Bangor University supports the learning experiences of school aged children with information and activities across the six Areas of Learning and Experience within the Curriculum for Wales.
CIEREI is a collaborative, bilingual, multi-disciplinary institute, working with the schools’ improvement agency (GwE) for the creation of research evidence. The primary aim is to positively impact learning and wellbeing for children through schools.
Our support for the six Areas of Learning Experience (AoLE) in the Curriculum for Wales
- Developed at Bangor University, the Food Dudes Programme uses Role-modelling and Rewards to encourage children’s repeated tasting of a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. With more than a million children now having taken part, Food Dudes has won many prestigious awards including the UK Chief Medical Officers Gold Award for Combating Obesity, a Public Health Excellence Award, and a World Health Organisation Best Practice Award for national delivery to primary schools in Ireland.
- Urbanisation, passive travel to and from school, limited access to safe play spaces, and the strong temptations of screen time, channel children towards increasingly sedentary lives both inside and outside the home. The newly created Dynamic Dudes programme, a sister programme to Food Dudes, is a not-for-profit, evidence-based, behaviour change programme for children and teachers in primary schools, featuring the same heroic characters - Charlie, Rocco, Razz and Tom. The videos are available in both Welsh and English. The Dudes practice to perfect the spectacular movement skills we’ve seen them perform in the Dude Den - skills that have helped the Dudes thwart the evil schemes of General Junk and the Junk Punks.
- Centre for Evidence-based Early Intervention (CEBEI), led by Prof. Judy Hutchings has over 25 years of experience in researching and delivering programmes that aim to improve children’s health and wellbeing, including the Incredible Years® series, which has a strong evidence base demonstrating its effectiveness in delivering effective and sustained change in parent, teacher and child behaviour, and the KiVa antibullying programmes
- The Multilanguage Assessment Battery of Early Literacy (MABEL) is the first freely available, web-based resource, uniquely offering a battery of tests across five languages for monolingual, bilingual, and second language assessment. Primary beneficiaries are practitioners lacking objective, high quality, evidence-based assessments for early detection of children’s risk for, and manifestations of, literacy failure. Since September 2019, over 600 practitioners in 22 countries have become users of MABEL.
- Headsprout Early Reading is an online, computer-delivered programme developed by experts in the application of learning sciences to education. The programmes have been designed to include the elements that research identifies as important to success in reading, and they provide individualised teaching that can be delivered with minimal support from staff trained in using Headsprout.
- The Miles Dyslexia Centre is a self-financing, nationally and internationally renowned, specialised Centre within the School of Human and Behavioural Sciences at Bangor University. The Miles Dyslexia Centre team of highly trained specialist assessors and educational psychologists provide a wide range of assessments for both adults and children.
- CEIREI a collaborative, bilingual, multi-disciplinary institute, working with the schools’ improvement agency (GwE) conducts research into Developing Literacy, including adapting and evaluating an oracy-based tool offering teaching strategies to support oracy development in Welsh, based on Ein Llais Ni.
- Sôn am Lyfra aims to provide bilingual reviews of Welsh-language books for children and young people. The website has been created by one of our PhD students who, as a teacher, was aware of the difficulties children, parents and teachers have in selecting books at the appropriate language level for those who are L2 in Welsh.
SAFMEDS
Dr Kaydee Owen has been working with GwE over the COVID-19 period to create some resources for their accelerating skills/re-ignite learning package.
SAFMEDS-GwE is a comprehensive support package that aims to support the development of fluent maths and numeracy skills across the 4-16 continuum. Pupils can use the Say-All-Fast-Minute-Every-Day-Shuffled (SAFMEDS) strategy at school or at home and apply it to either handheld or virtual flashcards. The package includes resources to support the national curriculum, online training videos, and virtual support via email/Microsoft Teams.
Schools can access training and printable resources via the GwE support centre (these are available in English and Cymraeg). In September 2021 we will also be launching our new websites, to allow pupils to apply the strategy to virtual flashcards.
- Creu ar Draws Ieithoedd /Creating Across Languages is a collaboration with GwE Gogledd. As part of an AHRC leadership fellowship, Prof Zoë Skoulding has created a set of videos on teaching poetry in translation to Years 8 and 9 as part of the new Curriculum for Wales. The 11 videos, which are each about 20 minutes long, feature workshops and interviews with poets. Zoë has worked with education advisers in Welsh, English and French to develop the resources, and from September 2021 teachers will provide input on the accompanying materials, ready for trial with pupils early in 2022.
- A new three-year project, led by Prof Lucy Huskinson at the University’s School of History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences will collate and develop new teaching materials for use by both teachers and students and encourage more current university students to become subject teachers.
- The ‘Cyflwyniad i Gymdeithaseg’ (Introduction to Sociology) is part of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol’s resource pack to support the teaching of Sociology in the Welsh language and has been written by Dr Cynog Prys and Dr Rhian Hodges, both members of the School of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences at Bangor University. In collaboration with the cartoonist, Huw Aaron, present revision textbooks for Sociology in a fun and memorable way in Welsh, hoping it will lead more Welsh speakers to consider a career in the field.
As a leading University with an international reputation for teaching and research as well as a strong commitment to the economic, social and cultural well-being of Wales, Bangor University is proud to be at the heart of the Menai Science Park, or M-SParc
Do you like learning about science in school? Maybe you've been thinking about choosing a science subject for your A-levels, or even at University. Or maybe you've been thinking about starting your own company with a new and innovative idea. M-SParc wants to help with all these things. Maybe we can be the place where you start your company, or perhaps there is a company already at M-SParc who is looking for staff and can offer you work so that you do not have to move far from home to work!
M-SParc will also work with schools. As part of this, we have some games, videos, and information on this page to help you. Maybe you'll find something of interest! In collaboration with the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering M-Sparc support and inspire young scientists with a range of activities from understanding rainbows to using JavaScript programming.
Technocamps at Bangor University is based in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.
Technocamps is a wide-reaching digital partnership, to support digital upskilling across Wales. Our free programmes are funded by the European Social Fund, Welsh Government and HEFCW.
Prof Enlli Thomas led an exploratory study into the provision for Welsh-medium stem subjects. The Pdf can be read here.
Bangor University also provides subject level support for learners at GCSE and A-Level.