Increasing the number of Welsh-speakers in the education workforce
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- Information about the provider
- Please identify how the area of excellent/sector-leading practice, identified during the inspection, relates to a particular key question, quality indicator and/or aspect
- Context and background to excellent/sector-leading practice
- Description of nature of strategy or activity identified as excellent/sector-leading practice
- What impact has this work had on the quality of provision and learners’ standards
Information about the provider
Learn Welsh Ceredigion Powys Carmarthenshire (LWCPC) is at the forefront among WfA providers in terms of planning purposefully, in partnership with other organisations, to train the education workforce in line with national priorities to increase the number of active Welsh speakers.
Please identify how the area of excellent/sector-leading practice, identified during the inspection, relates to a particular key question, quality indicator and/or aspect
LWCPC trains the education workforce with workplace-based courses tailored to school staff in Ceredigion and Powys to increase the number of Welsh-speakers in that workforce. They work closely with education officers at Ceredigion Council and Powys Council to identify staff who are in need of training and to tailor relevant courses for them. They also co-operate valuably with Rhagoriaith at the University of Wales Trinity St David (UWTSD) while training the education workforce and sharing the sector’s pedagogy with trainee teachers and teacher trainers. By participating in this scheme, LWCPC realises the Welsh Government priority of expanding intensive Learn Welsh provision for the education workforce.
Context and background to excellent/sector-leading practice
During the lockdown periods, there was an increase in demand for workplace courses at different levels online for the education workforce in Powys and Ceredigion. LWCPC has been involved in the Sabbatical Scheme for teachers for over ten years and now works in a strategic partnership with Rhagoriaith at UWTSD to provide intensive courses for the education workforce. Since September 2021, the provider’s workforce course co-ordinator has been on a part-time secondment with Rhagoriaith for three days a week to teach sabbatical courses to teachers and classroom assistants in Powys. This has led to opportunities to share good practice between the two organisations and both sectors. The co-ordinator shares good practice in the methodology for learning Welsh as a second language in schools with the workplace course tutors who, in turn, share good practice with the education workforce for them to emulate in their schools.
Description of nature of strategy or activity identified as excellent/sector-leading practice
This strategic co-operation is being developed further by planning suitable progression routes for practitioners of National Sabbatical courses on Learn Welsh courses, so that learners can take full advantage of the Welsh Government policy to allow the education workforce free access to Learn Welsh courses. The co-ordinator discusses suitable Learn Welsh courses with the Sabbatical course practitioners, in addition to sharing the details of local extra-curricular activities that are organised by LWCPC e.g. a team of teachers on the Sabbatical course took part in the Big Quiz in the Maldwyn area in 2022, which was an opportunity for them to socialise and use their Welsh in the local community, in addition to at school.
The co-ordinator held discussions with one school when co ordinating a Learn Welsh course in the area so that a teacher who followed a Foundation Sabbatical course could attend a community class during her planning and preparation time. As a result, the teacher has continued her studies and is now the Welsh Language Co-ordinator at the school and will return to the Sabbatical scheme at Intermediate level. A strength of this work is that it is based on working with local authorities, Rhagoriaith, University of Wales Trinity St David and individual schools, and brings expertise from different disciplines together for the benefit of training the education workforce in Powys and Ceredigion.
What impact has this work had on the quality of provision and learners’ standards
As a result of close co-operation and purposeful planning, LWCPC’s courses for the education workforce have succeeded in increasing practitioners’ confidence in using the language they already had, learning suitable new language patterns to use in the classroom with pupils and other staff, and discussing the methodology of teaching Welsh to children in second language schools. This has had a direct effect on practitioners’ standards and the use of Welsh in schools