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Education

Education Minister to quit Senedd in May

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KIRSTY WILLIAMS, Wales’ Education Minister will not stand in next year’s Senedd elections.

Ms Williams, who holds the constituency seat for Brecon and Radnorshire was first elected to the then-Welsh Assembly in 1999.

“After much reflection, I have decided not to stand as a candidate in the next election,” she said.

Kirsty Williams is highly-regarded and seen as being perhaps the ablest of the current Welsh Cabinet.

Her departure from the Senedd in May could spark a Cabinet reshuffle by Mark Drakeford.

Mrs Williams said: “There is of course sadness in making this decision, but also a strong sense of pride. Above all else, I’d like to thank the people of Brecon and Radnorshire for their support over the last two decades.”

Writing to her local constituency party, Kirsty Williams said: “Next May it will have been 22 years since I was first elected to represent the people of Brecon and Radnorshire.

“The local party, and then the constituency, placed its trust in me – a young, female, Welsh Liberal Democrat, new to elected politics and for our new parliament. It remains the proudest day of my political career.

“And for us to keep winning and keep achieving for our community, has been the honour of my life.

“To be the parliamentarian for Brecon and Radnorshire and in Powys is not to own the seat or constituency, it is to be a steward of it – following in the footsteps of Welsh Liberal giants and hopefully being able to pass on and support another generation.

“I know that my pride in being the first female leader of a Welsh political party was shared locally and nationally, and I hope it was a small inspiration to others. Working with my party colleagues in the Senedd, we worked diligently to hold the Government to account.

“Despite being an opposition party, we turned campaigns into policies that changed lives across the country.
“This included the introduction of the Nurse Staffing Levels Act and the Pupil Development Grant which continues to support our most disadvantaged pupils.”

Kirsty Williams said it had been “an immense honour to serve my country as Education Minister”.

“Every day I have been inspired and uplifted by the shared commitment across the country to be ambitious for all our learners,” she said.

“‘Our national mission’ has been the biggest programme of education reform since the Second World War. It has been a nation-wide collective endeavour.

“The support I’ve received from civil servants, private office, and Ministerial colleagues has been invaluable and unstinting.

“Over the last four years, we have fought to raise standards for all children, to reduce the attainment gap and to get some pride and confidence back into Welsh education. Working together,
our improved performance in national and international assessments, radical student support changes and investment in teachers, is proof that education is truly Wales’s national mission. Being
the family of a politician is never easy. I must thank my husband and three wonderful daughters for the patience, and at times resilience, that they have shown over these years.

“My late parents started the interest in politics and current affairs with lively debate around the kitchen table, and I know they would be proud of how their granddaughters are already strong independent women with their own opinions!

“It is with them in mind that, after a great deal of thought and reflection, I have decided not to stand as a candidate at the next Senedd election. The next candidate, and the Welsh Liberal Democrats, will have my abiding support and I will be out there campaigning as ever.

“There is, of course, sadness in making this decision, but also with a sense of achievement and pride. Above all else, I would like to thank the people of Brecon and Radnorshire for their support over the last two decades. Diolch o Galon. I may be biased, but I am in no doubt that our constituency is truly the greatest anyone could have the privilege of representing.”

Education

Stonehenge may have been built to unify the people of ancient Britain

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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.

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Education

Tutor banned after Pembrokeshire College drug incident

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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.

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Business

World of engineering and welding SPARCs interest in Ysgol Harri Tudur’s female learners

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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.

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