Welshpool Church in Wales Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Pupils at Welshpool Church in Wales Primary School enjoy attending school. They are keen to talk to adults and speak confidently about how proud they are to be in their new school building. Pupils feel safe and well cared for, and they trust that adults will always support them through difficult times.

Over their time in school and often from quite low starting points, pupils, including those in the specialist centres, make appropriate progress in most areas of learning. Pupils have many opportunities to make decisions about improving their school and are delighted to work alongside school leaders to bring about change. Pupils' well-being is at the heart of the school and staff work hard to ensure that the school is a thoughtful an...d inclusive environment.

This inclusivity is shown by the positive relationships between staff and pupils. Teachers, including those in the specialist centres, think carefully about how pupils learn best and employ a range of approaches to engage them successfully in their learning. All staff are developing their professional skills and knowledge together well.

This enables them to adapt provision to best meet individual pupils' needs. The care, support and guidance provided across the school community is exceptional and supports the school's vision, to 'bring out the best in each other'. During a remarkably challenging time, the headteacher, alongside the school leadership team, has amalgamated three local schools into one, created a strong team ethos amongst all staff and successfully supported pupils' well-being.

They have formed close working partnerships with many outside agencies, earned the trust of parents and established a very productive approach to identifying the right provision for pupils to succeed. Leaders and staff are beginning to develop a curriculum that reflects the environment and community in which they live. Leaders keep the work of the school under review and there are suitable arrangements for evaluating the quality of school improvements.

On a few occasions monitoring activity does not always pick up on the areas that need improving, such as the way teachers support pupils to improve their work or how effectively teachers' planning helps to improve pupils' literacy and numeracy skills. Recommendations R1 Improve provision for the development of pupils' literacy and numeracy skills R2 Improve teachers' use of assessment and feedback to support pupil progress in lessons and over time R3 Strengthen self-evaluation processes to focus more specifically on the impact of teaching on learning What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to address the recommendations from the inspection. Estyn will invite the school to prepare a case study on its work in relation to 'recognising the rights of young carers' for dissemination on Estyn's website.