A statutory notice period on plans to turn a Machynlleth's secondary school into the county's first all-age Welsh medium school is now underway.

Yesterday,(June 17), the council urged residents to send in their views after they kicked off a 28-day window for objections with the issuing of a statutory notice for the change to Ysgol Bro Hyddgen, which would see the school switch from a dual-stream school to a Welsh-medium school, where students are taught entirely through the medium of Welsh.

The county council says pupils from non-Welsh speaking homes joining the Reception class in the future would learn Welsh at school and acquire the language skills needed to access Welsh-medium education. They say this would allow them to be fully bilingual and able to communicate effectively in both languages.

However the proposals have proved controversial in the town, with critics saying dual-stream education promotes greater inclusion, and that retaining the existing arrangements would offer pupils and parents "a right to education in their choice of language".

Those in favour believe a switch to Welsh-medium education would be a boost to the number of Welsh language speakers in the area, and allow young people to feel "embedded in Welsh culture".

The proposed change is set to be introduced year-by-year, starting with the school’s Reception class in September 2022.

Cllr Phyl Davies, Cabinet Member for Education and Property, said: "Moving Ysgol Bro Hyddgen along the language continuum would help us meet the aims and objectives within our Strategy for Transforming Education in Powys. It would also 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.

"However, it is important that Cabinet hears the views of those who object to the proposal before any final decisions are made and I would urge them to send their views to us so that they can be considered."

A public consultation held last year showed 61% of those surveyed supported the proposals to switch to Welsh-medium education.

However campaigners say that consultation was not representative of public opinion in Machynlleth, with nearly 1,000 signatures now having been gathered on a petition against the proposals.

"What was becoming apparent in town was that there was a lot of people who didn't know about it because it wasn't publicly available to hand - we were in the middle of a pandemic at the time," said dual-stream campaigner Juelles Holt.

"The consultation was very wordy and a lot of people felt disenfranchised from it. They felt the local aspect was being lost in the consultation because it was open far and wide.

"Where we're coming from is that we feel that inclusion and equality is being missed. Every child is an individual, they've all got individual needs and the provision that we've got now meets everybody's needs, so why change it?"

The council say additional support would be provided to pupils to improve their Welsh language skills, including opportunities for so-called "immersion education", although specific details on these plans have not yet been made clear.

The official objection period will close on Thursday, 15 July, 2021.