We have successfully applied for a Taith funded 2-year project called POYPITS (Pressures On Young People In Today’s Society) with three other partner schools in Germany, Estonia and Turkiye. The project has focused on a student led approach to examining the effects of different factors on the mental health and wellbeing of our 14- to 18-year-old exam years students. The programme has had 3 outward mobilities, to Turkiye, Estonia and Germany. Each mobility has had a distinct different subject area agreed through trans-national meetings. The inward mobility to Wales from the other schools, was a festival to summarise findings and reach joint research conclusions to produce a finalised project document.
The first mobility to Turkiye had a key focus on exam and curriculum stresses for young people.The project programme included opportunities for cultural linguistic learning. The students had a number of cultural experiences and they were able to visit the Çavdarhisar (Aisonai Temple) in Kütahya, take part in traditional glass painting, experience local cuisine and folk dancing in a local restaurant and experience historical visit to ancient Roman ruins. As the students were staying with host families a fully immersed cultural experience was had by all students. Also due to transit times the students had a stop-over in Istanbul and had a chance to visit the Blue Mosque and also the Grand Bazaar. To aid language learning one of the visiting students was a Turkish speaker and this certainly helped with both the language learning and cultural awareness of the mobility.
TaithThe Estonia programme for the students was comprehensive mixture of cultural activities, language learning and time to work on the project work and its key focus on the impact of social media and gender. The students had a chance to visit a medieval castle called the Archebald – Medieval Centre, do folk dancing, learn Estonian and Welsh, they also made eco-products to relieve stress. The students had a chance to explore the island of Saaremaa, it’s wildlife, history and island culture. Estonia cuisine was also part of the cultural exchange both with the host families and also a group meal at a local restaurant.
The focus areas for the Germany mobility were agreed with Estonia researching the impact of War, Turkey researching the impact of the Environment, Germany researching the impact of Technology and Wales with a focus on the Economy as stress factor. A programme of activities was presented by the German partner school in advance which had scheduled trans-national meetings with the Estonian and Türkiye schools. The programme for the Welsh students was comprehensive mixture of cultural activities, language learning and time to work on the project work. Examples of the activities were a welcome meeting at Speyer town hall, a guided tour of Speyer with the head teacher Ms. Möller and a dinner at the Christmas market including the official opening. Also, a visit to the castle ruin Rietburg, the Palatinate Forest and a visit to Heidelberg. Again, times were allocated for trans-national teams’ meetings and language learning.
The Estonian, German and Welsh students were given a fun activities day at Bounce Below, as to give our guests a view of the industrial heritage and geography of Wales. The students were also taken on a tour of Llangollen, including Castell Dinas Brân and the Horseshoe falls. There was a range of Welsh language activities such as a Welsh lesson delivered to the Estonian and German teams by the Head of Welsh Mr Phillips. Also, the Welsh department, along with our Welsh feeder primary schools, delivered a Welsh musical cultural evening with musical and poetry performances by both the primary school and secondary students. This was involving parents and teachers from the local community who were invited into the audience and following the musical evening, a Welsh taster menu was provided to students, teachers and parents with traditional Welsh cuisine. Students were given methodologies of relaxation from Yoga to advice from a charity called inspire who work with young people and are based at Wrexham hospital presented on stress management techniques. There were also presentations from Capital FM national news broadcaster Mair Thomas on the role of media and Mrs Allen 6th Form Pastoral Lead spoke about strategies as the LGBTQ plus rep of helping support young people from those communities. There were workshops through the week involving online input from the Turkish students, to bring together the findings from all the mobilities into a key document to present their findings and their solutions to Mr Hatch our headteacher. This was shared and taken to the participating countries school leaders.
We have for many years run an ICE (International Curriculum Enrichment) Week during our shared hosting of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in July. We continue to have a close working relationship with the International Eisteddfod with all students during Curriculum Enrichment week continuing to participate in international work on a themed basis. Some are based at the International Eisteddfod working as part of the Eisteddfod team and all students have a chance to experience the Eisteddfod first-hand.
During the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod, the school hosts competitors from all over the world who compete in the Eisteddfod. Events take place in the school hall with all students from year 7 to 9 given an opportunity to see the competitors. Students have an opportunity to join in and learn traditional dance from across the world ranging from traditional Irish dancing to dancers from India, Nepal, Indonesia, Africa and America. Students will also have the opportunity to listen to traditional poetry, traditional song and hear from the competitors about the different cultural traditions of their heritage. All students have an opportunity to visit the Eisteddfod field to see the different nationalities and acts present at the Eisteddfod. Students from Ysgol Dinas Bran also have the opportunity to work at the Eisteddfod as grounds staff, brochure sellers and as ushers who work both during the day and at the evening performances. The Head boy and Head regularly lead the possession through town and students have done a reading for the peace message on the main stage of the Eisteddfod. We also enter performers into the musical categories including the school choir.
The International Expedition programme has been running for over a decade at Ysgol Dinas Bran. We have students from years 10 to 13 (at time of departure) going on these expeditions, indeed we had an ex-student who was at university helping staff at one expedition. Our first expedition was in 2008 to Borneo, we have since had expeditions to Tanzania in 2010, Peru 2012, India 2014, Nicaragua and Costa Rica 2016, Mozambique and South Africa 2019 and in 2023 a team went to Sri Lanka.
All the expeditions involve a physical challenge, a community school programme, an environmental and a cultural programme. This year it involved a conservation project and working with a schools and communities in Sri Lanka. The upcoming Expedition will be to Malayan Borneo in 2025 and will involve a community school-based project with a family homestay and also a marine conservation project staying with the local community. The students have done research on Malayan Borneo creating a research presentation on the money, climate, religion, culture, history and environment on Borneo. Also, part of the research is to learn some key phrases in Malay, so they can interact and get the most out of the community projects when they are on their homestays.
The project aimed at getting students further engaged with politics and global affairs. It also aimed to get students to research the different party’s agreements and disagreements in terms of domestic and global policy. The students were able to research a very different political system and see the similarities and differences between US and UK politics, including the much greater role religion plays in US politics. The students developed their independent research skills and they also learned how to very their question styles, knowing when to use open or closed questions to get the best answer. Also, they understood how to deploy soft opening questions to relax the political representative being interviewed as to get the best response and most out of the interview. The students were praised by host of the digital dialogue and the Republican Congressman from Oregon and the Democratic Congresswomen from California for their insightful, researched questions and their personal delivery. One student who took part in the project has applied to study International Relations and another has applied to study Law and Politics.
This British Council Module will be a cross-curricular study of the causes of conflict around the world. The students will focus on the use of digital technology to deliver research presentations about the following topics; Northern Ireland, the partition of India, conflict diamonds and child soldiers in Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Apartheid in South Africa.
The students choose one of the example World Civilisations (or their own choice) to research, create a display poster, PowerPoint and speech, and then as a group they had to present to the class. The students also had a review sheet to evaluate their and their peer’s work. Students were given a choice to join a group and then use a range of resources to research their chosen World Civilisation. The examples were Native American Indians, Aztecs, Mali Empire, Mughal India, Imperial China and Aboriginal society. The students were given clear guidance through a task sheet with the aims and objectives being to give a historic, societal and geographic background of their chosen society. Language, architecture, money and food were also elements which were to be included on their presentations.
The students had to research and create presentations using iPads, Chromebooks as well as large A1 paper. Some choose to do the display poster in 3D with models on it, others did models of the Taj Mahal, the mud mosque of Bamako, the Imperial Palace in Beijing China, Aztec temples and also the Tepee’s of Native North Americans. This is part of the new year 8 CFW topic which looks at pre-European civilisations, exploration, conquest, racism, slavery, the British Empire and the experiences of the Windrush generation. The aim is to unpick causes of racism in present day society and link it to 500 years of slavery and conquest. It is also important for students to realise that there are different indigenous cultures and languages which existed before European colonisation.
To give a full synoptic understanding of the impact of European expansionism across half a millennium on the world we live in today and how this has shaped modern British society, we have put together a British Empire and Migration module. We will also look at the cultural, linguistic, social, political and economic impact the British Empire has on almost a quarter of the world’s population. The students will then look at the story of the Windrush Generation and their experiences when arriving after WW2 to help rebuild Britain.