Rhydri- Newsletter 16.6.22

Structure for 2022/2023 Academic Year

Under the current funding model things are challenging for all schools with small schools especially affected. Combined with the falling numbers of children starting school across the area this means that there is the need to act quickly and flexibly in order to ensure that we can continue to offer Rhydri’s unique and valuable learning experience. Therefore next year we will be running three full-time classes rather than the current three and a half classes.

Key Stage 2 (Gold and Silver) will remain unchanged but our Foundation Phase will run with the model we currently use in the afternoons only from September we will be implementing it for the whole day. This means that the Foundation Phase support staff team of Mrs Eveleigh, Mrs Arnold and Mrs Cullen will all be in class together alongside the teacher to support the children. Mrs Phillips and Mrs Coombes who currently primarily support KS2 will also be allocated to provide specific intervention and support groups for Foundation Phase as well as their work supporting KS2.

Mrs Gettings will remain in her current part-time post (with a change of working days) with Mrs Hayhoe also now working part-time. Mrs Gettings will be the class teacher for the first half of the week whilst Mrs Hayhoe will work the remainder. The Foundation Phase will operate as a ‘hub’ all day as they currently do for the afternoons. As the children move through the school this model might need to change as larger or smaller year groups move into different phases.

The projected number of children in our Foundation Phase class next year is 25 in the morning and 20 for the afternoon sessions. With the re-allocation of existing support staff as detailed above the staff/pupil ratio is maintained. The numbers on roll could have dictated this change last year but we chose to make full use of the additional funding and changed demands on school budgets caused by Covid to maintain our previous model. This was done in order to make the return to school after Covid as normal as possible for our youngest learners; for this current school year that gave us a morning Bronze Class of 16, a morning Rainbow Class of 11 and an afternoon Foundation Phase group of 22.

Sports Day

Sports Day will take place on Tuesday 21st June. We would ask that parents arrive by 1pm at Rudry Parish Hall fields. Please can all children wear a school green t-shirt, shorts and trainers. If the weather is hot and sunny, please provide children with a sun hat/cap and sunscreen.

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 lots of 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 which 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.

After School Provision

There will be a text sent out this afternoon with a link to an ‘Expression of Interest’ form regarding after school provison from Playworks. Please let the school office know if you do not receive this text but would like to complete this form.

Friends of Rhydri Primary

Raffle tickets have gone on sale to be drawn at Sports Day on 21st June. We have received some fantastic donations of prizes so far and have asked if pupils can bring in a small donation to add to the prizes, to be made into bundles. We are very grateful for all offers of help and donations.

During Sports Day we will be serving refreshments, selling further raffle tickets and second hand uniform will be on sale.