6:00pm Sunday 12th August 2012
Two Estyn reports have raised concerns about standards in two Fishguard schools.
Fishguard’s primary school, Ysgol Glannau Gwaun, has been placed under special follow-up measures following Estyn’s visit to the school in April.
The report says that current performance at the school, which opened in its new building in September, is adequate, but prospects for improvement are unsatisfactory.
Reasons given for the categorisation include unstable leadership, shortcomings in the school’s self evaluation and development plan and not enough progress being made in addressing the recommendations in the last inspection in 2006.
The report also says that there is too much inconsistency in the standard of teaching and assessment, a considerable minority of pupils are making progress that is lower than expected and the results for pupils at the end of key stage 2 are consistently lower than the average for the family of similar schools.
Inspectors did note many strengths at the school, particularly in the aspects of care, the learning environment, support and guidance, links with parents and other partnerships.
The school will now receive additional monitoring, support and guidance.
Estyn will visit the school each term to monitor progress and they will conduct another full inspection next May.
Pembrokeshire County Council staff have drawn up an action plan and will be working closely with the school’s staff and governors to raise standards and secure improvement.
Parents will receive a copy of the school’s post-inspection plan by October half term.
Inspectors visited the town’s secondary school, Ysgol Bro Gwaun, in April of this year. They said that the school’s current performance and prospects for improvement were adequate.
Inspectors noted a lot of good practice at the school, including its inclusive ethos, extra-curricular activities good quality of teaching in many lessons and the pupils’ attitudes to school and their lessons.
However, its overall current performance was only judged as adequate for reasons including: below average performance in exams, untidy presentation of work with unnecessary errors, significant under performance by boys and inconsistency in the quality of marking The report, which is publicly available on the Estyn website, also states that 51% of pupils at the school, which has the maximum budget per pupil in Pembrokeshire, have special educational needs, more than twice the Welsh average.
Recommendations made by the inspectors include raising standards in Key Stages 3 and 4 especially among boys and improving the quality of pupils’ handwriting, presentation and spelling.
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