Education
Over 100 schools at WRU Urdd 7s
THIS month, the largest schools sevens tournament in Wales, the Urdd WRU 7s will be held at Pontcanna and Llandaff playing fields in Cardiff between 8-12 April and in Llandudno/ Colwyn Bay 3-4 April. Between both events, more than 100 schools, 431 teams and over 5,000 players are expected to take part. For the first time, a rugby festival for participants with disabilities will also be included this year.
Wales Grand Slam winner, Dragons back row Aaron Wainwright won the tournament with Bassaleg School just three years ago. He said, “I have very fond memories of the event. It was great to be part of a tournament like that and be successful with your school mates, some of whom didn’t play regular rugby so it really helped develop skills and fitness. It really helped me, I think I was picked up by the Dragons soon after that.
“It’s fantastic to see how the tournament has grown since then, moving to a bigger site, engaging more boys and girls and now involving a disability element too.”
Wales Women international Manon Johnes won the senior girls’ tournament with Ysgol Gyfun Glantaf two years ago and went on to represent Wales U18 Sevens at the Youth Commonwealth Games later that summer, winning Bronze, and travelled to Brisbane as part of the Wales Women Sevens squad within the same year. She now has seven senior caps under her belt and is still a pupil at Glantaf will return to the competition next month as coach of the school’s Year 7/8 team.
She said: “The Urdd 7s is fantastic, especially for girls’ participation in the game.
“It’s fun, the short games mean lots of game time and everyone can pick it up quite quickly.
“It was great to win the tournament with my own year group two years ago, and now, as a coach, I can see even more value in it.
“We’ve been training for the Urdd 7s already, the girls are excited. As a coach, I’ll try not to be too competitive but that won’t be easy, I can’t help it!
“We’ve got such big girls’ playing numbers in school now that we’ve been able to play 15 a side matches this year. The girls love to train but once they get a taste for rugby, they want to play games so it will be good to have a full day of competition.”
Eight schools are expected to take part in the disability festival on 12 April which will form part of the Cardiff event.
WRU Community Director Geraint John said: “Welsh rugby is a vital part of the fabric of our nation, I think the whole world has seen that since our Grand Slam win on the weekend. “Thanks to sharing a set of goals and philosophies with Chwaraeon yr Urdd, we are able to harness our combined resources and use the power of Welsh rugby to inspire the next generation and promote another intrinsic part of our culture – the Welsh language.
“Playing sevens in a school environment is a fantastic way to develop skills, fitness and game awareness while having great fun with your school friends. Whether they go on to represent the senior Wales sides such as Aaron (Wainwright) and Manon (Johnes) and many others who competed at the Urdd in their younger days or go on to play for their local rugby teams for years to come, the pupils participating in the Urdd WRU 7s next month are the future of our national game.
“Along with the wider benefits of this partnership with the Urdd, such as the collaboration between our respective apprentices to take rugby opportunities to non-traditional communities, the competition helps support our core aims of more boys and girls enjoying rugby – and developing better players for the game at all levels.
“Sevens is such an accessible format that can be played with fewer pupils in school year groups, and by boys and girls who are new to the game. There’s more space and more touches on the ball.
“We feel strongly that there is a place in rugby for everyone and are thrilled that for the first time, a rugby festival for participants with disabilities will also be included in the programme.
Sian Lewis, Chief Executive at Urdd Gobaith Cymru said: “Our partnership with the WRU continues to go from strength to strength as we strive to develop and enhance the provision and experience for all. Rugby is a game for everyone and we are especially pleased to announce the inclusion of the rugby festival for children and young people with disabilities as part of the 2019 event.”
“The Urdd WRU partnership enables us both to achieve key goals by increasing rugby participation and developing skills while also encouraging the use of the Welsh language outside of the classroom in a fun and informal environment.”
Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism, Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM added: “I am very grateful to the Urdd and the WRU for continuing to work in partnership with more than 100 schools across Wales to put on an event which involves thousands of children up and down the country. I hope that the fantastic efforts of our national women’s, men’s and under 20’s teams can inspire performances at the competition. I was also delighted to hear that a rugby festival for children and young people with disabilities will also be included this year – rugby, with all its various formats, is a sport for all. I wish everyone involved the very best of luck and once again, my sincere thanks to the Urdd and the WRU for their hard work in making this event possible.”
Education
Stonehenge may have been built to unify the people of ancient Britain
THE RECENT discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones originated in Scotland supports a theory that the stone circle was built as a monument to unite Britain’s early farmers nearly 5,000 years ago, according to a new study by researchers at UCL and Aberystwyth University.
In a research article published in the journal Archaeology International, academics analyse the significance of the recent discovery of the Scottish origin of the six-tonne Altar Stone, which confirmed that all of the stones that make up Stonehenge were brought to Salisbury Plain from many miles away.
In their new paper, the researchers say that Stonehenge’s long-distance links add weight to the theory that the Neolithic monument may have had some unifying purpose in ancient Britain.
Lead author Professor Mike Parker Pearson from the UCL Institute of Archaeology said: “The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions, making it unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose – as a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”
Co-author Professor Richard Bevins of Aberystwyth University, said: “It’s really gratifying that our geological investigations can contribute to the archaeological research and the unfolding story as our knowledge has been improving so dramatically in just the last few years.
“Our research is like forensic science. We are a small team of earth scientists, each bringing their own area of expertise; it is this combination of skills that has allowed us to identify the sources of the bluestones, and now the Altar Stone.”
The study has been published (on 20 December) the day before the winter solstice, when the setting sun dips below the horizon over the middle of the Altar Stone and between the two largest upright stones (one of which is now fallen). During this winter period, Neolithic people feasted close to Stonehenge at the great village of Durrington Walls, and the midwinter solstice was probably central to these events.
Stonehenge is famous for these solar alignments on the solstice and even today attracts large crowds to the site on the shortest and longest days of the year. In addition, it was also the largest burial ground of its age. Some archaeologists think it might have been a religious temple, an ancient observatory and a solar calendar, and this new research adds a political dimension.
Professor Parker Pearson, a Professor of British Later Prehistory, added: “We’ve known for a while that people came from many different parts of Britain with their pigs and cattle to feast at Durrington Walls, and nearly half the people buried at Stonehenge had lived somewhere other than Salisbury Plain.
“The similarities in architecture and material culture between the Stonehenge area and northern Scotland now make more sense. It’s helped to solve the puzzle of why these distant places had more in common than we might have once thought.”
Stonehenge’s 43 ‘bluestones’ were brought from the Preseli Hills in west Wales some 140 miles away, while the larger ‘Sarsen’ stones were hauled from their sources at least 15 miles away to the north and east of the stone circle.
Transporting these massive monoliths was an extraordinary feat. Although the wheel had been invented, it had not yet reached Britain so moving these massive stones must have required the efforts of hundreds if not thousands of people.
The researchers point to how Stonehenge’s horizontal Altar Stone is similar in size and placement to the large, horizontal stones of the stone circles of northeast Scotland, where the Altar Stone originated.
These ‘recumbent stone circles’ are found only in that part of Scotland and not in the rest of Britain, so there may have been close ties between the two regions. Megalithic stones had ancestral significance, binding people to place and origins. The Altar Stone may have been brought as a gift from the people of northern Scotland to represent some form of alliance or collaboration.
It is difficult to pin down a precise date when the Scottish Altar Stone was brought to Stonehenge, but it probably arrived around 2500 BCE around the time that Stonehenge was remodelled from its original form.
This is the timeframe when the Neolithic builders erected the large sarsen stones forming an outer circle and the inner horseshoe of trilithons – paired upright stones connected by horizontal ‘lintels’ – that is present today. The Altar Stone lies at the foot of the largest trilithon, which frames the midwinter solstice sunset to the southwest. This was the second stage of construction at Stonehenge, long after the first stage (around 3000 BCE) when it is thought the bluestones from Wales were erected.
This second iteration of Stonehenge was built at a time of increasing contact between the people of Britain and arrivals from Europe, mainly from what are today the Netherlands and Germany. The researchers suggest that this period of contact may have been what spurred this second-stage rebuilding, and the monument was a reaction to these newcomers meant to unite indigenous Britons.
The new arrivals brought with them knowledge of metalworking and the wheel and, over the next four hundred years, their descendants – known as the Beaker people on account of the distinctive pots they buried with their dead – gradually replaced the population of indigenous Britons, and people with this European ancestry became the dominant population across the island.
The geological research was supported by the Leverhulme Trust.
Ends
Picture: The Altar Stone, seen here underneath two bigger Sarsen stones. Credit: Professor Nick Pearce, Aberystwyth University.
Education
Tutor banned after Pembrokeshire College drug incident
A PEMBROKESHIRE COLLEGE tutor has been struck off after admitting to police that he had cocaine on college premises but later denying the offence to authorities.
The Fitness to Practise Committee of the Education Workforce Council (EWC) found Phillip Lewis, a former tutor at Pembrokeshire College, guilty of unacceptable professional conduct. The committee said Lewis provided inconsistent explanations about how he came into possession of the Class A drug.
Lewis accepted a police caution in January 2023, which is considered a full admission of the offence. Despite this, he later challenged the allegations, raising concerns about the police’s handling of the matter.
Maxine Thomas, the safeguarding lead at Pembrokeshire College, told the committee that CCTV footage from November 23, 2022, captured a packet of cocaine left on a counter shortly after Mr Lewis had been in the area. The footage also showed Lewis retracing his steps as if searching for something.
The committee reported that Lewis gave conflicting accounts of the incident, including differing accounts of where and when he claimed to have found the packet. His explanations did not match the evidence from the CCTV footage.
“He provided inconsistent details about the circumstances in which he came to possess the packet, none of which aligned with the CCTV evidence,” the committee’s report stated.
Lewis claimed he had discovered the packet in a corridor but lost it shortly afterward. The panel, however, concluded that he should have reported the find immediately if his account were truthful.
“The committee concluded that Mr Lewis brought the packet onto college premises himself and did not hand it in because of its illegal nature,” the panel’s findings read.
The panel deemed that possessing cocaine on college grounds and accepting a police caution constituted unacceptable professional conduct. While no direct harm to students was noted, the panel highlighted the significant risk posed by such actions during working hours.
In deciding to remove Lewis from the professional register, the committee acknowledged his prior good record and his participation in the EWC process. However, these factors were outweighed by aggravating considerations, including his attempts to cover up the incident, providing contradictory accounts, and failing to demonstrate insight or remorse.
Lewis will be eligible to apply for re-registration in two years.
Business
World of engineering and welding SPARCs interest in Ysgol Harri Tudur’s female learners
AN EVENT hosted by Ledwood Engineering gave girls from Year 8 and 9 at Ysgol Harri Tudur first-hand experience of the world of engineering recently.
Engineering is a booming sector in Pembrokeshire with a high demand for skilled workers in exciting career pathways associated with the development of low carbon and renewable energy industry and the Celtic Freeport.
The young women heard from industry experts on the importance of engineering in Pembrokeshire, and had hands on experience using a welding simulator, at the company’s Pembroke Dock site.
The learners are part of the County’s SPARC (Sustainable Power and Renewable Construction) initiative aimed as inspiring and empowering young females to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pathways where females are under-represented in the workforce.
SPARC is funded through an alliance comprising Blue Gem Wind, Ledwood Engineering, Port of Milford Haven, RWE Renewables, Pembrokeshire County Council, Pembrokeshire College and the Swansea Bay City Deal.
Mrs Laura Buckingham, SPARC practitioner at Ysgol Harri Tudur said: “Our learners had a fantastic experience at Ledwood Engineering. They were given lots of advice by industry experts on the different career options and pathways within the engineering sector.
“They appreciated the opportunity to ask their questions and found the session very informative. Having the chance to trial their welding skills on the simulator was an experience they continue to talk about and has definitely piqued their interest.”
Poppy Sawyer, Year 8 SPARC learner added: ‘It was a really good trip. Talking to the different people there has helped me know more about the jobs we could get which will be very useful when making choices for my future.”
“They helped us a lot by giving us lots of information. We were able to look around and try welding. It was really fun,” added Tianna Marshall, Year 8 SPARC learner.
The Regional Learning and Skills Partnership also launched its Explore Engineering interactive website at the event.
-
News3 days ago
Ferry accident causes delay on new Dublin-Fishguard route
-
Top News7 days ago
Pembrokeshire man jailed after repeatedly punching pregnant wife
-
Education4 days ago
Home Education: Delays and missed opportunities risk further tragedy
-
Top News6 days ago
Police investigate dogs seen persistently chasing sheep on Pembrokeshire airfield
-
Top News7 days ago
Milford man dealt ‘persistent’ blows on girlfriend after urinating in flat
-
News7 days ago
Children seen kicking and ‘egging’ doors near Pembrokeshire train station in early hours
-
News7 days ago
Engine room fire caused by loose fuel pipe connection previously flagged
-
Top News7 days ago
Caws Cenarth ‘matriarch’, Thelma Adams, dies aged 86