A primary school in Barry, South Wales, has been recognised at the Tes Schools Awards, one of the biggest nights in the UK education calendar which was held on Friday 25th June.
Cadoxton Primary School in Barry won the community and collaboration award, impressing judges for its “fantastic” intergenerational work at the heart of the community, having a positive impact on other schools in the area.
Staff at the school have worked tirelessly to confront poverty and ensure that pupils, their families and the wider community have been supported during the pandemic.
At Cadog’s Corner Café, the school has established a “pay as you can” shop, in collaboration with FareShare, to ensure that no child goes hungry and that children can learn to make healthy food choices. The shop is run by parent volunteers in order to “upskill” parents, enabling them to develop essential work capabilities. Volunteers are also supported on courses such as money management, first aid and hygiene.
And as well as this, pupils run a “junk food café” to develop their cooking and entrepreneurial skills, making snacks from food that would normally go to waste and selling these to the community.
The “pay as you can” shops have proven so popular and beneficial that the school set up the “Big Bocs Bwyd” project to support eight other schools with similar projects. Its work was featured on Wales Online.
Cadoxton School also boasts a strong relationship with its local care home, offers bespoke courses for parents and carers and hosts an important base for teacher training in the area.
Judge Sir Tim Brighouse said: “In a year in which communities have appreciated their schools as never before, Cadoxton Primary School illustrated what ‘going the extra mile’ really means in its community, whether by the allotment it runs for the benefit of the community, or by its ‘pay as you can’ scheme or the many meals for those families in straitened circumstances.
“And it has collaborated with eight schools in other communities to spread these and other ideas affecting intergenerational work as well as providing what must be inspirational places for university students training to be teachers.”
Executive Headteacher Janet Hayward said:
“We are absolutely thrilled and delighted to have this kind of recognition of the work we’ve been doing.
“We’ve got a dedicated staff team who believe in the families they serve. We’ve been able to learn and grow with the families. We’ve had a little gathering to celebrate tonight; this means so much to Cadoxton and the community.”
Chief judge of the Tes Schools Awards and Editor of Tes magazine Jon Severs said:
“The Tes Schools Awards are the Oscars of education, recognising and celebrating everything that’s great about our schools and school staff. It is more important this year than ever before to celebrate the fantastic work schools do, because in the past 12 months they have gone above and beyond to ensure pupils were able to be educated and be kept safe in extraordinary circumstances. We were inundated with entries that demonstrated just how hard the pandemic made the work of schools, and just how amazing the response from staff has been. Congratulations to the winning schools and thank you to all school staff who do such vital work every day.”
