A primary school in Trefeglwys could eventually become a Welsh-medium school if a recommendation is approved by Powys County Council.

A public consultation was launched earlier this year into plans to change the language provision at Ysgol Dyffryn Trannon, the only provider of Welsh-medium primary education within the Llanidloes cluster. If approved by Cabinet, it will mean all pupils aged four to 11 will be taught in Welsh and English as first languages to be fully bilingual.

The council received 71 responses during the seven-week consultation including from as far as Cardiff and Telford.

Feedback was mixed with some noting that the school could be federated with Llanidloes schools, closing nearby village schools or introducing a Welsh stream in Llanidloes. Other suggested that the Council should look into secondary provision in the area to ensure pupils aged four to 18 can access can access every subject in Welsh, while another said children would be better learning Spanish, Mandarin or French, "almost anything but Welsh".

One consultation respondent in favour of the change said: "They should be making sure that everyone is aware that our school is in Wales. Historically Trefeglwys has always been a Welsh speaking area but has gradually become bi-lingual and English is now becoming predominant, which has not been a good thing for our village."

Another who disagrees with the move said "the reality is the English stream is wanted more than the figures will tell you, and part of the attraction of this gem of school being dual stream".

The proposal to change the language category of Ysgol Dyffryn Trannon to Welsh-medium was due to the small number of pupils currently accessing the school’s English-medium stream, Powys Council said. They said the current model is "unsustainable and requires addressing sooner".

The findings of the consultation report will be considered by the council's Cabinet on Tuesday, June 22.

Powys County Council leader, Cllr Rosemarie Harris, said: “We would like to thank all those who took part in the consultation exercise for this proposal. After considering all the consultation responses, the recommendation that I will be putting forward to Cabinet is to continue with the proposal by publishing the statutory notice formally proposing the change.

“In order to meet these aims and objectives within our Strategy for Transforming Education in Powys, we want to move Ysgol Dyffryn Trannon along the language continuum. This would ensure that all pupils attending the school have the opportunity to become fully bilingual, fluent in both Welsh and English, therefore contributing to the Welsh Government’s aspiration to achieve a million Welsh speakers by 2050.”

Cabinet will also be asked to continue with the process to change Ysgol Dyffryn Trannon from a dual-stream school to a Welsh-medium school, which would be introduced on a phased basis, year-by-year, starting with Reception in September 2022.

Powys County Council said the proposed change would not affect those pupils already at the school – pupils currently accessing English-medium provision at the school would be able to continue to access this provision until they leave school.

The council added that the proposal will help them deliver one of the aims in its Strategy for Transforming Education 2020-2030, which is to improve access to Welsh-medium provision across all key stages. The strategy was approved in April 2020.

If given the go-ahead, the council will publish a statutory notice formally proposing the change. It would then be required to consider another report to conclude the process.

The council’s Learning and Skills Scrutiny Committee considered the proposal on Wednesday, June 16.