School plans to put wellbeing at top of agenda as pupils

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 in Wales will return 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.

Many teachers say wellbeing is key and pupils need to socialise and catch up on lost activities before academic work.

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 starts for the children tomorrow, they will be feeding lambs, enjoying fairground rides, campfire singing, making kites and doing assault courses.

An ice-cream van will be parked in the schoolyard to give every child a free ice-cream and they will 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.

These will be used for fairground rides including teacup roundabouts and there will also be a hook a duck stall, a petting area with tortoises and an assault course.

“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.

By welcoming them back with two days of fun, which will also include paint-splatting, bubble-making, a teddy bears’ picnic and puppet shows, teachers hope to help children feel less worried about returning to school.

Although classrooms in Wales