medium education.
One year delay in Vale of Glamorgan
I mentioned the Vale of Glamorgan's plans for expansion of WM education here in November. I praised VoG for taking the initiative in both surveying demand properly and coming up with good set of proposals in the form of starter schools. So I was rather disappointed to read their official consultation document, and find that they have had to put those plans back by a year. Instead of starting these new schools in September 2010, they are now proposing to launch them a year later.
The demand for Welsh-medium schools has increased substantially in the past three years to the extent that current demand now exceeds capacity; this is especially the case in Barry and the rural Vale.
To confirm future demand for Welsh medium education a survey was undertaken during July and August 2009 of parents with children under three years of age living in the Vale of Glamorgan. The survey revealed that, of those who responded, 26% are very likely to require a Welsh medium school place for their children. The survey highlights an unmet or latent demand for Welsh medium education. This is due to the existing distribution of Welsh medium primary schools across the Vale and the travel distances involved to access these schools, especially Ysgol Iolo Morganwg in Cowbridge.
Analysis of Welsh medium demand for September 2010 indicates a shortage of places throughout the Vale to accommodate parental demand for Welsh medium reception school places. The Council, therefore, is in danger of not meeting its statutory obligations.
Ysgol Iolo Morganwg serves the rural vale including Llantwit Major. There is insufficient capacity to accommodate the anticipated demand for Welsh-medium reception school places for September 2010 onwards from those resident within the school’s catchment area. Around 40% of children attending Iolo Morganwg (66 children) live in Llantwit Major and the surrounding area and receive free school transport to Ysgol Iolo Morganwg costing the authority in the region of £115,000 per annum.
Due to the length of the statutory processes required by the Welsh Assembly Government including the need to undertake proper and reasonable consultation when proposing the establishment of new schools, we will not be in a position to open new schools in September 2010 as originally planned. The opening dates for both new schools will be set at September 2011.
The reason they have given is that the statutory procedures they have to follow are so complicated that they cannot act as quickly as they had hoped to. I don't want to engage in any finger pointing because I don't know the full circumstances. My main reaction is simply disappointment.
It's almost certainly too late to do anything differently in terms of formal procedure now, but there are still immediate issues to be dealt with; namely that there will be parents who want WM education for their children this coming September. These can't simply be turned away. Therefore it looks to me as if VoG are going to have to find one or two more temporary classrooms for their existing WM schools.
But if VoG wanted to be more proactive they might well look at what Cardiff did in a very similar situation last year ...
Ysgol Gabalfa, Cardiff
Last September Cardiff opened a new WM starter class in Gabalfa Primary School. The existing EM school had a large number of surplus places so it made perfect sense to put it there, especially to relieve pressure on Ysgol Melin Gruffydd, about a 1km to the north, which is full to bursting and with no room to expand.
But as it happened, even though Gabalfa was quite happy with the arrangement, there were still the same drawn out formal procedures to go through (if there is even one objection, the matter has to be referred to the Assembly) and these simply could not be completed in time for September 2009. Therefore the Education Minister in the Welsh government gave permission for it to happen in September 2010 instead.
But this is where Cardiff got clever. They could have just let things rest for a year, but instead they went ahead and set up the starter class. However they did so not on the basis of it being a new starter stream, but as temporary accommodation for Ysgol Melin Gruffydd ... which just so happened not to be on the Melin Gruffydd site. So the question is, Why can't VoG do exactly the same? Some of the new starter schools they propose will be on land that is currently part of other schools so it might well be possible to go ahead anyway, but with the temporary accommodation "technically" being part of the existing school. I'm not saying it can be done, perhaps there are insurmountable difficulties, but I am suggesting that someone tests the water to see what's possible.
In the meanwhile, the good news for Gabalfa is that Cardiff Council have now decided [details here] that they want the starter class to become a permanent WM school. As we can see in from the picture above, Gabalfa Primary has separate Infants and Junior blocks, and the intention is to convert the Infants Block (top right) into a 1FE WM school, leaving the Junior block (top left) as a 1FE EM school. The building in the foreground is a special school. One of the good things about this plan is that the site has an abundance of open space, so in future there would be room to expand the WM provision as the demand for WM increases.
Ysgol Glan Morfa, Cardiff
At the same meeting, Cardiff also decided to increase the age range of Ysgol Glan Morfa in Splott from 4-11 to 3-11, i.e. to incorporate nursery provision [details here]. Cylch Meithrin Gwaun Sblot are providing a nursery in the school on a non-statutory basis, but if the Local Authority step in it will provide a more solid core service, enabling the Cylch Meithrin to use its resources to provide an extended wrap-around service.
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Of course these positives in Cardiff still leave a number of more long-standing problems in the city such as the Whitchurch reorganization and the future of Treganna/Lansdowne. The second of these is in Leighton Andrews' intray, and what he does with it should provide us with an idea of whether he'll prove to be any good at his new job.
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