Blog from Barry Comprehensive School – Issue 25

Engineers visit the Senedd

Barry Comprehensive Sixth form students and staff recently attended a lecture and exhibition by Cardiff School of Engineering at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay.

The latest in modern and emerging technologies was on display and there were very informative presentations from the representatives. The students found the exhibition to be very interesting and touched on some of the areas they have been studying this year as part of their BTEC Level 3 Engineering course.

Talking Italian at Barry Comprehensive School

On the 24th of May, an Italian student from Cardiff University (Tatiana Bartalucci) came to our school to carry out a workshop with Year 9 pupils. 

The workshop consisted of multiple interactive activities covering various topics from Sport to Food. We also played games to help us revise the tenses. Our Italian assistant (Bianca) also helped us with the words that we may not have learnt before, improving our vocabulary. We thoroughly enjoyed working alongside Tatiana, and we hope that she shall return here again.

Report by Michael Bonney Year 9

 

YOUNG PEOPLE RECOGNISED FOR ANTI-BULLYING WORK

Welsh charity BulliesOut has rewarded young people from all over the UK for their work to help stop bullying.  An awards ceremony, which took place at Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday, June 8, was organised by BulliesOut and accredited by Asdan – the educational charity and awarding body.

BulliesOut currently runs three programmes with students and young people to develop the skills to take a stand against bullying and offer support and guidance to those who have been affected by bullying.

The Asdan Peer Mentoring Short Course accredits up to 60 hours of peer-mentoring activity, providing recognition for those who are learning, developing, practising and passing on their skills for mentoring and  providing ‘buddying’ to younger pupils.  Mentors provide valuable support and are able to help with low-level issues and concerns. Mentors are trained to listen, provide support, be non-judgemental and reflective and refer on any difficult concerns. 

Sian Phillips, school co-ordinator at Barry Comprehensive, said the Programme has had a positive effect on the school.

 

“We have had a long association with BulliesOut and have found their work to be hugely beneficial to Barry Comprehensive,” she said.

 

“Students are really keen to get involved; they love the prominence of the accreditation and this has made other pupils in the school realise how ‘valid’ and official the mentors are. 

 

“The Anti-Bullying policy now has a stronger student voice since recruiting mentors, and the mentors have all grown in self confidence as well as being able to give back to the local community. Some of our mentors are now sixth formers but who started their training with BulliesOut in year 7, so it’s really nice to see how they’ve grown over the years and offer their commitment to the programme. “

 

Liam Kenny, Kallum Kinman and Ryan Woolaston were present to receive their Asdan Certificate at a glittering event that saw young people from England and Wales celebrated for the caring work that they do.  Michael Bonney, Joshua Evans,  Jordan  Jones, Taylor Hinchly and Nathan Currie also completed the Award. 

Barry Island Bugle – June 14th

• What another wow-derful and busy week in BIPS. On Tuesday we held parent talks for the new Read Write Inc Phonics scheme that we have introduced this week in the Foundation Phase, we would like to say a massive diolch to everyone who attend one of the talks and we hope that you found it very informative; further meetings for parents will take place in the Autumn Term.  If you would like more information about the new scheme please see your child’s class teacher. We have been pleased with the scheme this week and the children are thoroughly enjoying learning in this new way- FAN-TAST-IC!!

• Dosbarth Bedwen and Derw visited Crucial Crew this week. Everyone involved enjoyed the event and it is a great opportunity for our children to work on safety related and practical orientated activities with the emergency services.  It continues to be both an enjoyable and informative event for us.

• Wednesday was a very exciting day- Dosbarth Celyn headed off to Brean Sands for a thrilling trip to the Pleasure Park courtesy of the Rotary Club. A fantastic day was had by all and we would like to take this opportunity to thank the Rotary Club for their very generous donation. Mr Smith, Mr Williams and Mrs Evans were so proud of the children, once again they were outstanding- Da iawn pawb!

• The remainder of the school participated in a march for road safety on Wednesday as part of the charity Brake’s Giant Walking Bus. The event aims to celebrate the benefits of walking and calls on drivers to ‘GO 20’ – slow down to 20 or below around homes, schools and shops – to protect children on foot and enable more to walk. It also calls for more safe walking and cycling measures such as widespread 20 limits and safe pavements, paths and crossings. We were proud to be part of this charity event and hope we have raised awareness of the charities aims in our local area.

• Next Wednesday the children from Year 2 to 6 will be taking part in a Tennis festival at Barry Tennis Club. Please ensure that all children have suitable footwear a PE kit and a drink. We ask that you are prepared for rain or shine as this will take place whatever the weather!

• This week we have set a whole school home learning challenge linked to our Comenius project. The focus of our project is “European Gardens” and we are linked with a school in the following countries: England, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Turkey, Slovakia, Germany and Hungary. Bring to school a photograph of yourself in your own or a family/friends garden.  Be as creative as you like.  The photographs will be published into a book about gardens as part of our Comenius project and shared with our partner schools.

• On Wednesday 19^th June Play Aloud will be running free sessions for our families in our school garden from 3:15-4:15 pm.  Play Aloud sessions are designed for families to engage with their children to help them develop a wide range of skills through play.

REMINDERS!

–        There is a meeting for Year 5  and 6 parents whose children are attending the Amsterdam trip on Monday at 2.30pm. Please meet Miss Cadman and Miss Parslow in the Café for a prompt 2.30pm start.

–        IMPORTANT – there are still several children playing on the equipment in the playground both before and after school each day. For their own safety, we would very much appreciate everyone’s support in helping us to .

–        We are still receiving late dinner money payments and this is getting increasingly difficult to manage. Please ensure all dinner money payments are in on a Monday for the forthcoming week – please contact Mrs Pearce diolch.

 

Blog from Barry Comprehensive School – Issue 24

Latch dinner at Barry Comprehensive School

The Catering department and year 10 students hosted a very special evening at Barry Comprehensive School on Thursday 23rd May. The evening was hosted to support LATCH, a charity that the school has supported for some time.

 

Year 10 students cooked a wide range of dishes, showcasing much of their work over the last year. There was a range of delicious canapés, including miniature Glamorgan sausages with plum chutney, bacon on lava bread bites and succulent meatballs in a homemade sauce. This was followed by a choice of bruschetta or leek and potato soup served with bread made by the students. Both choices were absolutely delicious.

Diners, including governors, teachers and parents, could then choose lasagne or Valencian paella; again, both were excellent and full of flavour, served very hot and in hearty portion sizes. Those with any room to spare were offered rhubarb and apple crumble with homemade custard or tiramisu.

 

Mr Lyn Howell, a key patron of Latch, made a short presentation on the history of LATCH, really emphasising the crucial work of this charity. He was presented with a cheque for £150, the money raised by our students through this evening’s hard work.

 

Mrs Lancaster and Mr Pereira had worked very hard in organising this excellent evening and the catering department’s ‘restaurant’ was a real credit to their hard work and continued commitment. The year 10 students were first rate in everything they did, from the quality of the food to the superb presentation and the friendly service.

 

Mr McNamara, Headteacher, commented, ‘There is nothing better than having a very tasty meal in the company of friends.  The quality of food, presentation and service was excellent.  The school has supported LATCH for years and is determined to sustain its commitment to the charity.

Finance Education Week at BIPS

What a fantastic Financial Education week celebrated here at Barry island Primary. The whole school engaged in different activities learning about the value of money. Individual classes from Reception to year 6 took part in a range of activities with the supportive material and resources provided by Barclays. We took the opportunity to inspire the children at Barry Island Primary sharing Barclay’s vision in which all children and young people have the skills, knowledge and confidence to manage their money well, now and in the future.

 

Reception children explored how much it costs to travel from place to place. Year 1 children asked the important question “Why do we need money?” Children in Year 2 made moneyboxes, developed a budget sheet for planning a party and explored how money makes us feel. Year 3 children had many debates about the importance of money and whether we should spend or save. Year 4 children reflected upon the impact that saving can have on their money, creating graphs demonstrating money growth. Year 5 children reviewed the impact of shopping and bills and finally children in Year 6 explored key words associated with finances such as interest, tax, debit and credit cards.

 

We shared and celebrated our learning in a whole school assembly at the end of the week, children showed a real enthusiasm for the topic concluding that money makes the world go round but doesn’t grow on trees!

Super Slovakia Sojourn – June 2013

On Sunday 2nd June, we set off from @atbarryisland to Bratislava airport, heading off on our Slovakian adventure – AHOJ!

Our current COMENIUS project has involved a number of Year 6 children visiting Germany, Hungary & Slovakia. Future visits include England, Latvia, & France to name but a few. Our project is focussed upon sharing our understanding of gardens across Europe both in schools and at home. Classes across the schools have exchanged project work on plants, garden designs and their importance for both learning and well being. We have posted and received postcards from each of the countries and are currently working towards a ‘Garden Photo Exhibition’ and competition. Our latest travellers will feed back their findings via our blog, in a school assembly and on twitter over the next few days. Our four travellers were great fun, enthusiastic learners and they took delight in making new friends from other countries – to everyone involved in this trip I would like to say a great big – ďakujem!

Mr Golding

We received a very warm welcome from the children and teachers in the school.  During our time in Slovakia we made new friends from our partner schools, took part in lessons, tried new foods and learned some of the language.  CMac took to using the language at every opportunity and his home made phrase/travel book made on his iPad came in very handy – Da iawn CMac!

The project is based around the secrets of European Gardens so the visit would not have been complete without a trip to the Botanical Gardens.

We explored the local town (Skalica – pronounced SKA-LITZ -A) together and the capital city, Bratislava too.  We enjoyed looking for souvenirs in the old town and bought some lovely gifts for friends and families. Mr G & Miss Cadman were keen to have an ice cream too, so obviously we agreed just to keep them happy.

The teachers from all 11 countries made plans for the second year of our project and shared together the learning activities taking place in each school. Our project has been a great way to learn about the similarities and differences in how we use our gardens and outdoor spaces for learning and leisure activities.

We had a tour around Bratislava Castle and were all very impressed with the building, artwork and Old Town. It was a clear day and we were able to see Austria and hungary from the top of the Castle Tower (after climbing the hundreds of steps first of course – Mr Gs idea).

Whilst we were staying in Slovakia it was ‘My Money’ week back at school so we joined in the fun by playing Monopoly,  Slovakian style!

It was a wow-derful experience for everyone and one that we will never forget.   We are looking forward to finding out about our forthcoming visits and hosting all the project members and the final  celebrations here in Wales in July 2014!

Barry Island Bugle – June 7th 2013

WOW what an amazing start to our Summer 2 half term! The sun has shone brightly and we have loved using our outdoor classrooms to support and enhance our learning activities. Please bear the change in weather in mind when getting ready for school and think about wearing sun cream and appropriate clothing to help protect your child when in the sun.

This week we have enjoyed learning about “Finance week”, children in all classes have taken part in a number of activities linked to this topic, we thoroughly enjoyed sharing our learning during our whole school assembly today. In linking with this topic we have a home learning challenge for everyone to complete this weekend- The Vale of Glamorgan Council have secured funding for the regeneration of Maslin Park. We are asking our families to create a design to help the council plan how they will use the £200,000 to make the park a better place for everyone to use. Please send your designs and ideas to school next week so that we can forward them to the Council- Diolch!

Mr Nurton and six Year 5 children joined other schools in Barry this week to celebrate our annual storytelling festival.  On Tuesday they started their adventure with Roger Day a professional storyteller at Porthkerry Park.  The children listened to different stories and created their own.  On Thursday they met again with all the different schools and walked form Porthkerry Park to Barry Island School sharing stories along the way.  The whole festival culminated with everyone sat around a fire in our story telling circle in our school garden.  It has been an incredible few days and everyone has thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  We would like to thank Roger for all his hard work and look forward to working with him again.

We welcomed back our Comenius travellers today; Miss Cadman, Mr Golding and the four Year 6 representatives have had an amazing time in Slovakia despite the weather. We have enjoyed following their adventures via twitter and they were all excited to share their favourite memories with everyone. This trip marks the end of our Comenius visits for this academic year, but we are looking forward to visiting the remaining countries and hosting a visit next year

The Vale of Glamorgan Council have secured funding to improve Maslin Park and as a school we have been asked to submit designs from children as to what they would like see in the new park.  The children’s challenge is to create a plan/ design for a new park to help the council identify how to spend the £200, 000. Please send your designs into school to so that we can forward them to the Council next week.

Mr Smith took our school rugby team to a tag rugby festival at St Brides School in Wick.  The children played a number of different matches and represented our school incredibly well.  Mr Smith was impressed with not only their teamwork but also their behaviour both on and off the field.

REMINDERS!

IMPORTANT – there are still several children playing on the equipment in the playground both before and after school each day. For their own safety, we would very much appreciate everyone’s support in helping us to .

We are still receiving late dinner money payments and this is getting increasingly difficult to manage. Please ensure all dinner money payments are in on a Monday for the forthcoming week – please contact Mrs Pearce diolch.

Early morning breakfast club is between 7:45 – 8:15am and costs £1:50 a day.  Please can that be paid at the beginning of each week.  Children attending normal breakfast club please arrive between 8:15 – 8:25am.  Diolch.

 

Barry Island Primary School – Summer 1 – Learning Logs

Dosbarth Mesen

Dosbarth Ceirios

Dosbarth Hywen

Dosbarth Onnen

Dosbarth Helygen

Dosbarth Celyn

Dosbarth Bedwen

Dosbarth Derw

Blog from Barry Comprehensive School – Issue 23

Barry Comprehensive School confirmed ‘Good, Good, Good, Good and Good!’

 

On 17th May the inspection report for Barry Comprehensive School was published on the Estyn website. The school achieved ‘Good’ for the three key judgements of Standards, Provision and Leadership; the school’s current performance was judged as ‘Good’ and the school’s prospects for improvement was also judged to be ‘Good’.  The new inspection framework is incredibly rigourous so as a school we are pleased to be recognised as the good school we are.

 

The inspection term agreed that current performance is good because:

• Students achieve well at KS4;

• Students make good progress in lessons and have well developed literacy skills;

• Teaching is effective in helping students to learn;

• There is high-quality care, support and guidance for the most vulnerable students;

• Our unique School Parliament is a strong and successful feature of the school, allowing learners to influence a wide range of school life and work;

• There is a very wide range of curricular and cross-curricular  opportunities, particularly through partnership working at key stage 4 and post 16

 

This current report is testimony to the hard work of all teachers and students. Inspectors commented that ‘most students listen and respond attentively to their teachers and to their peers. They speak clearly and thoughtfully when answering questions or expressing their opinions. When open-ended questions are used in learning, many pupils engage in creative discussions and produce imaginative responses… Many pupils read aloud with confidence, fluency and expression. They respond to a range of texts and, in line with their ability, show a good understanding of what they have read.’

 

Inspectors also felt that. ‘Arrangements for developing pupils’ understanding of education for sustainable development and global citizenship are strong. Most pupils have a secure knowledge of sustainable development and global citizenship through a wide range of well- planned events… The school links very well with schools in Sri Lanka to bring together people from different cultures and backgrounds. This provides an excellent opportunity for sixth- form students each year to carry out voluntary work.’

 

The school’s own self-evaluation systems were viewed as rigourous and robust, integrating a whole school approach. Students are very much part of this approach and the 5 students pictured, one from year 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, were asked what was the best part of Barry Comprehensive School. Daley Chapman , year 7, enjoyed his  Drama, Science and ICT lessons and felt that the curriculum supported his learning;  Amir Inbasheh, year 8, enjoyed  the large playing fields; Lewis Gibbon, year 9,  talked about the way the teachers treat you and teach you; Mitchell Thorngate, year 10, described the family feel of the school and  the relationships he enjoyed, whilst Curtis Rogers, year 11 said, simple, ‘the students’.

 

Mr McNamara, Headteacher, said,

‘This report verifies the commitment, diligence and determination of all the staff to get the very best out of every student.  The school community has been rewarded for years of hard work leading up to the recent inspection.  The school Governors are delighted and are striving to provide the best teaching and learning experience for students  to fulfil the school’s motto of giving everyone the ‘Opportunity to Succeed’.’

 

Blog from Barry Comprehensive School – Issue 22

Valeways Walk and Clear

Valeways is a volunteer based project for the maintenance, protection, preservation and promotion of public rights of way in the Vale of Glamorgan.

 

As a part of the Personal Social Development course “Community Service” the year 11 students joined forces with the Valeways project on a “walk and clear” morning in the local Millwood area.

 

The students collected 6 bags of rubbish from the pathways leading down to Porthkerry Park. The Valeways volunteers also entertained the boys with stories and local historical information along the route.  The students were amazed at the amount of litter left in an area of such beauty. And found it hard to understand how people can just drop litter.

 

We will be continuing our links with the Valeways and hope to offer our services again in helping to protect and preserve our local environment.  Well done to all the boys who took part.

Filmclub at the Bafta Vote

A good start to our story-
Once upon a Filmclub, we met our Cadoxton counterparts…

We were invited to a special event by Filmclub in partnership with BAFTA Cymru.

We watched clips of children’s programmes at the cinema, then voted on our favourites. Non Stevens, of FILMCLUB Cymru, introduced us to Jon Rennie (Visual Effects Supervisor on various short films, tv programmes and children’s programmes such as Grandpa in my Pocket)

Barry Island Filmclubbers were keen to ask Jon about his career, inspiration and plans…

Our “reviewer of the week” (as Non pointed out, from 6,000 schools in the UK) asked about the techniques Jon used.

Jon had lots of good advice for anyone interested in working in the film industry. He told us that his favourite film is “Who Framed Jessica Rabbit?”. Mrs Davies was thrilled to find out that Jon also worked in the gaming industry and had specifically been involved with Theme Park World amongst other amazing things!

Our story ended well…

Filmclub settled down to take part in a live webcast with Rob Sprackling, creator of Gnomeo & Juliet. We had many mentions due to the quality of questions sent in from our team (diolch Mrs Hobbs for emailing the club thoughts) and due to the fact that Rob loves Barry Island itself.

Like every classic movie, we finished on a high by adding to our triumphs and winning a DVD of the Lion King- well deserved after a day full of enthusiasm, good behaviour and quality work.

Watch out red carpet, here comes Barry Island Primary!