My excuse for publishing this picture of boys and girls from all over South Wales enjoying Kwik Cricket during the lunch interval of the second day of the test match against the Australians in Cardiff is that there are probably one or two children from Catwg Primary in there somewhere.

I couldn’t resist linking to this vintage Pathé 1945 general election short, even though it has no local interest (apart from the Welsh dragon flag in the background!). It is of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal leader in 1945, reminding the voters of the progressive policies which the Liberal Party had introduced - the secret ballot, health & unemployment insurance and free education, for instance. Labour did a lot between 1945 and 1949, but it is easy to forget how the foundations had been laid by Liberal governments, and by Liberal thinkers like Keynes and Beveridge.

Sinclair lost his seat of Caithness & Sutherland in that Labour landslide. Perhaps he didn’t campaign too hard locally, relying on a “promise by Sinclair’s Conservative opponent to resign his seat in Sinclair’s favour if he won. Needless to say, the promise went unfulfilled” (Liberal Democrat History Group biography). The beneficiary (if that’s the correct word) as leader of the Liberal Party was Clement Davies, member for Montgomery, now held by Lembit Öpik.

Alcohol abuse is the next “task-and-finish” project to be tackled by Neath Port Talbot’s Social Services Health and Housing Scrutiny Committee. A reminder of this comes from a report in today’s Daily Post (the equivalent of the Western Mail in North Wales) that there has been a large rise in the number of mid-teens girls being found drunk and disorderly.

Locally, there has been some discussion about the designation of alcohol-free zones (AFZs). Children’s playgrounds and other open spaces would be prime candidates. One has already been established in Skewen (in Coedffranc community) at the suggestion of the police, who were obviously confident of supervising it. This is the sticking point: these zones work only if the police are able and willing to patrol them. So far, we don’t know the attitude of the police to AFZs in Cadoxton, or in Blaenhonddan generally.

If people feel there is a case for a local defined area to be designated an AFZ, the next PACT meeting (July 14th at Llangatwg School) would be a good time to raise the matter with the police.

The computer to which these Liberal Democrat councillor blogs have been transferred has behaved impeccably so far (unlike its predecessor, which was overloaded and tended to switch itself off gratuitously), so I am seriously applying myself to writing up the backlog of items to be noted here.

“Catching up” was an apt description of what I was doing at Catwg school recently. Under a new initiative, governors are ‘linked’ to particular responsibilities or subject areas. The linked governor takes an interest in and gains more detailed knowledge of their area, getting the body of governors more involved in the school without all of us having to know everything about every subject. When subjects were being allocated, IT was a natural for me as it has been my speciality for most of my working life. (It also avoided me having to take on a subject in which my formal education had finished over a generation ago!) However, I was aware that my own specialisation had become narrower and narrower, and that the world of information technology had moved on since my last proper programming course.

So it was with some trepidation that I went to the school last week to be briefed by Mrs Maunder, the school’s information technology specialist. I need not have worried, as Mrs Maunder gave me a very clear and thorough exposition of the application of IT in the school. The first thing to be remarked on was the way that IT was integrated virtually seamlessly into every other subject, and taken on board by the other teachers.

However, there was one constant from twenty years ago: LOGO. Those of us who bought Amstrad PCWs with their green screens and 3″ exchangeable disks all those years ago, mainly to do basic word-processing,  will remember the bonus of a simple programming language which moved a “turtle” round the screen. As an introduction to the concept of programming, it has proved very hardy, especially when married to a real object to be manoeuvred round its little corral. I could even remember some of the instructions after all this time!

Last Thursday, I joined chairman of the school governors, Bryn John, and a group of parents for an ITC-related evening at Catwg school. PC Mark Harris, schools liaison officer, gave a talk, illustrated by a DVD from CEOP about the dangers of sexual predators on the Internet and other ways in which children could be at risk. The scenarios in the DVD, and some of Mark’s anecdotes, were frightening. There were two messages I brought back from his presentation: parents should get more involved, and that however deeply children were drawn in, it was never to late to tell.

Afterwards, we saw how computers were being used to help children’s learning and spoke to teachers about this. The interactive whiteboards were very impressive.

Coincidentally, Liberal Democrat News next morning reported on a visit by party leader Nick Clegg to Google UK to discuss internet safety.

Update 2009-3-24: Gary Lewis of Maesteg passed on the following items:

Yet again, web safety has hit our TV screens following a situation involving a 12 yr old girl on a chat page.  She was chatting with what she understood initially to be a 13yr old lad, but following the way the chat was going she mentioned it to her teacher at school as they were discussing web safety in school.  The teacher became suspicious and reported it to the police who have now traced it to Holland and believe it may be an older person doing some grooming.

Following this I thought a number of you might have children or grandchildren that could be at risk and hence I believe in making people aware of the situation and hopefully point you to some useful sites.

One mentioned on TV this morning was www.missdorothy.com and the safety page is -
http://www.missdorothy.com/more/safety_tips.php
The above site is more geared to girls but the “rules” are basically unisex, and if anyone finds any other useful sites, if they let me know I will always forward them to others. 

Web safety is paramount.

Another useful site is http://www.getsafeonline.org/ and is well worth a visit if you have any doubts whatsoever.

I hope you found this information helpful, and please feel free to pass it on accordingly.  If you do “forward” the email then please remove any email address that appears on your copy.

Also, when sending an email to several people, it’s better to ‘Bcc:’ the emails rather than send ‘To:’ as then it doesn’t broadcast everyone’s email address to all and sundry.  This preserves each individual’s anonymity and protects their ID from possible spam emails in the future.

Catwg Primary School’s contribution to Health Challenge Wales has been running for some five years now, but I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t learn about it until I became LEA governor at the school. By picking up a bag-full of freshly picked organically-grown vegetables on a Thursday for less than the price of two pints of beer, I feel not only healthier, but have also reduced my carbon footprint a little.

Council news report is here.

I have been appointed as a Local Education Authority Governor at Catwg Primary School, with effect from last Monday.

I have been unsuccessful in a bid to join the board of governors of Llangatwg School.