£2.5m rural school plans announced by education secretary

Kirsty Williams is planning to give rural schools extra protection against closure

Details on how a £2.5m fund to support rural and small schools will be spent have been revealed by Welsh ministers.

The cash, to encourage schools to innovate and work more closely together, was announced last November.

A £280,000 grant for Gwynedd council is for plans that include the creation of after school "homework" clubs.

Wrexham council will employ a music teacher to work across a number of schools using some of the £94,000 grant it will receive.

All 22 Welsh local authorities are set to receive funding, including:

• £134,000 for Rhondda Cynon Taf council involving plans to improve technology in seven small schools

• £36,000 in Newport for schemes such as more working across schools to improve literacy and numeracy

• £23,000 for Merthyr Tydfil involving plans to employ a community link worker to increase the community use of school buildings

• £160,000 for Ceredigion including help for 22 small and rural schools to work together in groups on curriculum planning

Education Secretary Kirsty Williams, who is the assembly's only Liberal Democrat AM, said the extra cash would "benefit pupils, teachers, and the wider community".

"We are taking action and providing new funding to help small and rural schools deal with the unique challenges they face, such as small pupil numbers and issues in recruiting head teachers and staff," she said.

"I want to see rural schools working more formally together and across the country, forming federations and looking into the possibility of sharing buildings with other services to ensure school buildings remain viable."

Ms Williams said ministers were also considering responses to a consultation on changing the rules on school re-organisation plans to ensure a presumption against closing rural schools.

She has previously said not all would stay open, but that councils would have to consider all feasible alternatives.