This week, as we come to the end of another busy half term, there has been lots to celebrate. (Let’s do the positive bit first before the moan!) A small sample of this week’s learning can be seen in the pictures above. Whether it is ‘Mrs Aspinall’s Greek Cooking Marathon’ with Years 5 and 6 or Year 3’s excellent ICT skills, there’s certainly been 100% effort. Or how about our younger classes celebrating the Pentecost message or Year 2 spreading joy and happiness on their walk to the beach or help for the Food Bank? It’s all been very positive. Even our after school clubs have been out and about with Storytelling Club’s trip to Colwyn Bay Library.
So we keep moving forward with curriculum in its widest sense but it must be said that things are very stretched. (Here comes the moan!) This week, we received a reminder that finances will not improve in the next couple of years so we must continue to make savings. As you know, we have not had to make redundancies, so far, but the cuts have already impacted in so many ways on provision for our children. For example, when there was more money if staff were not in school due to illness, trips or training, we could pay for cover - now we have to juggle and manage. This can make school participation in lots of positive events very difficult. A group of Year 5 pupils had hoped to attend a Tag Rugby event at Ysgol Eirias today. We had shuffled staffing to try and make this possible - just. But it had to be cancelled as other local schools were also struggling to release staff. As a direct result of the cuts, valuable learning experiences like these are happening less often (and not because of a lack of desire or effort from schools). After half term, we plan to go to the Diocesan Athletics - always a highlight of the school year. However, it has been moved from Colwyn Bay to Rhyl due to problems with the track at Eirias and will therefore involve significant transport costs, as well as the staffing pressures described above. Despite these difficulties, we will still try to give our young athletes this opportunity. I am sorry if this comes across as negative but I think it is important to draw attention to the fact that staff in all schools are striving to provide the experiences every child deserves in the context of a very, very difficult financial climate.
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