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News in Brief

10th October 2008, 1:00am

Site for your eyes

A website enabling teachers to learn the latest good teaching practice without leaving the classroom was launched in Cardiff this week. It was developed as part of the school effectiveness framework, the national strategy aimed at raising and spreading good practice across local authority borders.

www.cpdsewales.org.uk

Bully for Anglesey

A film has been launched in Anglesey in response to pupil concerns over bullying incidents at the island’s secondary schools. About Bullying was scripted and performed by pupils from Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones with the help of children’s charity the NSPCC. A DVD of the film, which conveys the message that to beat bullies everyone must change, is to be distributed to secondary schools for use in personal and social education lessons.

Heavenly Aberystwyth

Rhodri Morgan, First Minister, has praised Aberystwyth University’s “stellar performance” in attracting 18 per cent more undergraduates this year, and in particular its achievements on science recruitment, which has shot up 20 per cent.

Im-plaque-able

Twenty-six 15- and 16-year-old pupils from secondaries in South Wales received plaques from John Griffiths, deputy skills minister, for their 100 per cent attendance records since starting in Year 7.

Youth festival saved

The future of Europe’s largest youth festival has been secured with long- term funding of pound;300,000 a year. Alun Ffred Jones, heritage minister, said the Assembly government in partnership with the Welsh Local Government Association had agreed to ensure the continuation of the Urdd National Eisteddfod from 2009 onwards.

Poverty and praise

Jane Hutt, the education minister, admitted this week that ending child poverty by 2020 - the Welsh deadline - will be difficult without more work. She made the comments as Wales was singled out for praise for its progress towards implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child within education policy. A UN monitoring committee in Geneva said Wales had done particularly well at giving children the opportunity to speak out and at protecting them from sexual exploitation.