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Message from the Managing Director
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12 February 2021
Dear Colleagues,
In this week’s message I would like to provide you with an update on the mass vaccination programme, following the opening of Holm View centre on Monday, as well as a general update on our response to COVID-19 and give some of our apprentices a shout out at the end of National Apprenticeship Week.
On the subject of vaccinations, I’m pleased to report that across the region our colleagues in the health board have now vaccinated over 90,000 people in priority groups one to four. The new Vaccination Centre at Holm View in Barry has been up and running since Monday and has so far seen over 3000 people receive their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
Wales is now progressing faster than the other home nations in its vaccination programme. The First Minister announced on Wednesday evening that we are the first nation to vaccinate 20% of its population.
This, coupled with the declining number of positive cases, is encouraging news and it is possible that we will see restrictions eased somewhat over the coming weeks. Over the past 7 days there have been 136 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Vale of Glamorgan. The number of positive cases now stands at 101.8 per 100,000 of the population and the positive proportion of tests is now 8.9%. Whilst this news is encouraging, the figures remain relatively high and for now we must continue as we have done for the past few weeks. Lockdown restrictions remain in place throughout Wales and we must all remember this and adhere to restrictions as we approach half term.
Half term does, however, bring some change with the preparations for our youngest cohort of pupils beginning to return to schools from 22 February. We have been working closely with headteachers this week to support these preparations and will continue to support our schools over the next few weeks as pupils return.
We all know that our schools have had to move to and develop their approaches to virtual learning throughout the pandemic and I have previously in my message set out some of the excellent work undertaken buy our schools to ensure that children can be taught virtually during this difficult time.
Our Schools ICT Support Team have been central to this work as well as the work in supporting some of our digitally excluded pupils and schools with new devices. I was pleased to hear from Christopher Thomas from the Schools ICT Support Team earlier this week who set out the challenges that have been met by the team since the beginning of the pandemic, dealing firstly with the roll out of ICT support to enable a rapid move to virtual working and learning.
Since the end of September over 4,000 devices have been shipped to schools across the Vale. Christopher has described the fact that it has been “quite an experience delivering this much needed equipment to schools, of whom have been so grateful and appreciative of the hard work that has been put into this project by the team. I am so extremely proud of the team’s achievement, through these testing times and this has all been achieved whilst still carrying on the routine day to day support we provide”.
Thank you to the team, Sean Granville, Christopher Thomas, Ross Fraser and Pietro Pucella. I’m sure our schools staff would echo these thanks. Diolch!
For National Apprenticeship week we have been featuring some of the apprentices working on our 21st Century Schools programme on our social media feeds. The theme for this year is #BuildTheFuture and it was great to see some of the examples of how we’ve been able to support, in partnership with our contractors, introducing young people to a potential career in construction. This is just one example of the wider benefits of the 21st century schools programme and I’d like to thank the team for their excellent work on this project.
I’d also like to say best wishes to Jane O’Leary, the Council’s 21st Century Schools Programme Manager, who is leaving the Council next week. Jane has been an asset to our organisation in steering the programme through huge investment in our school estates. Diolch, Jane – pob lwc.
In other news, Ein Bro, the Vale’s Public Services Board have launched a Climate Emergency Charter. It sets out a series of key actions for PSB partners, both within their own organisations and to act in partnership, with the aim of managing and limiting the effects of climate change.
Actions include:
- Reducing emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change whilst adapting to its impacts.
- Be kinder to the environment.
- Be healthier.
- Become a Carbon Neutral Public Sector by 2030.
You can read more about the Charter and what it means on our website. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Helen Moses and her team for their work in supporting the PSB and driving this important work forward.
Some of you may be taking some well-deserved time off work next week over the half term break, I would like to wish you a restful weekend and hope you enjoy your time off.
Diolch yn fawr. Stay safe.
Rob.