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.