Ysgol y Garnedd

Ysgol y Garnedd is a Welsh designated community school, and serves the city of Bangor and the neighbouring villages of Tal-y-Bont and Llandygai. A considerable number of its pupils now come from outside the school’s normal catchment-area.

Approximately three hundred children attend the school of whom half come from non-Welsh speaking homes. We take pride in the fact that Welsh speaking and non-Welsh speaking parents want their children to receive a good bilingual education within a Welsh environment. It is extremely important that this ethos is created. Learners come to speak Welsh remarkably fluently, bearing in mind that bilingualism is a process which is fostered over a period of time, and the school’s language policy reflects that. The children speak both languages confidently by the end of their primary school career. And there is plenty of evidence to show that pupils benefit greatly from receiving a balanced bilingual education.

We are fortunate in having a Nursery Group and Clwb y Garnedd on the school premises, which provides an additional and valuable service. Ensuring that children are happy at the school is one of my principal priorities as a Headteacher – through implementing fair discipline, expectation of exemplary conduct, taking positive action if bullying occurs and listening to the children’s comments, e.g. through the School Council. Success is achieved when children are happy.

Our greatest challenge is to ensure that every child achieves his/her potential. To that end, the school is still developing teaching methods and insisting on high expectations. Lastly, it is essential that there be a good partnership between the school and the home, and we wish to emphasise that the ‘open door’ principle is extremely important. Our aim are:

• Establish a happy and hard-working environment based on mutual respect and care between teachers, teachers and pupils, thus enabling pupils to display positive attitudes and develop self-confidence.
• Generate a school environment that stimulates an appreciation of the elegant and beautiful.
• Ensure that the education that is provided promotes every pupil’s moral, cultural, mental and physical development, and that the whole curriculum is differentiated, broad and well-balanced.
• Ensure that the LEA’s language policy is effectively implemented within the context of the National Curriculum.
• Ensure that learning arrangements and methods adopted throughout the school are coherent and well-balanced.
• Utilize various specializations within the school and create flexible arrangements to ensure that pupils are able to utilize these specializations.
• Provide an opportunity to train the entire staff in accordance with the needs and requirements of pupils, the curriculum and statutory requirements.
• Foster in pupils self-discipline, self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Provide the maximum opportunity for pupils to develop their talents and interests.
• Develop pupils’ skills across a wide range of fields, including leisure-time skills.
• Make pupils feel proud of their locality and country, and develop in them a respect towards the world in which they live.

The school serves a broad community. No effort is spared to ensure that each pupil has a sense of belonging to the school family. We take pride in the fact that most visitors to the school recognize the sense of friendship and discipline that exists at the school, and how newly admitted pupils settle down contentedly and quickly.

There is a hard-working classroom ethos, which is reinforced by displays of the children’s work. This shows respect towards the pupils’ work and efforts and ensures a stimulating and attractive environment. In the last Estyn inspection (October 2000) it was noted that ‘pupils’ spiritual, moral and social development’ was very good. The school is a caring, welcoming and well-organized community.’