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Ysgol Trelawnyd VA School Our Journey towards the New Curriculum

Ysgol Trelawnyd is a small church school of roughly 90 pupils, split across four mixed-aged classes. Trelawnyd is part of a rural community, situated on the edge of Flintshire. As a faith school, our pupils can often come from a wider catchment area than most schools, dedicating more of our curriculum time to religious education than other non-faith schools.

We began our journey to develop the curriculum by looking in detail at the four purposes. The children thought about what we do at Ysgol Trelawnyd VA School and linked these to the Four Purposes, which are printed on the front cover of every subject book in our school.

Through this process, we were able to see how our offer is unique and what the children love about our school; using this to create permanent signage, inside and outside of our school.

The school's indoor and outdoor signage, created during the early stages of our curriculum planning.
The Four Purposes and unique features of our school are identified at the main entrance of our school.

As a faith school, the churches of the Bryn a Môr Mission Area (as well as our Christian ethos and values) have always formed a large part of what we do, and the experience our children have at our school.

In designing our new curriculum, we knew that our core Christian values must remain at the centre of everything we do; shaping the children's lives within our school.

We also wanted to make our local features more explicit within our curriculum offer. The village of Trelawnyd is home to the mysterious Gop Hill; supposed resting place of Queen Boudicca and the site of many fascinating archaeological digs.

During a trial of our new curriculum immersion weeks, our whole school looked at 'Legends of the Gop' as part of our unique offer to pupils who attend Trelawnyd; developing pupils' knowledge of our locality.

Below is a video example of one of our Immersion Weeks from March 2022.

Participation in local events is key to our approach. Here we are taking part in the Llanasa Bee Festival - 14th May 2022.

Effective collaborators within our Rural Schools Cluster

Recently, Foundation Phase pupils from each rural school created videos based on the statement ‘I can be kind to others’ and shared with each other. The learners particularly enjoyed receiving feedback from learners in other schools.

Rural school clusters have had a very positive impact on our schools, developing our curriculum offer (eg. Minecraft) as well as offering nice experiences for children (eg. digi-Squad training events for cluster schools)

Lockdown Learning

Like all schools, Ysgol Trelawnyd VA School had to respond quickly to the COVID-19 lockdown from March 2020. This radically altered the way our teachers worked. However, the experience did help to upskill our staff and pupils in ways that we wanted to continue when shaping our curriculum.

We found that Seesaw is a highly effective tool for teaching and learning. At KS2, we now have a 1:1 device ratio with our pupils; utilising ipads and Seesaw from Early Years, moving on to Chromebooks, Seesaw and Google Classroom in Year 5/6.

Having never offered a Modern Foreign Language at our school, pupils selected Spanish as a new subject for our curriculum; which we began teaching from September 2019.

We hope to share a passion and love of the Welsh language at our school, embedding good practice by following the Cymraeg Campus Charter.

We achieved the Cymraeg Campus Bronze Award in July 2019 and hope to complete our Silver Award this year.

This has driven lots of our curriculum planning as we move towards the new curriculum from September 2022.

Meet the Ysgol Trelawnyd VA School Learning Powers.
Meet the Ysgol Trelawnyd VA School Learning Powers.
Meet the Ysgol Trelawnyd VA School Learning Powers.

Our School ethos and behaviour management systems are underpinned by the newly developed 'Learning Powers' that have been designed and created by our children. All pupils at our school learn about: Harry Have a Go, Cedric Concentrate, Britney Be Cooperative, Dave Don’t Give Up, Eugene Use Your Imagination, Katie Keep Improving and Beatrix Be Curious. Examples of pupils using these learning powers are identified in each lesson.

Ensuring Curriculum Coverage

At Ysgol Trelawnyd, we are using a planning tool in order to be ready for the official start of the new curriculum in September 2022. This will help us to map out how progression steps will be covered over a two year cycle within each class.

Gaps in our curriculum coverage provide us with further opportunities to incorporate pupil voice and creativity in classes.

School Immersion weeks will continue to form a huge part of our curriculum offer, with week long events offered for: Welsh language and culture, Fairtrade and Eco Schools, Wellbeing, Science and Technology, as well as others.

The next steps...

At Ysgol Trelawnyd VA School, we know that the refinement of our curriculum will take many months and years. Our reflective practictioners and rigorous monitoring systems will be key to ensuring that our curriculum offer is as effective as possible in the years to come.

Credits:

Created with images by Efraimstochter - "spain banner flag" • Unknown - "HD wallpaper: tree, Wales, Snowdonia, Llanberis ..." • Unknown - "Free illustration: Wales, Map, Flag, Coat Of Arms - Free ..."