Five Caerphilly County Borough Schools are to get a share of £20 million to help improve standards.
Bedwas High School, Blackwood Comprehensive School, Heolddu Comprehensive School, St Cenydd School and St Martin’s School have been named as part of the Welsh Government’s Schools Challenge Cymru programme.
They are among 40 schools across Wales to get extra funding, Education and Skills Minister Huw Lewis has announced.
Schools have been chosen using a range of performance data and information that highlights the challenges they face in terms of their circumstances and stage of development.
They have been also been chosen as it is believed they have the potential to deliver swift and positive improvements for learners.
Working with their Schools Challenge Cymru advisor, each school will be given the opportunity to access proven expertise, to deliver a package of support that is individually tailored to meet each school’s needs and the needs of their learners. This will be backed by around £20 million of Welsh Government funding.
The programme will also provide targeted support to participant schools’ cluster primaries in order to address challenges at the earliest opportunity and improve transition between these key stages of education.
Mr Lewis said: “I’ve made no secret of my desire for a relentless focus on improving the quality of teaching and learning here in Wales. These schools have been chosen as we believe they have the potential to make swift and lasting improvements which will benefit learners in the short term and long into the future.
“What we’re doing here in Wales is really special. We’ve learned from the most successful parts of the London and Manchester Challenges and delivered something specifically tailored for our young people in Wales.”
He added: “We must drive up educational standards in Wales for all our learners, raising levels of literacy and numeracy and, in so doing, breaking the link between educational attainment and poverty. Today’s announcement is a major step forward in making that happen.”
Throwing money at the problem will, unfortunately, not solve
it. The pressing need is for a restoration of discipline. I went to two of
these schools, St. Martin’s when it was Caerffili Boys Technical Grammar and to
St. Cenydd after the change to comprehensive.
The facilities we enjoyed as pupils were not nearly as good
as now. What was different was good behaviour, both in the classroom and outside.There is no way that a pupil at the grammar could nonchalantly walk out of theschool gates and into the town centre when I was there. You needed a good reason and permission from the head, the formidable Mr. Winston Osbourne.
If any doubt the decline in discipline and good order just
ask any of the teachers who taught in either school in the 1970’s. I am sure
they will confirm what I say.
With regard to literacy and numeracy of the ‘learners’, as Mr. Lewis calls the pupils, all the children I was in class with were both literate and numerate. They had been taught the basics at primary level. Another problem that needs to be tackled.