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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



Magor V.A.

Magor1.jpg
 Magor2.jpg
Contact person Mrs. E.C.Thorpe
E-mail email address
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".

 

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  Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Bryniago

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Contact person Mrs. Cathryn Davies
E-mail email address
Website  
Total number of teachers 10 
Total number of pupils 230 
Languages of instruction Welsh, English 
Teaching material According to this school the availability of teaching material in the Welsh language is bad or reasonable, but it is improving; the quality of the available material is considered "reasonable".
Remarks The main problem at the moment is a lack of sufficient funding and resources. Bilingual and single language schools do not seem to have equal oppurtunities.

 

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Ysgol Pantpastynog



Contact person Mrs Mair Beech Williams
E-mail 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.

Possible solutions:

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
E-mail robin@carregmynach.freeserve.co.uk
Website
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

 Ysgol Friars
Contact person Aaron Evans
E-mail pennaeth@friars.gwynedd.sch.uk
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

Eirias High School1
Eirias High School2
Contact person Eleri Edwards
E-mail general@eirias.conwy.sch.uk
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.

 

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