Village school strikes gold!

Pupils and staff at Carreghofa Primary School, Llanymynech, are celebrating after achieving the prestigious Cymraeg Campus Gold Award, becoming only the third school in Powys to do so.

The Cymraeg Campus Language Charter has been created by Welsh in Education officers and is the first charter specifically created to develop Welsh in English medium schools.

The charter consists of three awards - bronze, silver and gold. Each award comprises of 10 targets which become more challenging as you progress from efydd (bronze) - to arian (silver) - to aur (gold). 

The school’s Welsh committee, ‘Y Criw Cymraeg’, with the support of Welsh Co-ordinator Mrs Rachel Hill, have been working hard to achieve the 10 gold targets which include a number of targets that not only look to improve Welsh within the school, but also within the local community.

In order to collaborate with the local community, pupils of all ages across the school came up with a number of ideas including:

• Holding a cake sale to raise money to buy recordable teddy bears. The Criw Cymraeg then planned and recorded familiar phrases and questions in Welsh for each class mascot and delivered some to local care homes.
• ​Organising with Year 5 and 6 pupils, a digital ‘Guide to Llanymynech’ which can be accessed via QR codes around the village, in Welsh and English
• Delivering a book to the local café, containing stories about the Welsh Not which Year 3 to 6 pupils had written
• Creating a Welsh language display board in the local village hall
• Organising Welsh games for nursery pupils that attend Owlets, Border Preschool and Julie’s Family Daycare.

The Criw Cymraeg have also worked hard to create initiatives and displays in school to promote the use of Welsh and have helped staff to develop their Welsh language skills.

The school has also taken part in local Urdd events such as CogUrdd & PobUrdd (cooking), arts & crafts, dancing, sports and Eisteddfodau. They also held their own annual Welsh Eisteddfod which all pupils took part in.

A big part of promoting Welsh in school is meeting Welsh visitors to the school and taking part in Welsh activities and workshops. During the past few months, the school have welcomed many visitors, including Welsh triathlete Deri McCluskey, Welsh footballer Rebecca Pritchard, Welsh singer Mr Phormula and Welsh actor Llion Williams.

The school have also won a Welsh Heritage Award, recognising their efforts to promote Welsh language and culture in the area. They have been invited to an awards evening in July.

A group of year 5 and 6 pupils also won the local ‘Cwis Dim Clem’ competition, which was organised by Menter Maldwyn across Montgomeryshire, with Carreghofa finishing in first!

Welsh co-ordinator, Mrs Hill was proud of the children and said: “It has been hugely rewarding to see our children become so passionate about the Welsh language and culture. Receiving the gold award is like the icing on the cake.”

Headteacher, Mrs Claire Pritchard, added:“I am proud of all the children’s efforts to achieve this award. Mrs Hill alongside her Criw have ensured all of our children enjoy learning Welsh and are proud to be part of a school in Wales.”

Now that they have achieved the gold award, the school will work on sustaining Welsh language growth through more exciting initiatives in the future.

Pictures:

Top: Criw Cymraeg celebrating the Gold award

Middle: Cwis Dim Clem Winners

Bottom: Pupils delivering teddy bears to the Vyrnwy Nursing Home in Llansantffraid