Thank you and thanks to everyone who has emailed Cardiff Council to support Ysgol De Caerdydd – a new Welsh-medium school for south Cardiff located in Grangetown/Butetown!
If you haven’t emailed the council yet… Remember that the council is inviting you to express an opinion about Welsh-medium education now, and the last day to do this will be 26 March. Send the email today.
The council is sending a confirmation email to anyone who has emailed:
Dear Consultee
Thank you for your email response to the engagement exercise on sustainable growth of Welsh-medium secondary school provision.
[…]
We would be grateful if you could also complete the engagement survey […]
The council has already stated that sending an email is a valid and acceptable way to respond to the engagement. It’s not clear why we are being asked to fill out a survey.
If you have 5-10 minutes, you could go through the survey.
Here are some things you could bear in mind.
General points
- Every question is optional. If you’re not sure what’s best then you can skip any question.
- This is an informal engagement to “tease out the issues”. It is not a formal consultation. Your response is just part of a conversation. Therefore it’s important to engage, and try to convey the ideal outcome. But it’s not worth worrying about the fine details.
Section 2: Principles and Section 3: Priorities
- Section 2: Principles and Section 3: Priorities are odd because they contain lists of things that are all important. Some of them are Cardiff Council’s statutory duties! If in doubt about anything, move on.
Section 4: Options
- Section 4: Options is the most significant section of the survey. Here are the campaign’s recommended responses:
- Option 4: Establish a new fourth Welsh-medium secondary school in the south of Cardiff – Support
- Option 5: Establish a new age 3-16, or 3-19, Welsh-medium school in south Cardiff – Strongly support
- As a campaign we Strongly Oppose all of the other options (1, 2, 3, and 6). They are either insufficient or unacceptably disruptive.
Option 5 is best because it would bring the 4th Welsh-medium secondary school to the south of the city, and also address the growing need for more nursery/primary provision. Ysgol Hamadryad is an excellent school which will feed into this new secondary. Hamadryad currently serves the whole Bay, Butetown and Grangetown areas. If the council is serious about its duty and strategy of giving more children the Welsh language, then there will be a need for more Welsh-medium primary provision in the community for years to come. This could be gradually increased over time. An all-ages campus (locating the new nursery/primary on the same site as the new secondary) would bring many benefits.
Option 4 is the second best, which is why Support makes sense. The weakness of this option is that it does not mention the growth of nursery/primary.
Section 5: Catchment Areas
- Section 5: Catchment Areas is difficult to answer. The new school will improve the accessibility of Welsh-medium education in south Cardiff. It will create a new catchment area anyway. It’s better to skip this question because it is context-free. Answering it may create the impression that the ultimate solution is fiddling with catchment areas. In itself, this will not address the need in Grangetown, Butetown and surrounding areas for a brand new school.
We trust you find this helpful. If you want detail you can view the long response of the campaign to the engagement exercises.
Feel free to email the campaign team if you want to help or want a chat.
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