School highlights from across Wrexham and Flintshire

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Broughton Primary School

Broughton Primary School Reading Champions at the Mold WH Smith store with staff member Joanne Latham.

Children at the Flintshire school continued to celebrate World Book Day, thanks to a bumper bundle of books from retailer WH Smith.

Three Reading Champions - Ffion, Ava and Freddie - visited the store on Mold High Street to collect about 600 books for pupils in all classes

The Reading Champions are a group of seven Year 6 youngsters with a passion for literature who plan a variety of ways to encourage and celebrate reading across the school.

WH Smith organised for every child to order a title of their choice from a host of new releases to take home to mark World Book Day.

Broughton Primary School Reading Champions sorting through the donated books.

Ffion, Ava and Freddie were joined by fellow Reading Champions Isabella, Imrie, Eva and Laura to organise the delivery to ensure every pupil will receive their favourite book.

Teacher and literacy coordinator Bethan Evans said: "We would like to thank WH Smith and the store leader, Keith Griffiths, for helping to order and organise the books for our school."

Teachers at the school also swapped classes to share their favourite stories with the children, classes are participating in a Masked Reader competition and all children will be given the opportunity to talk about books, listen to stories and celebrate reading in a variety of ways.

Ysgol Ty Ffyynnon, Deeside

Ysgol Ty Ffynnon Red Nose raffle winners - Daisy, Niclaus, Michael, Alecia and Ervin.

The School Council arranged a Red Nose raffle and a Crazy Hair Day to raise money for Comic Relief.

So far they have raised more than £350. Pictured are the lucky raffle prize winners.

School Council say a big thank you to everyone who bought tickets and donated to the cause, and to Louise Edwards, Aura Wales and Flip Out who kindly donated the prizes.

Ysgol Maes Y Felin, Holywell

Standing by the gates of Westminster.

A GROUP of pupils from the school travelled to London for an exciting, once in a lifetime experience of being part of the Commonwealth Day celebrations.

After applying for tickets and being selected as one of the schools to represent Wales, eight pupils from Ysgol Maes Y Felin, accompanied by David Thomas, headteacher, and Becky Saunders, department lead for Years 1 and 2, made the journey by train to attend the Commonwealth Service held at Westminster Abbey last week.

The Service celebrates the people and cultures of the Commonwealth's 56 nations and was attended by a congregation of 2,000, including Queen Camilla, the Prince of Wales and other members of the Royal Family, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, High Commissioners, senior politicians and dignitaries from across the UK and the Commonwealth, alongside Commonwealth Games athletes, faith leaders, and more than 600 school children from the United Kingdom.

Marking the Commonwealth's 75th anniversary this year, a mix of readings, dance, and musical performances from a range of talented artists reflected the theme for the Service, One Resilient Common Future: Transforming our Common Wealth. The theme reiterates the Commonwealth's founding pledges: a commitment 75 years ago to 'peace, liberty and progress' in the London Declaration.

The pupils pictured with a Horse Guard, Westminster Walk.

Mr Thomas said: "It was a privilege to attend the Commonwealth Service and to be a part of an international celebration of culture and diversity from countries from across the world was very special, and a wonderful experience for our pupils.

"The children had a fantastic time in London and, for many of them, it was their first ever visit to the capital. They learnt a lot about the history of London and the Commonwealth."

Mrs Saunders added: "The Commonwealth Service educated the children on the annual celebration of the unique bond between the 56 countries. Westminster Abbey surprised us all with it's beauty and all the history it holds. We enjoyed our visit around London visiting the sights and treasures. It was a memorable day that the children will always remember."

Pupil Logan Hughes said: "It was a great experience, I liked seeing Big Ben and the King's Guards," and Harri Morrell said: "We had a great time, it was fun, and we saw Prince William!"

Hat's off for Children's University graduates

MORE than 400 young learners from across Flintshire and Wrexham graduated from North Wales Children's University after successfully completing a range of extracurricular learning activities and experiences.

The ceremonies took place in Wrexham University last month in Wrexham University for children and young people who have taken part in the Children's University initiative. Further ceremonies are planned which will celebrate the achievements of a further 200 children and young people for Conwy and Denbighshire and Gwynedd and Anglesey.

Children's University Graduates celebrate outside Wrexham University.

The inspirational scheme celebrates participation in learning activities and opportunities outside school hours by encouraging children and young people to try new learning experiences, in a bid to nurture a lifelong love of learning and raise their aspirations.

The successful graduation ceremonies across two days in Wrexham University were a testament to all the hard work from Children who achieved 30 or more hours of extracurricular learning, their teachers who have supported and put on extra clubs for the children and the whole Civic Mission Team for running this incredible initiative. Two performances during the ceremonies were from Sophia Isabella Roberts, Victoria CP School, Wrexham and Scarlett Thompson, Flint High School.

As part of the day, there was special entertainment and activities in Maes Gwyn, as well as a number of well-known character cos-players surprising the children throughout the event.

Nina Ruddle, head of public policy engagement at Wrexham University, said: "This work is part of our commitment to supporting the communities we serve across the region, created through strong partnership and collaboration with a wide range of organisations all working to create change to support children and young people.

Sophia Isabella Roberts during her performance.

"Our aim now is to develop this work further across North Wales to support leadership, mental wellbeing and a love of learning for young people that connects all of our community resources together.

"This is a really inspiring way to enable young people to develop life skills and create broader opportunities to shape the learning children and young people want together."

Following a successful pilot of the initiative across Wrexham and Flintshire last year, the scheme expanded across North Wales between September 2023 through to this month, thanks to funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW).

This funding enabled Wrexham University to work with Bangor University and as a key collaborative partner and a number of other regional partners to roll out the scheme to more than 50 schools, as part of a shared civic mission to work in partnership to end social inequality in the region.

More than 200 learning destinations were recruited across Wrexham, Flintshire, Conwy, Denbighshire, Gwynedd and Anglesey as part of this latest roll-out of the Children's University in North Wales.

Graduates were congratulated personally by the Vice Chancellor and received their certificates.

Rob Williams, teacher at Southdown Primary in Buckley, said: "Since starting the CU pilot scheme, there has been a positive impact on all the children involved. It was clear to see how engaged they were in completing extracurricular activities in their own time, whether that be an activity/sport they have already took part in before the scheme or something new they have decided to try.

"It also gave the children time to think about what they have attained from each activity they took part in and were even able to assess themselves to see what they did well and how they could improve - which is something very important.

"It was great to see the children taking the responsibility upon themselves to gain hours of extra learning and experiences which will hopefully help them all along their journey."

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Maria Hinfelaar, vice chancellor at Wrexham University, who led the graduation ceremonies in Wrexham University said: "People often ask me what I'm really proud of looking back at my time as VC with Wrexham University. A strong contender for the proudest moment is the North Wales Children's University.

"The aim of the project is to build confidence and aspirations because these children have so much to offer.

"Seeing each one of them walk across the stage in our auditorium to receive my personal congratulations and their certificates, their beaming smiles and their proud family members in the audience, gave me real confidence that they have now developed a taste for learning.

"It also gave me hope that the graduates realise they have the ability to be the future engineers, nurses, IT experts, architects, accountants, designers and so many more professionals that our economy and society is desperately going to need."