LEARNING and Growing Together, Being Our Best Forever is Cadoxton Primary school’s motto and exemplifies what the school is all about, according to head teacher Janet Hayward.

The Victorian building houses a pioneering school aiming to provide an "engaging, innovative 21st century curriculum".

The children lead the way with their interests and the school provides the skills and experiences to become confident lifelong learners.

Mrs Hayward said: “We believe in giving everyone, children, parents and staff the best opportunities and experiences to learn and grow.

"Our school is a special place for children to come and learn. Every child is important.

"We want them to receive an excellent education, but also to develop their personal and social skills, making them feel happy, safe and able to achieve anything.”

The school is a 'Pioneer School' which works with partners in its catchment area and also with schools across the Barry cluster.

The school organises tournaments for different sports throughout the year for primary schools in Barry and the Vale, often in its sports hall.

Events include a Tag Rugby tournament, in Maslin Park, Barry where girls and boys from six schools enjoy playing competitive games and developing their skills.

Mrs Hayward said: “We particularly work closely with Romilly, Rhws and Ysgol y Ddraig schools in a variety of ways: providing training opportunities for our own teachers as well as teachers across south Wales.

"We share resources like Lego and jointly run a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) week during the spring term. We are a training centre for Apple and work with Big Learning Company to develop our children’s digital skills.

“We are also proud to work closely with Victoria Park, Dow Corning and Tesco.

“Two of our most proud areas of work in Cadoxton are our work with families and our work to develop our children’s digital skills.

“Our family groups are run by Rowena Hughes, who runs a number of projects through the week.”

Projects include a story cafe for parents and children to enjoy a story together; and a snack cafe where parents and children go shopping to Tesco to create healthy snacks together.

Projects help children with literacy and numeracy and there are also beauty, cake decorating and more.

Mrs Hayward added: “Parents themselves lead the Cadog’s Corner committee who look after our Family Cafe and also run a weekly fruit and veg co-op from there.

“Mrs Hughes also helps to run FAST, Families and Schools Together, a Save the Children eight week afterschool club project.

"We are just beginning this project for our fourth time and will finish again with a fantastic graduation ceremony party.

"The school has gained Investors in Families accreditation for the second time and has recently been awarded Achievement for All accreditation recognizing the work we do with families.

“We are one of 12 Digital Pioneer schools across Wales, developing the new Digital Competency Framework.”

Mrs Hayward leads this at Cadoxton and at an all Wales level as chairwoman of the National Digital Learning Council.

She received an OBE for services to education in 2014.

She said: “We believe that children need to be able to develop the best digital skills to engage and enthuse their learning and also to prepare them for further learning and the world of work.

“The Foundation phase is all about hands-on learning through practical play-based activities both inside and out but all of our children enjoy gardening and being outdoors.

“We are really pleased with our newly developed garden and pond area.

"Being physical is important and children have recently enjoyed running a mile before school to get ready for learning.

"We also ensure we give all junior children an opportunity to learn to swim over a three week period in Year 3 as well as opportunities to swim again through their junior years.

“Friday afternoon is particularly exciting at Cadoxton as children can choose from a menu of 'curriculum enrichment'.

"Mixed ages get together in a variety of groups: sports activities, singing and drama, cooking, needlework, digital and gardening to name a few.

"Our Erasmus Club is a project linking us with a school in Spain and a school in Italy.

"All children from Year 3 to Year 6 learn Spanish and this has enabled the school to secure funding for a British Council Erasmus Project.

"All Year 6 children have taken part in project activities and 10 children were lucky enough to travel to work in a Spanish school for five days.

"The main focus was to improve their learning in IT, literacy and Spanish working with Spanish and Italian children. Children from all three countries shared other experiences from learning to kayak and wind surf to eating and playing together.”

“The school has expanded children’s horizons with residential trips to Llangrannog, Paris and Amsterdam and afterschool clubs cater for film, dance and science as well as sports."

Mrs Hayward summed up: "The outside of Cadoxton primary school is unmistakably Victorian looking.

"Every visitor who comes inside though says 'wow'. The inside environment is light and airy and enables fantastic 21st century learning.

"We have the best technology and flexible learning spaces to allow children to be independent in their approach.

"Visitors always comment on how engaged and independent the children are and this is reflected in the excellent results our children achieve.

"We are very proud of our children, staff and parents and everything we strive to do together every day.”

School motto: Learning and Growing Together, Being Our Best Forever

Chairman of governors: Mark John

Head teacher: Janet Hayward OBE

Number of pupils: 502

Age of pupils: Three to 11 years

Last inspection: (year and rating) 2011 Good and Good