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Wales' very first Welsh medium secondary, Ysgol Gyfun Gland Clwyd, has restarted a scheme it used to run in the 70s to help more pupils receive their education through the medium of Welsh in an area where the language is still under threat.
The school, located in St Asaph, has opened a "second chance" class in Year 7 for those who have been educated through the medium of English at primary level. Under normal circumstances, school budgets do not allow additional provision of this kind, but the school was able to introduce it under Denbighshire's Welsh Language Education Scheme and with financial support from the Welsh Language Board.
In the northwest of Wales, there exist immersion centres for the children of incomers, operated separately from the schools, but these do not exist in the more Anglicised areas further east. The Glan Clwyd scheme is not unprecedented, however: already, Ysgol Gyfun Maes Garmon in Mold, Flintshire, has been operating a similar scheme for some time, and Glan Clwyd itself used to do the same some time ago (from 1972 to 1993). That scheme had to be stopped because of falling numbers and financial pressures. Since that time, small numbers from non-Welsh schools have continued to join, and they have been successfully assimilated straight into the main stream of the school.
The new class has 17 pupils this year, with enough capacity for up to 22 in the future. These pupils are taught separately from their fellows in the vast majority of subjects to enable them to receive special help to develop their Welsh language skills. Headteacher Meurig Rees is confident that most of them will be ready to join the main stream of the school within a year or two. He praised the pupil's enthusiasm for choosing to follow this challenging course. They were given five weeks of intensive preparation before the summer and after their main primary school work was complete.
It is possible that other Welsh medium schools in the northeast will be considering introducting similar schemes of their own - Maes Garmon already operates one.
There is pressure on schools, quite rightly, not to be seen as poaching pupils from their neighbours, but Glan Clwyd is permitted under the undertakings of the county Welsh Language Education Scheme to write to all parents of primary school pupils before the start of the academic year informaing them about the second chance class.
There is other good news at Glan Clwyd at the moment: just six months have passed since the re-opening of the school theatre which has been given a new lease of life as a community facility as well as one just for the school. The newly named Theatre Elwy received a grant from the Arts Council to refurbish the old building and install the latest computer controlled sound and lighting systems as well as new audience seating.
Other facilities the school has gained recently include a floodlit all-weather pitch and sports hall newly refurbished with Lotery money.
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