Yesterday was A-Levels results day and GCSE results come next week. I want to congratulate all our students, parents and carers, teachers and schools on their achievements this week and wish pupils well on the next stage of their lives. They are excellent results and compare very favourably with the rest of Wales, especially in some of the key areas like maths, where almost half of those sitting the exam got A* or A. There’s more information on Swansea’s performance here.
These are the first exam results of the post-Covid era – a time when exams were suspended and pupils were graded by their teachers. The students getting their results this week faced significant disruption in their education due to the virus and the need to close schools for extended periods of time. I want to thank them and our schools once again for their resilience and dedication during the challenges of Covid. Their contribution undoubtedly helped save lives. Our education team also worked non-stop during the pandemic, engineering the transformation to home education and back again. They have continued to provide outstanding support to schools, teachers and pupils through the recovery and a return to more normal times. My continued thanks go to them too for their sustained effort in such a difficult period.
You may have read in the media that Buckingham Group, the company that built Swansea Arena, has filed for administration. This is difficult news for its staff employed in Swansea and my thoughts are with them. From our point of view the arena is unaffected and we are in discussions with the company. I will keep you posted on developments.
CMT this week got a further report from Julie Davies, our head of Child and Family on progress being made to recruit more foster carers. She said there was a very positive response to my blog post about it a couple of weeks ago, but we still need more potential carers to step forward. It’s such an important area of our work so please help if you can. And do spread the word by sharing with friends and colleagues – you could be helping change a child’s life for the better. You can find out more here about fostering and more here about the support we provide to employees as a Foster Friendly employer.
It’s always great to hear about praise for our staff who go above and beyond to support our residents. Our housing team has just had two letters of thanks from people whose lives they’ve helped turn around. One was from an elderly tenant, expressing appreciation for all the face-to-face assistance she had from the team. She said their kindness and support had changed her life, getting things on track and securing her a home. The other was from an ex-serviceman who’d been sleeping in his car and has now been supported into temporary accommodation with help from Housing Options. He said the team’s empathy and professionalism had made all the difference. I always want to share examples of great practice by our teams in my blog, so do get in touch with me with your stories.
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