Robs Weekly Round-Up

28 April 2023

Dear colleagues,

I’d like to start this week’s message where I finished my last - celebrating the opening of the new Ysgol Sant Baruc at Barry Waterfront.

The ultra-modern Welsh-medium primary school is a truly state of the art facility. It has capacity for 420 pupils and it was fantastic to see them being welcomed by staff on Monday morning.

The latest newbuild to open as part of our 21^st Century Schools programme, Ysgol Sant Baruc is low carbon and uses solar panels and onsite battery storage, air source heat pumps – which use outdoor air to heat the building - underfloor heating and EV charging points in the car park. Inside, the classrooms and other spaces are first rate and staff have access to a host of innovative teaching aids.

As those who have worked closely on the project will know, this has been a far from straightforward programme of work, mainly down to the fact that we had to rely on the developer consortium responsible for the wider Waterfront scheme to deliver certain elements as part of their commitments to the wider community.  It is only through the perseverance and commitment of many of our colleagues that we have reached this important milestone. Colleagues in our Planning, Regeneration, Property and Legal teams all played important roles in ensuring the build went ahead. As with all new schools the project was managed expertly throughout by colleagues in Learning and Skills, who then worked hand in hand with the excellent staff and governors at Ysgol Sant Baruc to ensure the smoothest possible transition for pupils.  This is an excellent example of a project that demonstrates, without doubt the value and worth of public service and local government, and of teams that put the future of our communities at the centre of their work.

It has been a phenomenal effort from all involved and the impact of their work on the education, attainment, and wellbeing of pupils now and for many years to come cannot be underestimated. Diolch i chi i gyd. 

Their success in so many areas means our schools are well used to media attention and we achieved a first on this front in this week. With the Vale one of the first counties in the country to offer free school meals to all pupils, Barry Island Primary, hosted French-German TV channel Arte on Wednesday who were filming a piece for broadcast on the continent. That our work is now gaining international recognition shows just how much Team Vale can achieve. Merci beaucoup to those who made the visit possible and have helped showcase our success to the world!

It was with a similarly outward looking spirit that Full Council met on Monday evening and agreed a motion to become a member of the City of Sanctuary Local Authority network and work towards accreditation as a County Council of Sanctuary for all, and to use its platform to promote welcome and inclusion across the wider local community. Our work to support refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine is well publicised but represents only a small part of what our teams do to support those fleeing oppression, persecution and war, to challenge discrimination and negative perceptions, and to ensure equality of opportunity for everyone. These are some of the key requirements for accreditation and in working towards the others I have no doubt that we will continue to build even stronger communities in the Vale.

One of the ways in which we bring people closer together is in our work to support older people living in the Vale. Working alongside the Vale of Glamorgan Public Services Board, the Council is committed to supporting people of all ages to live and age well across the county. This week has been Global Intergenerational Week. Landmarks around Barry have been lit pink to promote #GIW23 and help shine a light on the Council’s work to make the Vale more age friendly. Our new Age Friendly Vale Officer, Siân Clemett-Davies, works with groups across the Vale and is central to many of our most successful projects and you can read about a selection of these on StaffNet+ now.

We are ending this week marking two other days which align closely with the work of our organisation.

April is the Month of the Military Child. The children of military families can face challenges not always obvious to those around them. Our Vulnerable Groups team in Learning and Skills work closely with schools, especially those in the Western Vale, to support children, young people, and families from the Armed Forces community. ‘Taking Care of Our Military Children’ is the theme of this year's campaign and to bring it to a close, colleagues across the Vale are joining together to ‘purple up’ today in support.

Today is also Pay It Forward Day, a global initiative that exists to make a difference by creating a huge ripple of kindness felt across the world. This spirit is at the heart of so much that we do. We’ve taken the opportunity to celebrate online the work of our teams supporting the Penarth Food Pod, while also helping to recruit new volunteers for one of our key partners, Glamorgan Voluntary Services. 

Finally, if you’d like to end the week with a small act of kindness then our Strategy and Policy team would greatly appreciate you completing the Staff travel survey which has opened today. To help us understand more about our carbon footprint and explore opportunities to reduce this the team have put together a short form. It is available for colleagues to complete now.

Thanks as always to all colleagues for your efforts this week. I hope those who will have a longer weekend thanks to the first of this May’s run of bank holidays enjoy themselves.

Diolch yn fawr pawb, 

Rob