Charles Williams Church in Wales Primary School in Caerleon is nearing its first birthday. Carys Thomas went to find out how the year has been.

IN April last year, Caerleon Endowed Infants and Caerleon Endowed Juniors joined together to form the new primary school. It was named after Charles Williams who gave an endorsement to the school when it was founded in 1724.

Mr Williams decided to endow a school in his home town where children could be educated free of charge while being taught the principles of the Christian religion. The school has grown to 535 pupils from nursery age to Year 6.

Jared Nolan, who was head of Usk Church in Wales Primary School, has been head of Charles Williams since its amalgamation. He said children are very active in being a part of the school and its running including the school council.

The pupils on the council are currently campaigning for a bike rack. The children will be the ones who petition for funding from the school governors and the headteacher.

Mr Nolan said: “They are trying to promote active and healthy lifestyle in all classes from Year 1 up. They are starting a campaign and have done a survey of how many children cycle to school.

“We would probably need a big shelter with space for 30 bikes to start. It’s encouraging that they take part.”

Nine-year-old Lara Hayle, of Year 4, recently raised £363 for the RSPCA with a dress up as animals day in the school. She organised the fundraiser herself creating posters and making a video.

The school has an ambassador system which consists of a head girl and boy and their deputies. The primary is part of a family of schools who work together including Langstone Primary, Usk Church in Wales Primary, the Dell Primary in Chepstow and Radyr Primary in Cardiff.

Mr Nolan said: “We meet once a term as a group to see how as a unit we can improve. We now take the four ambassadors to be part of that.

“They spend time experiencing the school going to lessons and then write a report on what they would like to see and how to improve things.”

The children take iPads with them to take photos and record notes from their visits.

The school has many different clubs for children to be involved with including cooking, Minecraft, chess and bible club.

Mr Nolan said: “We recently won a Newport school sport award for the pupils’ participation in sport. We are trying to get them more involved in sport. We aim to restart the rugby team this year.”

Almost half of the school are involved in music with the infants choir and a junior choir. Currently ever Year 2 is learning the violin and 70 of them will be playing at an exhibition at Newport Centre tomorrow.

Mr Nolan said mathematics has been going strong in the school with 13 pupils from Years 5 and 6 attending further maths at Caerleon Comprehensive School.

He said: “They are exceptional at maths – that’s what we want at the school.”

The school had its big opening in September with new uniforms and branding but the new build itself has been occupied since April 28, 2014.

Mr Nolan said: “It has been almost a year already and it has changed a lot. It has been hard work as the two schools were completely different.

“We’ve got great, hard-working staff. The hard work is sure to continue and progress seamlessly in the next few years.”

As a church school, the primary has strong links with the churches in the community and the Bishop of Monmouth, Richard Pain, who played a significant role in the opening of the new primary.

Mr Nolan said: “It is one of the great things about the school is its fantastic links with the community through the church here.”

The school motto is ‘Caes oleuni – Seek the light’ which ties in with the primary’s Christian values.

The values, including peace, forgiveness and thankfulness, underpin the core principles of every pupil and member of staff at Charles Williams. The theme when we visited the school was honesty and this half term the children will be learning about thankfulness.

The school has a very active parents and teacher association which raised £3,000 in the Christmas fair and usually raise between £8,000 and £12,000 in a year. School governors have been developing stronger links with pupils by going into classrooms.

The school is expecting an Estyn inspection in the next few months as it has to be completed 12 to 18 months after an amalgamation.

Mr Nolan said: “We are a good school heading in the right direction. Our classification under the new system was yellow – we scored 93.3 per cent. To obtain green it needs to be 93.4 per cent.

“It’s probably about right. You can’t award green status to a newly amalgamated school.”

He added: “We are expanding pupils – our reputation is good and is getting out there.”

Prior to the amalgamation, both the juniors and the infants had a 95 per cent attendance with 93 per cent of pupils achieving the expected outcome in Key Stage 2 and 100 per cent of pupils achieving the expected outcome in the foundation phase.

Charles Williams Primary School also prides itself on being an Eco School and part of Forest Schools Education. It has three eco flags and is currently working on obtaining a platinum flag.

Fact File

Headteacher Jared Nolan

Pupils: 535

Largest Class: 30

School motto: Caes Oleuni

Chair of governors: Rob Isaac

Estyn report 2009 for Caerleon Endowed Infant School

Six grade two's good features and no important shortcomings

One grade three good features outweigh shortcomings

Learners are well behaved throughout the day. They are helpful courteous and polite to each other and adults.

Examples of outstanding features in teaching include: high expectations of what pupils can achieve; and excellent use of time, pace and changes of activity throughout lessons.

Targets: to raise standards in English reading and mathematics at Level 3