Welsh in the United Kingdom
| pre-primary education | primary education | secondary education |
| Magor V.A. | Magor V.A. | |
| Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Bryniago |
Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Bryniago | |
| Ysgol Pantpastynog | Ysgol Pantpastynog | |
| Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern | ||
| Ysgol Friars | ||
| Eirias High School |
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Magor V.A.
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| Contact person | Mrs. E.C.Thorpe |
| Website | www.magorprimary.ik.org |
| Total number of teachers | 16 |
| Total number of pupils | 480 |
| Languages of instruction | English, Welsh |
| Teaching material | The availability and the quality of teaching material in the Welsh language is good.. |
| Remarks | When it comes to minority language teaching, it is hard to maintain interest and enthusiasm amongst teachers. Nevertheless, it is one of the goals of the school that pupils "can enjoy and appreciate fun in learning their national language" and will "respect the culture of the country in doing so". |
| Ysgol Pantpastynog |
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| Contact person | Mrs Mair Beech Williams |
| pant.pastynog@denbighshire.gov.uk | |
| Website | |
| Total number of teachers | 2 full-time & 2 part-time teachers & 3 part-time nursery staff |
| Total number of pupils | 48 |
| Languages of instruction | Welsh with English introduced as a subject in Year 3 when pupils are 7 - 8 years old |
| Teaching material | According to this school the availability and quality of teaching material in the Welsh language is reasonable. |
| Remarks |
The main problem at the moment is that Welsh medium teaching materials/resources are not as comprehensive as those available in English which means we as teachers have to prepare and adapt more materials ourselves. Enlgish language materials are generally of a better standard than those available in Welsh. Welsh web-sites are often not as children-friendly as English medium ones. The all encompasing presence of English in children's lives has a detrimental effect on their knowledge and use of Welsh with children having a tendency to use a lot of English vocabulary and sentence structure. 1) Provide good models of Welsh language use for the children and invite Welsh celebrities with a good standard of Welsh to contribute to school activities. 2) Although the standard and availability of Welsh language resources has improved significantly during the past 10 years there is still a need for additional funding for the production of Welsh medium resources.
The school is situated in a Welsh-speaking rural community in north-east Wales. The majority of pupils come from Welsh speaking homes. However the school also has an international feel with a number of pupils speaking languages other than Welsh and English at home namely; German, French, Tagalog, Spanish, Italian and Turkish. Non-Welsh speaking children who attend the school make rapid progress in their learning of Welsh and so the school plays an important role in assimilating newcomers to the community and sustaining the Welsh language. |
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Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern
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| Contact person | Robin Evans |
| robin@carregmynach.freeserve.co.uk |
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| Total number of teachers | 56 |
| Total number of pupils | 800 |
| Languages of instruction | Welsh, English, French |
| Teaching material | The availability and the quality of teaching material in the Welsh language is good.. |
| Remarks | The main problem is ensuring that pupils are confident in the language and everyday use of the language by students in the community; the school serves an area with many socio-economic problems and a lack of resources. Our solution is ensuring whole school policies which promote bilingualsim, ensure high academic standards and a curriculum which extra curricular activities which prepare students for life in their community. The school actively promotes the European dimension and an awareness of multilingualism. |
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Ysgol Friars
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| Contact person | Aaron Evans |
| pennaeth@friars.gwynedd.sch.uk |
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| Website | http://www.friars.gwynedd.sch.uk |
| Total number of teachers | 80 |
| Total number of pupils | 1200 |
| Languages taught as subject | English, Welsh, French, German |
| Languages of instruction | English mostly, some Welsh |
| Languages used outside formal lessons | |
| Skills trained in the minority language | Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing, mediation (= all sorts of communication in which a language user acts as an intermediate, e.g. translation, paraphrase, summary) |
| Availability of the teaching material | Reasonable |
| Quality of the teaching material | Reasonable |
| Developers of the teaching material | Teachers in the school or colleagues; Translations or adaptations from other languages; Publishing houses. |
| Remarks | The proximity of nearby minority language secondary school means many proficient speakers choose this school rather than ours. We encourage a whole-school approach to following minority language courses. All pupils taught 'minority' language to aged 16 to various degrees e.g. as a first/second language etc. Pupils also streamed into classes where most pupils have come from a 'minority' language primary school. |
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Eirias High School
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| Contact person | Eleri Edwards |
| general@eirias.conwy.sch.uk |
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| Website | http://www.eirias.co.uk/mvle/ |
| Total number of teachers | 90 |
| Total number of pupils | 1500 |
| Languages taught as subject | Welsh, German, French (2,5 hr a week) |
| Languages of instruction | English |
| Languages used outside formal lessons | English |
| Skills trained in the minority language | Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing |
| Availability of the teaching material | Good; annual visit from the Books' Council shows us new materials available. Ngfl-cymru (National Grid for Learning) and lots of other excellent resources on-line for free! |
| Quality of the teaching material | Good; a new series of text books have been introduced in the last few years which are attractive to pupils and build language skills in Welsh. There are also new reading books for Welsh as a Second Language which are more appealing and contemporary than previous materials. In addition there are loads more interactive materials available on-line than ever before. |
| Developers of the teaching material | Teachers in the school or colleagues; Publishing houses. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh; http://www.ngfl-cymru.org; http://sut.languageskills.co.uk/index.html |
| Remarks | Interesting project we do: -sent letters to Welsh learners in Patagonia; -French e-mail club; -letters and work sent to and printed in Welsh magazine Iaw!; -annual school Eisteddfod Our main problem is getting children to use Welsh outside the classroom and to continue with Welsh past compulsory education. More pupils choose French and German post 16 even though more and more jobs in Wales ask for Welsh language skills! We'd like pupils to compare Welsh with other minority languages so they see that it's normal to have more than one language and so they value their heritage and culture more. |