Our Abertawe
On Saturday we’ll be staging our new “Our Abertawe – Celebrating Swansea Together” event. This is an opportunity to celebrate Swansea and what it means to us all as individuals and together, whether a Jack by birth or habit; disabled; young; or old; whatever our sexual orientation, beliefs, culture, language or abilities. Many communities make up our diverse City and the events will focus on bringing people together to celebrate Swansea and what it means to us all.
It will be held at Castle Square from 11am till 6.30pm, ending with a parade from Castle Square to the National Waterfront Museum. The main exhibition marquee will be located on Princess Way and will include various information, activity and cultural stands as well as an exhibition celebrating the history of Swansea’s cultural diversity.
There’ll be stages for performances at Castle Square and Portland Street, along with busking sites throughout the city centre. Cookery demonstrations and workshops will take place in a marquee on Princess Way and there’s a treasure hunt at our fantastic Swansea Market for children.
The Big Screen will show two special videos. ‘My Swansea’ – produced by students from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the second video has been developed by Chinese students from Swansea University capturing what Swansea is all about.
Also part of the event is the returning AberDewi festival which includes a Twmpath, St Davids Parade, choral sing along of Calon Lan and the rhythms of Samba Tawe.
Local schools are involved in the day with a number of junior schools entering the dragon competition to head the parade. The senior schools are taking part in an “Apprentice”-style competition, which involves raising money on the day for two charities for the homeless.
The Saturday event is unique which will celebrate both our Welsh heritage and Swansea’s modern, multi-cultural make-up.
I’m indebted to all who have helped to organise this fantastic event, but particularly grateful to Riaz Hassan, our Regional Community Cohesion Coordinator based in Poverty and Prevention, who has worked tirelessly on it.
For the latest information take a look at this link.
Pontarddulais School
A few weeks ago I visited Pontarddulais Comprehensive School for the first time. I was shown around the building and its grounds by four enthusiastic pupils who were excellent ambassadors and a credit to the school. I was impressed by the genuine respect for pupil voice at Pontarddulais and the commitment to working together as a team for the benefit of the whole school community. This was underlined in the discussion that followed with the pupils and the head teacher, Jan Waldron. Jan was very clear about how the approach had helped to create a positive learning environment for the school and this is certainly borne out by the excellent results being achieved by the students. Thanks to Jan and all at Pontarddulais for the warm welcome and a highly interesting and informative afternoon.
It came as no surprise, therefore, when I learned that Pontarddulais Comprehensive, along with Cefn Hengoed Community School, St Helen’s Primary and Penllergaer Primary schools received “Excellent” inspection judgements from ESTYN. I understand that on March 9 ESTYN will be holding an awards evening for schools, colleges and other providers who received ‘Excellent’ inspection judgements for current performance, prospects for improvement (or both) in the academic year 2015–16. This event will focus on the common factors that lie behind excellence and improvement and how inspection supports this. Congratulations and thanks to all.
Pentre’r Graig School
On Tuesday I attended the opening of the newly-refurbished Pentre’r Graig Primary School in Morriston. The school has undergone extensive remodelling under our 21st Century Schools Programme with £2.7m of investment funded jointly by us and the Welsh Government. The work was undertaken by our Corporate Building and Property Services team and I’m delighted to say they’ve done an excellent job in what must have been very difficult circumstances. It can’t be easy to deliver a complex refurbishment project whilst keeping the school running, but aided by our Education team and the patience and support of the school staff and pupils, the job is almost complete.
The pupils welcomed the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, local councillors and governors and conducted a whistle-stop tour of the new facilities, including the “Learning Street”. We also had a couple of songs and some highly entertaining discussions with the pupils.
I was sad to hear that the head teacher, Julie Tucker, will soon be retiring because she’s done such an excellent job not only seeing the school refurbished and transformed but also achieving “green status” in the schools categorisation in the process. Congratulations to Julie and her team.
Culture bid
We’re bidding for UK City of Culture 2021. After reaching the shortlist for the 2017 title, we hope to go one step further this time. A successful bid will provide a significant boost to the city’s regeneration as we set out a commitment to not only deliver a 12-month festival of world class arts and cultural activity, but also to create long-lasting benefits for residents, the economy and visitors to the city.
City Deal
Another bid hopefully coming to fruition is the City Deal. Following the Leader’s recent presentation to a team including Lord Heseltine it looks like we’ll have some positive news next week. Our officers have continued to supply extra information requested by the UK and Welsh governments and Lord Heseltine, and we’re now satisfied we’ve done everything asked of us.
Apprentice scheme
We’re launching our new Corporate Apprentice and Trainee Strategy in an event at Guildhall on Monday (March 6). To coincide with the launch and the start of National Apprenticeship Week, we’ll soon be advertising for new apprentices in our corporate building and adult social care departments. Other apprentice and trainee positions could also soon be made available in departments including IT, waste management, highways, economic regeneration and parks.
Some apprenticeship and work experience placements would be specifically targeted at young people, the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged groups. Opportunities would also link into our corporate parenting role for young people leaving care.
The new strategy is initially being launched as a pilot scheme to help us get a better understanding of realistic targets and sources of funding that may be available.
Recycling success
It’s great to see that changes made as part of the on-going commissioning reviews are having a positive impact. In Waste Management, changes to some of the city’s recycling centres have resulted in us now sending 800 tonnes less waste to landfill sites each month since the changes were made. Well done to everyone involved.
New competition?
Geoff Mellor in Housing took inspiration from our Christmas jumper competition for this week’s St David’s celebrations. He claims to have invented the worst St David’s Day leek-tie competition!! Despite his efforts, unfortunately, as the only entrant he won’t be getting a prize. However the bonus Geoff is that at least when it goes out of fashion he can eat it. Thank you Geoff, you made me smile!