The results, in the form of externally verified levels are a national measure of performance at 14. Last year across Wales, the percentage of 14 year old gaining at least Level 5 in the assessments was as follows 71% in English, 74% in Maths and 75% in Science.

In contrast, the percentage of Darland students achieving at least Level 5, was English 84%, Maths 93%, and Science 97%.

In the Core Subject Indicator (students attaining at least Level 5 in each of the three core subjects), the figure was 82%, representing a 19% improvement on the Wrexham County average of 2009.

Headteacher Peter Agnew said "These achievements by our Year 9 students stand as testament to the hard work put in by both students and teachers. Our Year 9 students will shortly be starting their GCSE courses and know that our expectations of them are very high in the light of this outstanding achievement.' The school is one of three secondary schools in Wrexham which is benefiting from a multi million pound investment and work is progressing well on a new science block and ICT rooms.

Sourced – Wrexham Council website

Among them were winners like Joy Bishop, of Parc Primary in Treorchy, who picked up the trophy for Primary Headteacher of the Year.

Like many of the winners, Mrs Bishop said her strong team of support staff were integral to her success.

“The staff do whatever I ask them to do and we’ve had a tremendous year,” she said.

“All of the children look forward to coming to school and it’s due to the hard work of staff, children and the community. Parc Primary is like one big jigsaw and there’s not one part we could do without.”

Mrs Bishop has devoted her career to the school, first as a classroom teacher, then as deputy head and, for the past 16 years, as its headteacher. Having grown up locally, she has a natural empathy with the surrounding area and has put Parc Primary at its heart.

Colleagues said she leads with energy, enthusiasm and vision, and her 26 years’ service is representative of a passion and loyalty for Treorchy.

In a recent Estyn inspection, Mrs Bishop became the first primary head in the borough to achieve a Grade 1.

Her intimate knowledge of the locality means she is acutely aware of the social problems that families face.

As a result, her belief in the development of the child as a whole overrides any academic bias.

It followed an incident where twin babies in east London needed hospital treatment after being mauled by a rogue fox in their home.

The fox was first spotted on Monday when teachers at both schools were instructed to keep the children away from the playground at lunch-time. The fox was spotted again before school began on Tuesday and the council sent its pest control team in to investigate.

A council spokeswoman said: "A fox was sighted in the school grounds earlier this week. The children were kept inside the school building as a precautionary measure.

"The schools acted in a routine way and in much the same way as they would have done had a dangerous dog been loose on the premises."

She said pest control officers had searched for a possible den for the fox and located signs of one underneath a temporary classroom on the site. She added: "Investigations are ongoing but there is the possibility that the fox has left after being disturbed."

Neither school would comment directly on the incident.

'Precautionary measure'

There have been concerns about the potential risk foxes pose after nine-month-old twins Lola and Isabella Koupparis were attacked while sleeping in their cots at their home in Hackney on Saturday, 5 June.

Police said the fox apparently entered the house through an open ground-floor door before attacking the babies in an upstairs room. Lola suffered injuries to her face and arm and Isabella was also bitten on the arm. The twins' mother Pauline Koupparis told the BBC that she went to check on them after hearing a "funny cry". She described the "living nightmare" when she switched on the lights to see the girls covered in blood and the fox still there. Their four-year-old brother, who was also sleeping upstairs, was not hurt.

After the attack London mayor Boris Johnson said councils needed to "get together" and look at how they tackled pests.

Class AJG from St Giles Primary School visit Erddig County Park every Thursday and have become increasingly fed up with seeing dog fouling everywhere.

Teacher Andrea Jones said: “The kids are horrified when they see it.

“It’s not nice, especially in the summer when it’s warmer.

“There can be six, seven, eight bags of it thrown against a gate.”

The children have been visiting the park by the Felin Puleston entrance to work towards their John Muir Award, which teaches them about the outdoors.

In an open letter to the dog walkers of Erddig the children of class AJG, who are aged between nine and 11, wrote: “We have found on our visits lots and lots of dog mess – this causes us many problems.

“It is hard for us to sit down and draw and explore the environment because we have to look where we are putting our feet all the time.

“The smell is disgusting.

“We love to see people walking their dogs but we just wish people would pick up their dog mess and take it away with them.

“We have noticed that some people do pick the mess up and bag it but then pile it up by the gates.

“We hope people read this and understand the problems this causes.

“We always enjoy our visits to Erddig and we want to keep it as a first class place to visit in our local area.”

Miss Jones added: “It just defeats the object of taking the kids there to learn about the environment when it is being treated like this by other adults.”

Head warden at Erddig Sue Jones said: “We are looking to get the waste disposal bins but we don’t want the red plastic ones – we want something which will be in keeping with the estate.

“We do ask dog walkers to collect their dog’s waste and take it home with them but are finding that people are just hanging the bags up or throwing them away.

“We are looking at a proper facility to dispose of waste as soon as we can – we just want to make sure that the bins are not used for other general rubbish.”

These include “inspirational teaching, high quality care, support and guidance for all pupils and a wide range of interesting and stimulating learning experiences.”

We are particularly proud of our pupils, whose “behaviour is outstanding. They act responsibly and show great respect for others.” Their academic achievement is also recognised: “Pupils make outstanding progress from entry to the end of Key Stage 2”.

The “broad, balanced and rich curriculum” was considered to be another outstanding feature and this, together with the superb progress pupils make, means that the school provides “exceptional value for money.”

Headteacher Mrs. L. Houston is delighted that the hard work and dedication of the staff has been recognised and that the school’s self evaluation was endorsed by the inspection team. The Staff and Governors now aim to work together towards improvement in the areas of bilingualism, the continued development of Foundation Phase philosophy and the further development of monitoring and assessment procedures.

David Jones made the call after councillors and headteachers raised fears that further education in parts of Flintshire could be swallowed up by the ever-expanding college.

At a meeting of Flintshire’s lifelong learning committee last week, Pamela McClean, head of Flint High School, made an impassioned plea to councillors at a meeting of Flintshire’s lifelong learning committee to protect sixth forms based in local schools.

Mrs McClean said: “I have worked in three high schools in Flintshire – Mold Alun and Hawarden and I am headteacher at Flint – and there is a definite difference between them.

“The problem we have in Flint is that we have to really encourage pupils to continue with their education and progress to university.

“We have to work extremely hard to keep these children in school and the impact of a school losing its sixth form is significant.

“I am fearful that in Flintshire there could be a two-tier system and that really troubles me as head of a high school.”

The issue was raised after a presentation by Mr Jones, which looked at plans to expand Deeside College’s recently-acquired Northop campus.

He has moved to reassure headteachers and said schools and colleges across Wales were all facing difficult times ahead.

He added: “These are challenging times for all of us who provide education and training in Wales, as we all have to face up to the challenge of widening choice and improving the achievements of our learners against a backdrop of reducing funding and the need for capital investment.

“Deeside College is widely regarded as Wales’ leading college, and our success over recent years is a result of an outstanding workforce and governing body – our funding system is no different to the sixth form funding of local schools, so to suggest that we have some sort of advantage over others is misleading.”

He added: “We all need to be more efficient, improve performance and ensure we secure significant capital investment for schools and college.

“We will only achieve this if we work together, face up to the reality of funding challenges, and put aside institutional self-interest and put learners first.

“Deeside College is working in partnership with Flintshire County Council and all the high schools to develop a long-term plan that will achieve this.”

Lifelong learning committee members also aired mixed views about the future of the county’s education provision.

Flint Castle councillor Ian Roberts, who is also a teacher in Wrexham, said: “The investment in Deeside College is very clear and we can all see it.

“Difficulties can arise when students visit the learning centre at the college then return to their own school, which may be lacking in investment.”

But committee chairman Peter Macfarlane said the meeting was “a useful milestone”which had helped to build confidence about the future modernisation of schools across Flintshire.

NASUWT balloted its members after Wrexham Council announced eight posts at Darland High in Rossett were to be cut as part of a restructuring programme, and 19 members have agreed to take strike action as year 11 pupils begin sitting their GCSE exams.

The local authority says the redundancies are necessary as the school attempts to plug a huge deficit in its budget, which stood at £291,005 in 2009/10.

Without further action, that would rise to nearly half a million pounds by the end of the financial year in 2011, the council says.

A number of non-teaching staff have already been made redundant, saving £78,000 a year.

Now a surplus of eight teaching posts – four part time and four full-time – have been identified.

Six of those eight teachers have appealed against the decision to axe their jobs and will find out later this week whether they have been successful.

NASUWT declared a trade dispute due to the ‘adverse impact of restructuring and potential job loss.’

A spokesman claimed teachers were paying the price for financial mismanagement that was no fault of their own.

John Davies, Wrexham Council’s Chief Learning and Achievement Officer, said a review of the school’s staffing structure had seen certain staff members appointed to ‘senior leadership posts’ to drive forward a new curriculum.

Those staff members were then exempt from being considered for redundancy while their colleagues were not, leading to NASUWT launching the ballot.

Mr Davies said: “Twelve months ago the union wanted the school to do that review of its structure and now it has been done they are not happy.”

He added everything was being done to ensure staff members were redeployed to other schools in the county.

The NASUWT ballot last week saw 19 members out of 23 voting to take strike action, with another two prepared to take industrial action – nearly half the school’s total teaching staff. Rex Phillips, NASUWT’s Welsh organiser, said: “It wasn’t the teaching staff and it wasn’t the pupils that caused the deficit, it was due to finances being mismanaged.

“We are very, very unhappy with the way the redundancy process is being managed. It is unfair.

“We had one group protected from redundancy and the others targetted.

“From our point of view the redundancies were entirely avoidable had the local authority allowed teachers to take their early retirement.

“Instead there is a situation where those who would have preferred early retirement will remain and those who wanted to stay have been made redundant.”

The school will be closed to pupils in years seven, eight, nine and 10 on Thursday, but those in year 11 sitting their GCSEs will be able to come in as normal.

They say the national "Sats" in English and maths put too much pressure on children and schools and they want to see the system changed.

This is a view shared by both head teachers who are carrying out the tests in their schools this week and those who are boycotting the Sats.

And it is one with which a lot of parents have sympathy. While parents, teachers and children obviously want to know the standards pupils have reached by the time they are ready to move on to secondary school at the age of 11, many believe the teacher assessment of a child's ability, based on observation of his or her work throughout the year, gives a more accurate picture than a test result, which can only be a snapshot of a performance on a given day.

The Labour Government has already scrapped Sats, introduced by the Tories nearly 20 years ago, for seven-year-olds and 14-year-olds in England but the outgoing Children's Secretary Ed Balls would not drop the tests for 11-year-olds.
The National Union of Teachers and National Association of Head Teachers voted to boycott this year's Sats, a decision that is being observed by more than a fifth of primary school heads in Bristol this week.

Many head teachers found it difficult to decide whether to take part in the boycott. They backed the reasons behind it but felt that it was too late in the academic year to stop children taking tests for which they had been preparing for months.

Schools that decided to go ahead with the tests say they have tried to ensure the process causes as little stress as possible for children in Year 6. Several have organised breakfast clubs during Sats week and post-Sats picnics, outings and other treats for the pupils.

Bristol's Primary Heads Association issued a statement yesterday after consulting its members.

It said: "The majority of heads have expressed support for some reform to the current assessment and testing arrangements and agree that better ways could be found to assess and celebrate the achievements of our children. This has been done in many other countries with high performing schools".

"Head teachers strive to provide a rich and inspiring education".

"Few heads and senior leaders are against testing and many support the need for schools to be accountable to parents and pupils for their performance but the reliability, fairness and usefulness of the information provided by the current tests is in question."

Twenty two schools out of 101 in Bristol were boycotting the Sats.

Six schools in North Somerset were known to be taking part in the boycott: Bournville and Milton Park in Weston-super-Mare, St Francis in Nailsea, St Joseph's in Portishead, Tickenham and Flax Bourton.

North Somerset Council said 34 schools were not joining the boycott and the other 16 had not informed the authority of their intentions.

Bath & North East Somerset Council reported five schools not doing tests, 12 sitting them and 46 unknowns. South Gloucestershire Council said it did not have final figures for its schools.

Source Bristol Evening Post

Porth County Community School received a superb Estyn report, with inspectors praising its standards of teaching and positive ethos.

Mr Andrews, who represents the Rhondda in the Senedd, wrote a letter to headteacher Steve Bowden, saying: “Following the superb Estyn report Porth County Community School recently received, I felt I should write to offer you and your staff my congratulations.

“It represents a wonderful achievement for the school and highlights the hard work and dedication everyone has put in over the last few years.

“As the report points out, standards at the school are high and the overall learning experience being offered to pupils ranks amongst the best in the area.

“Keep up the great work!”

source – Wales Online

Members of Cathays High School Table Tennis Academy’s team were crowned Division 4 Champions of the Team Championships of Wales 2010.

Cathays High’s team members, Tom Goodall, Inthrayut Kongchun, Emmanuel Olaoye and Kian Emadi, have played well all season and are now rewarded for their hard work.

At the start of the final day of the competition, held on May 1st, Tonypandy tied at the top of the table with Cathays High.  In the competition, Cathays High beat local rivals Radyr 'A' 4-3 and swept aside North Gwent 'B' 7-0.Tonypandy beat North Gwent 6-1 and fought back from 3-1 down to beat Radyr 'A' 4-3.  Cathays then faced Tonypandy for the champioship. It was Cathays who raced to a 2-0 lead with Tom Goodall and Inthrayut Kongchun winning their opening games. Tonypandy then pulled a game back with Rob Tyler of Tonypandy beating Kian Emadi to make it 2-1. Cathays won the Doubles to make the score 3-1 in their favour. This meant one more win would hand the title to Cathays. Tom Goodall had a tough match against Naomi James and went down in a closely fought game that took away Tom’s unbeaten record. Inthrayut Kongchun stepped up his game to beat Rob Tyler 3-0 to hand the title to Cathays Academy, Callum Evans pulled a consolation point back for Tonypandy to make the final score 4-3 to Cathays.

Tom Goodall also finished top of the individual standings winning 19 Matches out of 20!  Coach Simon Oyler, who has been an inspiration to the team and other pupils who take part in the Academy’s sessions at Cathays High, said ‘This is a great achievement for Cathays Table Tennis Academy in their first season of the competition and deserve to win this championship’.

The Academy was set up three years ago in joint partnership with TTAW and Greenhouse Sports and Performing Arts and has grown in popularity in the school and community.