At Ysgol Y Bryn, we are committed to embedding the Welsh language and culture into daily school life, ensuring our learners develop confidence in using Welsh both inside and outside the classroom. This half-term, we have made great strides in strengthening our provision and celebrating Welsh in meaningful ways.

Walking through our school, the increased visibility of Welsh is clear to see. Our ‘Welsh Pattern of the Week,’ ‘Band of the Month,’ and ‘Seren Gymraeg yr Wythnos’ displays proudly showcase achievements, motivating learners and creating an environment where Welsh is valued and celebrated. These small but powerful additions are reinforcing positive attitudes towards speaking and using Welsh every day.

Our Criw Cymraeg assemblies have been a fantastic way of bringing the whole school together to enjoy the language in a fun and engaging way. Through games, songs, and interactive activities, learners are not only strengthening their understanding of Welsh but also building enthusiasm and confidence in using it. This enthusiasm extends into the classroom, where discussions and monitoring of oracy skills are helping us understand how best to support each learner in their Welsh journey.

To ensure we are always improving, staff have been actively engaging in training and development opportunities to strengthen their own Welsh skills and teaching strategies. This has been particularly beneficial in the early years, where we are embedding strong foundations for language development. Confidence in speaking Welsh varies among staff, and through professional learning and targeted support, we are making sure everyone feels equipped to incorporate Welsh naturally into the school day.

Inside the classroom, we continue to refine our approach to teaching Welsh. The Talk for Writing process is now in place, ensuring a structured and consistent way of developing Welsh language skills across the school. A book look is planned to reflect on progress and refine strategies further. Meanwhile, bilingual displays are reinforcing key vocabulary and ensuring that learners are surrounded by the language throughout the day.

Beyond the classroom, we are providing exciting opportunities to experience Welsh culture in action. A visit from the Urdd and Mr Urdd was a brilliant way to inspire our learners, showing them how Welsh can be part of their lives beyond school. Whether through extracurricular opportunities or wider cultural experiences, we are encouraging all learners to engage with Welsh in a meaningful way.

Our progress in Welsh is an ongoing journey, and we are incredibly proud of the enthusiasm and commitment shown by both learners and staff. By continuing to build confidence, provide opportunities, and celebrate achievements, we are ensuring that the Welsh language remains a strong and vibrant part of Ysgol Y Bryn.

This term has seen significant growth in leadership across Ysgol Y Bryn, with a strong emphasis on empowering staff, strengthening monitoring processes, and fostering pupil engagement in leadership. These developments have created a more structured, transparent, and collaborative approach to school improvement.

A key priority has been empowering staff leadership, ensuring that everyone understands their roles and feels confident in their responsibilities. By identifying staff strengths and areas for development, leadership capacity has been strategically distributed, allowing expertise to be used effectively. A clear staffing structure has been established, bringing transparency and clarity, while coaching and mentoring for middle leaders has bolstered their confidence and ability to lead. Staff training in action planning and monitoring has further improved leadership effectiveness, ensuring all initiatives are well-structured, measurable, and aligned with whole-school priorities.

To enhance monitoring and evaluation, a comprehensive monitoring cycle and calendar have been introduced, ensuring that all aspects of school improvement are reviewed regularly and systematically. Monitoring exercises now provide constructive and actionable feedback, allowing staff to refine their practice with clear direction. A key shift has been aligning performance development targets with the School Development Plan (SDP) priorities, ensuring a shared focus on both school improvement and personal professional growth.

Strategic planning has been strengthened, with subject leaders developing clear action plans that set out objectives, success criteria, and timelines, ensuring accountability and measurable progress. Regular reviews of the SDP and action plans have kept initiatives relevant and responsive to emerging needs, reinforcing a proactive approach to school improvement.

Pupil leadership has also been a major focus, with newly elected pupil group leaders playing an active role in shaping the SDP. Their engagement has encouraged a sense of ownership and responsibility among learners, reinforcing the importance of their voice in school development. Regular pupil group meetings have provided valuable insights, ensuring that children are meaningfully involved in decision-making and have a platform to contribute.

Collaboration has remained central to professional development, with staff attending training courses and cluster meetings to enhance their expertise in line with school priorities. Senior leaders have also provided support for monitoring and evaluation writing, ensuring a consistent and high-quality approach to improvement reporting.

The overall impact of these developments has been strong. Leadership across the school is now more structured, transparent, and collaborative, with staff feeling empowered and confident in their roles. A systematic approach to monitoring and evaluation has created a shared focus on progress, ensuring that all staff contribute meaningfully to school improvement. Pupil leadership has enhanced engagement, fostering a culture of collaboration and responsibility. These steps have established a strong foundation for sustained progress, ensuring leadership at Ysgol Y Bryn continues to evolve and drive improvement.

At Ysgol y Bryn, we believe that learners make the greatest progress when they understand not only what they are learning, but why they are learning it and how they can improve. Developing pupils’ ability to clearly articulate their learning journey is therefore essential in supporting them to become independent, reflective and resilient learners.

Through our self-evaluation processes, we identified that while pupils are engaged in learning activities, they do not always confidently explain the purpose of their learning, the skills they are developing, or the progress they have made over time. Strengthening this area will help learners take greater ownership of their development and deepen their understanding.

This priority aligns strongly with the Curriculum for Wales, which places learner voice, reflection and metacognition at the heart of effective learning. Purposeful teaching, high-quality questioning and structured opportunities for reflection enable pupils to think more deeply, make connections across Areas of Learning and Experience, and understand how their knowledge and skills build progressively.

By embedding consistent approaches to reflection and questioning, we aim to:

• strengthen learner agency and independence
  
  

• improve pupils’ ability to talk about their progress and next steps
  
  

• support deeper thinking and metacognitive skills
  
  

• ensure learning is purposeful and clearly understood
  
  

Ultimately, this priority will help learners at Ysgol y Bryn become confident, self-aware individuals who can meaningfully describe their learning journey and recognise themselves as active participants in their own progress.

Curriculum Development Update

With the appointment of a new Headteacher in September 2024 and a new Deputy Headteacher in September 2025, who leads on curriculum development, we have undertaken a comprehensive curriculum review to ensure our provision continues to meet the needs of our learners and reflects the ambitions of the Curriculum for Wales.

Following this review, staff agreed that the time was right to revisit and refresh our school vision so that it fully aligns with our evolving learning contexts and our aspirations for Bryn learners. We have worked collaboratively with all stakeholders — including staff, pupils, governors and families — to evaluate our current curriculum arrangements and identify clear next steps for development.

As a result, we have begun designing a new long-term curriculum plan with learners’ interests at its heart. Strong cynefin anchors underpin each enquiry, ensuring learning is rooted in meaningful local, national and global contexts. Our curriculum now operates on a carefully structured three-year cycle, providing breadth, progression and purposeful coverage.

Each year, Expressive Arts, Humanities, and Science and Technology act as the key drivers for our enquiries. These Areas of Learning and Experience naturally lend themselves to authentic, enquiry-led contexts.

Literacy, Languages and Communication; Mathematics and Numeracy; and Health and Well-being are deliberately woven throughout every enquiry rather than acting as topic drivers. This ensures these fundamental skills and dispositions are developed consistently and purposefully across all learning. Although we identify drivers and sub-drivers for each enquiry, all Areas of Learning and Experience are developed termly to ensure breadth and balance.

Our new curriculum arrangements provide exciting and memorable experiences for learners, including whole-school events such as Film Fortnight and Film Week, which immerse pupils in authentic, creative learning opportunities.

Pupil voice is central to our approach. Learners play an active role in shaping enquiries, contributing ideas and helping to steer the direction of learning. This strengthens engagement, ownership and relevance.

We have also rebranded our previous “Pili Pal” and “Chilli” tasks into a unified approach called “Adventures.” This development followed investment in professional learning with Cath Delve and reflects our commitment to enquiry-based practice. Adventures now provide structured opportunities for independence, challenge and depth within each learning context.

Alongside curriculum design, we have reviewed and strengthened our provision across the school. This work began within classrooms but has expanded beyond them, recognising that provision encompasses all learning environments. We have developed and implemented a new Provision Planning and Adventure Policy, alongside consistent provision proformas across the school, ensuring high-quality, purposeful learning opportunities for all Bryn learners.

This work represents a significant step forward in embedding a curriculum that is enquiry-driven, rooted in learners’ interests, and underpinned by authentic, meaningful experiences.