Ysgol Bro Banw Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Ysgol Bro Banw provides a welcoming, nurturing and inclusive learning environment for pupils. Leaders and staff place the interests of the child at the centre of everything they do, which embodies their vision of 'Encouraging every child to shine'.

They provide strong support for pupils who attend the English-medium, Welsh-medium and the specialist teaching provision classes. The innovative and exciting inquiry-based curriculum stimulates pupils' interests and enthusiasm for learning. Although many pupils start school with relatively weak skills, most make strong progress in their learning over time.

The headteacher provides excellent leadership, which is having a very positive impact on the work of the school. The strong ...team ethos across the school promotes a culture where staff are encouraged to take risks in their teaching and provide the best learning experiences for their pupils. Leaders and staff understand the needs of pupils, their families and the local community well.

They provide excellent well-being support for all pupils and encourage parents, especially those that are new to the school, to become part of the school community through innovative projects. Leaders ensure a strong safeguarding culture at the school. They promote the importance of regular attendance and monitor all absences carefully.

However, rates of pupils' attendance remain relatively low. A notable strength of the school is the support staff provide to pupils with additional learning needs in mainstream and the specialist teaching provision classes. The team of additional learning needs co-ordinators (ALNCOs) provides particularly strong leadership to help staff implement a range of effective strategies and interventions to help pupils improve their skills, well-being and attitudes to learning.

They work well with a range of partners and agencies to enhance the provision for pupils with ALN, especially those with more complex needs. This ensures that they make strong progress in their developmental stages and from their respective starting points. Teachers plan rich learning experiences that provide a stimulating and highly engaging curriculum for pupils.

This allows pupils to use a range of skills including their numeracy, literacy and thinking skills to solve real-life problems. In addition, the strong emphasis placed on developing pupils' awareness of their 'cynefin' or local area and of the history and heritage of Wales, supports pupils learning very effectively. Although most pupils attending the Welsh-medium classes do not speak the language at home, they make strong progress in their Welsh language skills during their time at the school.

However, pupils' Welsh language skills in English medium classes are underdeveloped. Recommendations R1 Improve attendance R2 Improve standards in Welsh in English-medium classes 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 developing a rich and exciting inquiry-based curriculum and how it supports pupils and their families through innovative community-based projects for dissemination on Estyn's website.

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