School Focus: Develop a relationship between a school and a local leisure centre and increase community cohesion in rural villages in Wales.
Expression of Interest Overview
Ysgol Henry Richard in Ceredigion is a school that serves pupils aged 3-16 years of age. Seasons of the year have a huge impact on physical activity levels, and ensuring facilities are equipped for the early dark nights is paramount for maximising their use. Limited access to facilities during winter months has been identified by pupils of Ysgol Henry Richard as an issue. In addition, the use of the school facilities by community groups is also difficult in the winter months. To combat this, the school sought to strengthen the provision of the school by complementing the facilities of the local leisure centre. While concerns were raised regarding the impact of the new school facilities on the leisure centre, it was identified and confirmed with local clubs that the leisure centre did not have sufficient facilities to meet the winter demand and so the school provision would be complementary and further increase community cohesion. The intention was for the funding to be spent on three overarching areas to support the creation of a community hub:
- Equipment (e.g. floodlights, batter, gazebo)
- Security system (e.g. key-pad entry)
- Infrastructure (e.g. electric upgrade for charging facility)
Programme Implementation
The school received funding from January to July 2022. Due to the nature of how the funding was being spent, the impact, if any, of the funding in this school has not yet had time to be realised. As such, attendance data, monthly learning logs and pupil’s survey will potentially be completed in the Autumn term.
Next Steps – September 2022 Onwards
Monitoring of sessions ongoing until December 2022. Impact, if any, of the changing room within the school community will be reported in a future report.