Education
Covid cases spike in schools
FOLLOWING a surge in Covid-19 cases in schools and significant strain on the TTP system, the National Association of Head Teachers Cymru (NAHT), has sent a letter to health minister Eluned Morgan asking her to step in.
The letter, which was copied to education minister Jeremy Miles, coincided with discussions with the Welsh Government, calling once again for school mitigation measures to be reviewed.
In the week ending September 24, 9,428 cases have been reported among under-20s in Wales. The vast majority of these are in people aged 10-19.
1.9% (around 1 in 50) of that entire age group has tested positive in the last week. That is 2,424 more than the previous week and over 3 times more than the peak in December 2020 which prompted an early end to a school term and prompted school closures in January 2021.
The problem is particularly acute In school-aged children, in whom infections have sharply risen since the abandonment of previous measures to keep schools safe.
Those measures included mask-wearing in class, a measure abandoned at the start of the current school term to ‘normalise’ education.
Although the new rules are designed to minimise disruption to education, education is being disrupted by children catching Covid.
It follows those current methods to curb Covid infections among schoolchildren are either incomplete or ineffective, as demonstrated by the massive spike in infections among the young.
Just before the start of the current school term, the Welsh Government announced a package of funding to ensure schools remained safe places for children. The increased rate of infections since the start of the term speaks to that funding’s late delivery and lack of success.
With schools a significant vector for spreading the virus and nobody wanting a return to lockdown and online learning, palatable solutions to the problem of Covid’s spread in schools are limited. The answers boil down to bringing back the rules from the last summer term and the hoped-for success of the vaccination programme for those aged 12 and over.
Eithne Hughes, Director of the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru, said: “Much of Wales is currently seeing very high rates of Covid-19 infection, with parts of South Wales the highest in the UK, and this is inevitably having a huge knock-on impact in our schools.
“Many are reporting higher levels of student absence than they suffered at any point in the pandemic, and this is being exacerbated by staff absences and a resulting chronic shortage of supply staff to provide cover.
“Many heads are reporting they have had to return to frontline teaching to ensure lessons take place and are having to work long into the night to carry out their leadership duties. This is exhausting and unsustainable for them.
“We warned before students returned for the autumn term that the Welsh government’s contingency guidance was inadequate, vague and open to interpretation and the situation has unravelled spectacularly in a matter of a few weeks as a result.
“The promised vaccinations programme for 12 to 15-year-olds is potentially the way that we can stem the inexorable rise in cases in our schools, but the government has not given a timescale for when this might start or details of how it will work in practice.
“With every passing day, confidence among leaders and teachers that it will be achieved by the October half-term is nosediving.
“Schools need decisive and strong leadership from the government to calm very real fears that the situation in Wales is getting out of hand.
“They need firm guidance on when the vaccination programme will start and how and where students will get their jabs and we would also like to see other measures such as a public information campaign to encourage students to take home tests and government funding for high-quality ventilation systems in schools.”
Laura Doel, director of NAHT Cymru, said: “There has been a lack of urgent action by the Welsh government to set in motion a plan after the clear failure of the TTP system. We can’t allow this situation to continue to interrupt the continuity of education for our learners.”
In the letter, Laura Doel said: “NAHT Cymru is receiving reports of no contact at all with TTP, despite having several cases in schools; contradictory advice like telling some siblings/children of positive cases to self-isolate and not others; contact tracers telling parents to ask the school for advice on whether siblings should come into school.
“A number of LAs have now told schools not to wait for TTP before sending out ‘warn and inform’ letters because the system is at capacity. There are also contradictions on close contacts going for PCR tests because our members are being told that the system cannot keep up with demand.
“NAHT Cymru has already shared our concerns about the framework not being robust enough to support schools before there were the widespread issues with TTP.
“TTP is a vital mechanism in keeping schools open. NAHT Cymru requests that an urgent review of the situation be undertaken.
“If TTP is unable to support schools then I request that health and education officials come back to the table with the employers and trade unions and discuss reviewing the current framework which is predicated on a functioning TTP system.
“It is unacceptable that school leaders are having to take on this function.
“NAHT Cymru wants nothing more than for schools to stay open, but our members need your help.”
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.
-
News2 days ago
Ferry accident causes delay on new Dublin-Fishguard route
-
Top News7 days ago
Pembrokeshire man jailed after repeatedly punching pregnant wife
-
Education3 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 News6 days ago
Milford man dealt ‘persistent’ blows on girlfriend after urinating in flat
-
News7 days ago
Engine room fire caused by loose fuel pipe connection previously flagged
-
News6 days ago
Children seen kicking and ‘egging’ doors near Pembrokeshire train station in early hours
-
Top News7 days ago
Caws Cenarth ‘matriarch’, Thelma Adams, dies aged 86