Bedwas Newsletter - 17.6.22
New Curriculum
The official start of the New Curriculum is approaching. So far, our focus has been the development of pedagogy in order to ensure that the teachers have the breadth and depth of skills to take advantage of the flexibility of the New Curriculum. This has gone hand in hand with pupil voice where themes, although set by teachers, have been adapted and modified to reflect areas of interest shown by the children. I hope that when you had the opportunity to look through your children’s books during the sharing sessions you were able to see the range of what is covered and the ways in which we have developed our cross-curricular approach with many different ‘subject’ areas coming together and driving forward different acitivities.
The annual report you will receive at the end of this term will cover the new ‘Areas of Learning and Experience’ as we have now been planning with these AoLEs in mind rather than specific subjects. There are many information pages on the Welsh Government website and we will be sharing various links with you when we send home our Curriculum Statement to you later this term.
There are certain ‘stand-alone’ elements of the New Curriuclum such as RSE (Relationships & Sexuality Education) and RVE (Religion, Values & Ethics) which are statutory and given to schools to deliver by the Welsh Government. The RSE policy, which becomes statutory in September, was shared with schools at the end of last week. We will be holding a parent drop-in sessions to communicate any changes in what we have to deliver and give you the chance to ask any questions you might have starting with the RSE element before the end of this term.
The first area of the New Curriculum we would like to engage with parents and carers on is the aspect of the ‘curriculum in context’. Although our two schools are developing their curriculum offer together there is an important aspect of the curriculum that has its focus on ensuring that each school’s curriculum reflects in some ways the context of each individual school. We will be reaching out to you to gather ideas linked with each school’s local area, their communities and history so that they can be incorporated into our curriculum offers.
We will publish our ‘Curriculum Summary’ on the Federation’s website before the end of term once it has been approved by the Governing Body. Every state school in Wales is required to publish this by 31/8/22.
Ffiliffest
Congratulations to the folk dancers from Yellow Class who did a brilliant job representing the school at Ffiliffest on Saturday. They performed their six dances like professionals. I want to thank them (and their parents!) for giving up their Saturday morning to take part in this festival
Sports Days
We have arranged dates for this year having been unable to do so for the last two years. As restrictions ease, we should be able to run the event more as we used to in the ‘old days’. This means that there will be a morning of activities on the school site involving everyone, with a separate competitive afternoon athletics event.
We still have to manage visitors to site in line with the most recent Covid guidance for schools. This means that the morning events would be impossible for us to run if we followed the old plans of all classes outside participating at the same time with an open-door policy for parents; our site is not big enough to accommodate that. Therefore, to make sure that we are able to safely accommodate those of you who want to come and watch, pairs of classes will have their inclusive sports morning on different dates in the same week allowing us to accommodate on site the parents who want to watch.
As the ‘competitive’ afternoon event is being hosted on the field of the Bedwas High School site, all the parents of the children involved should be able to attend. Dates are below.
A very big thank you to the High School who are hosting us for our afternoon events and sharing equipment for us to use in the morning events. Further details covering start and end times, will be shared by class teachers.
Covid
Although things are thankfully much better at the moment there are still cases around in the community. Please stay vigilant and test if you are unsure. The most up to date guidance is available on the Welsh Government website.
Parent Governor Vacancy
The parent governor vacancy is for one of the Rhydri parent representatives on our Governing Body. There are two parent representatives per school. The results of the process will be shared with both schools. If there is just one nomination then the process will be complete at the end of the two-week nomination window. If there is more than one nomination, there will be a two-week window after the nomination closing date for a ballot to take place.