Ebbw Fawr Learning Community and Blaenau Gwent Council have welcomed a strong and very positive Estyn report for the school.
The inspection body has released its findings following an inspection into the school in November 2023.
The report noted:
- Staff are committed to the school’s vision of creating a safe, secure, and caring environment to ensure that pupils are ‘learning to achieve together’. This vision is communicated clearly by the headteacher who is a strong role model that has high expectations of himself and others.
- Promoting pupil well-being is central to the school’s work and it has an extensive range of provision to support pupils in an inclusive and supportive environment.
- Leaders work well with each other and succeed in creating an ethos across the school sites that encapsulates the ‘Ebbw Fawr Way’ of being ‘Ready, Respectful and Safe’.
- Teachers engage pupils in their learning, provide valuable experiences that relate to their everyday lives and successfully remove barriers to learning.
- Leaders mitigate the effect of poverty on pupils’ attainment and well-being effectively. They monitor and evaluate the school’s work carefully and implement changes effectively. They use the opinions of pupils and parents well to make improvements to provision, especially for pupils’ well-being.
- The school’s curriculum is broad and balanced, and successfully supports the school vision of enabling pupils to be aspirational and preparing them to be citizens of the future. It provides equitable access to pupils, including those with ALN, from low-income households and with English as an additional language. Leaders carefully adapt the curriculum to meet the needs of individuals and groups of pupils.
- ‘Cwricwlwm Enfys’, a framework developed with partner primary schools within its cluster to support the delivery of Curriculum for Wales, helps teachers plan skills development progressively. As a result, pupils on transition to the secondary phase from the primary phase benefit from a curriculum that progresses seamlessly.
Headteacher, Mr Huw Lloyd, is delighted with the recently published report. He says:
“I am delighted and proud of this report. Staff and pupils have worked incredibly hard over a long period of time, and the school has made consistent progress year on year. I’m also proud that the report fully recognises the benefits and success of All Age Education. Ebbw Fawr was set up in 2012 as the first All Age School in Wales, and this report is testimony to the foresight and courage of Blaenau Gwent in breaking with tradition in setting up a new way of providing education in the authority and indeed in Wales.”
Councillor Sue Edmunds, the Council’s Cabinet Member for People & Education, welcomed the report and thanked everyone involved for their hard work and commitment. She says:
“Providing the very best educational standards and opportunities for our children and young people continues to be a very top priority for us. I’m delighted and proud that this report recognises the dedicated and determined work of school staff, Governors, and of course pupils to make Ebbw Fawr Learning Community the very best that it can be.
“My thanks to the Headteacher and his senior leadership team, the Governing Body and all the teaching and support staff. You have all worked together, in partnership with the Council and the South East Wales Achievement Service, to give our children and young people the high quality teaching and learning opportunities and life chances they deserve. Well done all.”
Chair of the Governing Body, Mr Richard Barrett says:
“It was very pleasing to meet the Estyn Inspection team and hear at firsthand their positive comments about pupils and staff, and the judgements now set out in their written report. The report reflects the hard work and commitment of the Headteacher and the school staff in driving the school forward during the Covid pandemic and its aftermath. It also reflects very favourably on our pupils and parents, the local community, and our cluster primaries in supporting the school and its aims.
The school will continue to place emphasis on wellbeing, and support for pupils, parents and staff where the report has confirmed that this approach results in the best outcomes for all our students.”
You can read the report in full here - https://www.estyn.gov.wales/provider/6775500
