Ceredigion County Council to leave ERW

THE final sign off on the plan to leave ERW – the regional education consortium – was approved by senior councillors this week.
Ceredigion County Council will join Neath Port Talbot County Council in leaving the scheme in the local region.

The local authority gave its notice to leave ERW a year a go and earlier this month its learning communities overview and scrutiny committee approved the final steps being taken after discussing the impact on school improvement and value for money.

A new scheme has been prepared to support teachers, schools, education and curriculum from April 1, 2021.
Ceredigion will maintain its curriculum support in literacy, numeracy and ICT as well as the options for teachers to develop skills, such as those used during covid-19 closures and remote learning, and it will all be available in Welsh, which was not the case with ERW.

Council leader Cllr Ellen ap Gwynn said the share of the grant allocation that previously went to ERW will come direct to the authority and it will be in a position to employ staff and commission specialists to provide secondary support  through the medium of Welsh, which was “deficient in ERW.”

There is also a plan to continue  working with Powys from August when it intends to pull out of the scheme.
“It gives more power into our staffs’ hands and we can depend on our staff to give their best and give their best leadership to the schools up and down the county,” she added.

At scrutiny Cllr ap Gwynn said that ERW had “been quite troublesome since it was established” and she was looking forward to April 1.
“It will be a good day, it won’t be an April fool,” she added.
Cabinet unanimously agreed at its meeting on March 16 that the final preparations to withdraw from the scheme be carried out by March 31.