Rob's Weekly Round Up

21 February 2025

Hi Everyone,

Dydd Gwener Hapus!

As another week draws to a close for many (but not all) of us, I would again like to celebrate some of the great work that has been going on across the organisation.

Firstly, I wanted to share some updates following the fire at St Athan Primary School a week ago. In the last few days, I’ve been hearing about many examples of how the community and our services have come together and reacted to such adversity.

The Educational Psychology Service has helped the school plan emotional and psychological support for all pupils and staff members following the fire. This includes putting specific measures in place for children and staff who may be particularly vulnerable, or who may have additional learning needs.

This advice and support will continue whilst the building is made safe and when everyone returns to the school site shortly after the half-term break.

Diolch o galon to Owen Barry and the team at the Educational Psychology Service for providing this support. Ensuring the wellbeing of our learners and staff is vital as we move forward from what can be an unsettling time.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) teams also swiftly attended the site to assess what tech was lost to the fire, including at least 70 Chromebook laptops. Trevor Baker then managed to secure 50 new replacement laptops from Welsh Government.

Well done Trevor! Securing these replacements quickly alongside other donations of equipment has helped enormously.

As I mentioned last week, the Big Fresh Catering Company – with the help of volunteers – has been providing free school meals for pupils from St Athan Library.

Carole Tyley, Sharron Taylor and Symon Dovey have all been working hard to get lunches to the children and also supported work to source tables – gwaith da!

As the school community has moved to home learning for the time being, we had offers of support from other schools and headteachers and have received many kind offers to help bring the children together again. Lucy Mitchell from the Vale Sports Team has offered provision of additional extra-curricular activities and The Gathering Place in St Athan has offered to hold a free film and social gathering so learners can see their friends.

We have received countless offers of support, help and services from the wider community. A former St Athan pupil has set up a GoFundMe page, Fonmon Castle is providing free entry to pupils during half-term, the St Athan Primary School Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is organising a raffle to raise additional funds, and Cardiff Airport has also asked if it can assist.

In just a week, the outpouring of support, as well as people’s willingness to help, has been incredible. I along with others are very grateful for everyone’s hard work to support the St Athan Primary School community.

I would like to again thank all colleagues from the school itself, our Learning and Skills Directorate, our Property team, ICT colleagues and other support services like Human Resources (HR) and Communications for their efforts and extensive support - diolch bawb am yr holl gefnogaeth.

These efforts have ensured that shortly after half term the plan is to ensure all children and staff can get back to their school. To assist with this, members of our Learning and Skills Team are now looking for volunteers to help clear spaces within the building and move furniture.

Anyone available next Tuesday and Wednesday morning (February 25 and 26) is asked to contact Lisa Lewis.

This would be a huge help as we look to get pupils back into the school as quickly as possible.

Sticking with St Athan, last week I visited the Ministry of Defence (MoD) base at East Camp, where I met Major General Dan Blanchford MBE.

He wanted to thank the Council and partner organisations for our role in helping to resettle Entitled Persons (EPs) from Afghanistan.

Staff from Housing, Education, Social Services and other departments have all been involved in this work, which has seen EPs move into temporary accommodation on the base before they are found permanent housing within the UK.

I have previously met with Afghan families and was touched by personal stories of the hardship they have endured.

These are people who are free to live and work in this country, individuals who are being supported as a show of gratitude for their efforts in previously supporting British Forces.

I would like to echo the General’s words of appreciation, alongside Mike Ingram, our Head of Housing and Building Services.

“I would like to personally thank the Vale’s resettlement team who, over the last few years, have built a reputation for going the extra mile in supporting families to successfully settle in the Vale,” said Mike.

“Under the leadership or Kate Hollinshead and Kath Partridge, the team give resettled refugees the support they need to rebuild their lives, working with local communities, groups and public services, to ensure they have a warm welcome and a home in which to do so.”

Another person involved in that work is Martine Booker-Southard, who is also helping to spearhead the Council’s efforts to be actively anti-racist.

Martine, the Vale’s Learning Links Managers, took part in a panel discussion as part of Estyn’s Sgwrs podcast to discuss how education providers across Wales are working towards an anti-racist future.

In the podcast, Martine talked about the Anti-Racist Action Research Project that is currently ongoing in schools across the Vale.

The project, which has just entered its third year, is intended to help schools take the necessary actions to become actively anti-racist.

Anti-racism is about calling out racism, challenging racism, discrimination and negative stereotypes, respecting and valuing diverse and unique identities and working to break down systems that lead to inequality.

An important aspect of this anti-racism work is people in power taking action to tackle racism within their organisations. That is why the school staff who participate in the research project are all senior leadership members, including headteachers.

As part of their action research, the schools were assigned reading and asked to investigate their school environment. All schools took note of the ethnic make-up of their staff and pupils and the number of staff who were confident in recognising and dealing with a racist incident.

Speaking to the Sgwrs podcast, Martine said: “When you start doing the action research, you are hypervigilant to institutional racism in every way.

“Having to really challenge all of the perceptions we have as adults, whether it’s support staff or teachers thinking about what we need to do differently in order to have a broad, balanced curriculum”

“That’s where the anti-racism professional learning gives teachers the time to come up with resources in true Cynefin style. They have to do their homework, but that’s hard if they’ve not been taught about inclusion and what that looks like.”

Martine added: “You come into teaching to make a difference, and where institutional racism exists, it can make them feel quite vulnerable. This is not something we do to schools, we do it with schools and that for me has made it more successful.”

A recent example of the on-going anti-racism work in our schools is Evenlode Primary School. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Evenlode was used as an example of best practice by Estyn for its own anti-racism efforts.

Estyn inspectors noted that a culture of reflection is embedded in many aspects of life at the school and recent changes have been central to the school’s superb performance in this area.

These changes included moves to be actively anti-racist by changing resources, including books, used to support learning and the introduction of Philosophical enquiry to allow pupils to explore big ideas.

Da iawn Martine for your excellent work overseeing the Anti-Racist Action Research Project, and to all who are engaged in raising awareness of racism and actively making change individually and in our communities. Ardderchog!

I’d also like to use this message to highlight the importance of learning cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). It’s a skill that all of us hope we will never have to use, but it can be the difference between life and death.

One person who knows firsthand just how learning CPR can be a lifesaving tool is Jason Redrup, one of our safeguarding officers.

Jason has had to perform CPR four times in his life, and his latest attempt saw him save the life of one of his friends when he collapsed in the garden.

He performed CPR for about 10 minutes, with his mobile propped on his friend’s chest, speaking to a 999 operator.

Speaking to BBC News recently about his experience, Jason said: “I’m a retired police officer, so I did CPR training annually and you almost go into auto mode - checking for a pulse and breathing.

"If someone's heart is not beating and you can't get it beating again, what harm can you do? If you're doing it right then you're probably going to break some ribs, but I think they'd probably thank you for that if they carried on living."

According to the British Heart Foundation Cymru, there are around 2800 cardiac arrests in Wales every year, but only about one in 20 of those survive.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) offers a free interactive tool online where you can learn the basics of CPR in just 15 minutes.

For those interested, there is also a helpful BHF playlist available on Spotify that includes a long list of popular and memorable songs to help the public perform CPR correctly.

CPR is a lifesaving skill that all of us should take the time to learn – well done to Jason for raising awareness about the importance of this technique.

Finally, as I write this latest edition of the weekly message, news of the final Welsh Government budget settlement is emerging.  We received considerable information yesterday (Thursday) and the aim now is to work towards setting a balanced budget for the year ahead. A report will be presented to Cabinet and then Council on March 10, when the aim is to reach agreement on that balanced budget.  I will have more to say about this in the coming weeks.

As always, I’d like to wish those of you not in work a restful and relaxing couple of days off.

Thank you for your work this week. It is important and very much appreciated by myself and other members of the Strategic Leadership Team.

Diolch yn fawr iawn,

Rob