ALL THE FUN OF THE . . . SCHOOL!

RETURN TO CLASS WITH A DIFFERENCE:

FREE ice-cream and fairground rides in the schoolyard sounds like the stuff of dreams for most children. That’s exactly what pupils at one school returned to for the first day of term.

After a year of lockdown, school closures and remote learning, there has been debate about whether children need to catch up on school work or learn to be together again.

Staff at Penybont Primary in Bridgend decided to run two days of fun activities for their 349 pupils when school opens full-time for the summer term after 12 months of lockdown restrictions and disruption.

Headteacher Robbie Owen said children have “lost out on childhood” in the pandemic and need to learn to have fun together again.

When term started for the children on Monday, they were due to be feeding lambs, enjoying fairground rides, campfire singing, making kites and doing assault courses.

An ice-cream van was to be parked in the schoolyard to give every child a free ice-cream and they would also be able to make biscuits and fruit salad together.

Mr Owen, who has been headteacher since January 2020 and was deputy and acting head before that, said the school was lucky to have two large fields.

“Children have missed so much of their childhood experiences in the last year during the pandemic,” he said.

“Lots of our families are really lucky and the children do lots of things, but we also have a high proportion of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and we want them to have the same opportunities.

“All children have had a massive proportion of childhood taken away from them this year.”

The theme of childhood will run throughout the term, with teachers asking children what they want to learn in line with the new curriculum. That does not mean they won’t do schoolwork, but it will be more tailored to the themes they want.