School of The Month: Gwenfo Church In Wales Primary School

The current building was built in the early 1970s to replace the Victorian school building that now serves the village of Wenvoe as the community centre.

Over the last 10 years the school has expanded with new classrooms and a nursery was added in 2016.

The school's focus is to educate children with gospel values at the heart of all it does and the golden rule is to treat one another as all would like to be treated.

Head teacher, Nicola Stark said: "Currently we are working closely with Cardiff Metropolitan University as a Lead Partnership Alliance School training and supporting PGCE students with their studies.

"This year we are also thrilled to be linked with the undergraduate computer science students in Cardiff University who are providing our children blended learning opportunities linked to our whole school climate change topic.

"Currently Year 5 are learning the language of programming in preparation to build a website to store our findings.

"Undergraduate students are linking live to the classrooms and teaching the children remotely.

"We gain greatly as a school by working with other schools within our cluster, collaborating on projects and learning from each other.

"As a Lead Creative school we have enjoyed linking with local artists and schools on collaborative creative projects as well as trialling a blended learning project based on recording sounds in flip-grid at home and in school during the lockdown in the summer."

The school also works closely with St Mary's Church in Wenvoe and Vicar Jon who continues to join with them weekly for a virtual worship.

During the school year staff and pupils support the Food bank with regular food collections.

They raised £250 for children's mental health charities with a sparkly dress up day and looked forward to dressing as minions for Children in Need.

The school has its own Children's Bank linked to the Credit Union and lots of the children enjoy paying money in and learning great saving habits.

Ms Starke said: "Within school our focus is always first and foremost the wellbeing of our pupils.

"Our ethos is supported by training all staff in trauma informed approaches to support our children and their families.

"Our curriculum is holistic and linked to the four purposes of the Curriculum for Wales aiming to develop learners who have a lifelong love of learning, but who are also prepared for the world outside our gates.

"We have a strong PTFA who help organise events throughout the year and help raise money for special extras for the children such as Christmas parties and more recently a new timber trail for the whole school to enjoy.

"We have celebrated Harvest and contributed to Vicar Jon's online Harvest celebration.

"It is always so lovely to see our pupils contributing to parish events."

"Walking along our main corridor you will hear laughter and a buzz of chatter and learning," she added. "We really missed this during the time we spent away from school.

"We pride ourselves on having an open-door policy and being there emotionally for our pupils and families.

"We have had to adapt this recently to phone calls, online meetings and waving from the gate each morning and evening but we know families have taken great comfort even from these simple things.

"We have high expectations of each other and are proud to call ourselves a family.

"Our wishes for our school are to continue to pull together in these tricky times.

"We don't focus on what we can't do, instead we celebrate what we can do and try and find the joy in each and every day."

Factfile:

School motto: Growing and Learning together in a Christian Way

Chairman of governors: Norman Craggs, JP

Head teacher: Nicola Starke

Number of pupils: 233

Age of pupils: three to 11

Last inspection: (year and rating) 2017 Estyn Good Section 50 (Church School Inspection) Excellent