RJ: "Cwrs Carlam" is a teaching approach that was designed to enable pupils
who come from English medium primary schools
to develop the linguistic skills in the Welsh language
that they're fluent by the time they leave the comprehensive.
The idea behind it is that by the time they're in year 9,
so after three years in a comprehensive school,
the pupils will be in a position to set their GCSEs in Welsh Language
and they will then go on in year 10 and 11 to study for their AAS and Welsh language.
Beyond that, they will leave the school when ready
to further education or employment with the language skill developed.
BW: Well, the Cwrs Carlam obviously gives the pupils an opportunity
to live themselves within the Welsh language
and to hear the Welsh language within a classroom and around school
and the extracurricular activities that we have on offer
and also to gain two extra qualifications early.
We have two transition teachers employed by the school in the primary school
so they're involved with teaching their pupils on a weekly basis
and they are then involved with
working in collaboration with the primary school teachers and assessing them
on a termly basis in the language skills:
reading, writing, and oracy, of course.
With the main emphasis on oracy within the Key Stage 2.
At the end of year 6,
their results with regards to the key stage levels in Welsh second language
as well as teacher assessments across the board in the core subjects,
CAT scores then decide
which pupils are suitable for the fast-track class.
With any language if it's about speaking and gaining the confidence
so giving them as enough opportunities to hear and use the Welsh language
is of the utmost importance,
and that is why we teach those five other subjects bilingually as well.
that would be history, RE, PE, PSC
so that they can hear the language all the time.
LC: In doing other subjects through the medium of Welsh's.
I think has widened our grasp with that subject
and give us a more complex grasp with that subject
and then in terms of Welsh giving us a wide vocabulary.
I think it has definitely improved my confidence linguistically
and just in communication and teamwork in skills
FT: I thought it'd be quite a hard transition
because I'm from an English-medium primary school
but I found that it was quite easy because this is not on your own
you've got all the teachers helping you as well
and then soon you doing subjects in Welsh like history, geography, and RE.
And soon you remember words in history
like 'canrif' is century and 'chwyldro' is revolution
so it was much easier than I thought it was going to be.
BW: The results with regards to Welsh at Key Stage 3, 4, and 5 are excellent
and, you know, well above national averages and local authority averages.
So I definitely think that it's benefited the school and the pupils in general.