A RURAL school with around 20 pupils is being placed in special measures, although several aspects of the way it’s run were praised.
Inspectors from Welsh Government education body Estyn visited Ysgol y Fro, Carmarthenshire, and picked up a safeguarding issue and found fault with the governing body.
They also want to raise teachers’ expectations to challenge pupils to achieve the best of their ability. Their report made five recommendations, and said Her Majesty’s chief inspector was of the opinion that special measures were required.
Carmarthenshire Council said it and the school accepted the findings.
The Estyn report said the Welsh-medium school, in Llangynderyn, south-east of Carmarthen, has 21 pupils on its roll, 15 of statutory school age.
It said school leadership has been unstable for a long time and that the acting headteacher – appointed last September – provided a “homely and Welsh ethos” for pupils, who learned and played happily together, and an inclusive environment.
The report said a majority of pupils made steady progress but that on the whole teachers’ expectations of what they could achieve were not always high enough. Pupils, it said, were not challenged to achieve work of the standard expected of them and activities did not align with their age and stage of development consistently enough.
Inspectors said teachers did have consistent standards regarding pupil behaviour and that many pupils had good attitudes to learning. A curriculum is being planned, said the report, to support pupil progression with stimulating activities. But, overall, learners did not develop their writing skills effectively.
The governing body was commended for supporting the acting headteacher but its members, said the report, did “not undertake their duties purposefully enough, for example in working with leaders to monitor and evaluate teaching and learning”.
Inspectors said governors did not manage funding of the school, which a separate council report has estimated could be around £100,000 in deficit, appropriately. However, many other schools in Carmarthenshire are also in the red.
Estyn’s five recommendations were to address the safeguarding issue identified, ensure consistent and sustained leadership, improve self-evaluation and planning for improvement procedures to strengthen provision and raise standards, plan provision that ensures the range and breadth in all areas of learning to support pupils to make progress in their skills, and raise teachers’ expectations to challenge pupils to achieve to the best of their ability.
A spokesman for the council said on its and the school’s behalf: “The local authority accepts the findings of the inspection and is supporting the school with its post-inspection action plan.”
Estyn will monitor progress roughly every four to six months.
