Barry Comprehensive School

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Numeracy mentoring from staff at the local Dow Corning chemical plant is just one of the unique ways in which Barry Comprehensive School is raising the profile of Basic and Key Skills development in maths for pupils at the school.

On the 5 th December Mr. Hicks (Assistant Headteacher), Ms. Bagshaw (Head of Maths) and Morgan Rowe and Jack Hustler, two Year 9 pupils who had been involved in the project, were invited to the Basic Skills Agency’s National Conference in Westminster in London where they were interviewed about the successes of the partnership. HRH the Princess Royal, who is the Patron of the Basic Skills Agency, chaired the session and was introduced personally to the staff and pupils form the School and showed a keen interest in the School’s forward thinking approach to numeracy.

As the Head of Maths, Sarah Bagshaw explains, ‘It was important to get everybody behind this focus on literacy and numeracy – parents, the local town, industry.’ Local chemical plant Dow Corning came forward to offer the school the services of their own staff as ‘industry mentors’. The opportunity was too good to miss.

The school selected 40 pupils to receive the mentoring. Ten industry mentors from Dow Corning visit the school once a week and work with a group of four to five pupils on healthy eating projects incorporating maths. The project is a win/win situation for school and company alike. One of the industry mentors, Vicky Edwards explains, ‘We use the mentoring programme as a way to improve the mentoring skills of our staff at Dow Corning.’ The Cardiff and Vale section of Careers Wales have worked in partnership with the school, offering their expertise in briefing and developing the skills of the mentors.

The school also feels it has gained enormously from the programme and a recent survey of mentors and pupils revealed that 85% of the boys involved would recommend the mentoring process in which they learn about maths in a real life context and not just through doing sums. The work they do builds towards their keyskills portfolios and Mr. Hicks feels confident that when the results come in, the mentoring project will have had a significant impact on pass rates.

Allan Wells, Head of the Basic Skills Agency, has already written to thank the school for its contribution to the conference and to praise the mentoring scheme. Mr Wells also commented, “your pupils were a credit to your school and were very brave to be interviewed in front of a large audience”.

At the time of writing, the launch of the mentoring partnership 2006 is just underway at the School and all involved are hoping it will be another ‘ right Royal’ success!!

Photos :

1. In front of the conference audience (L to R) Vicky Edwards, Sarah Bagshaw, Jack Hustler, Morgan Rowe and Jason Hicks
2. Allan Wells talks to Jack on stage
3. Allan Wells talks to Morgan on stage
4. Morgan meets HRH The Princess Royal
5. Jack meets HRH The Princess Royal
6. The boys squeeze in some sightseeing