Ysgol Tudno

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Ysgol Tudno is a caring community where pupils work and play together confidently.

Support for pupils' social and emotional well-being is highly effective and this allows pupils to thrive in the school's inclusive environment. Pupils are proud of their school and say that they feel safe, secure and happy there. The behaviour of most pupils is exemplary.

They form strong relationships with adults and one another and show respect and courtesy for all members of the school community. This leads to strong engagement in the life of the school. Nearly all pupils have positive attitudes to school and enjoy their learning.

As a result, most pupils make good progress as they move through the school and achieve well. A part...icular strength of the school is the way it gives prominence to developing pupils' Welsh language skills and their appreciation of the heritage and culture of Wales. Teachers and support staff provide strong role models.

This, together with the strong Welsh ethos, promotes the natural use of the Welsh language very well throughout the day. Pupils use Welsh and English in their spoken work very effectively and feel proud of their ability to use both languages confidently. Teachers provide a broad range of authentic learning opportunities which extend pupils' knowledge well and provide useful opportunities for them to develop a range of skills during daily lessons.

Teachers listen carefully to pupils' ideas when planning the curriculum and this helps to ensure that most pupils display high levels of interest and engagement in their work. However, planning for the systematic development of pupils' skills in literacy and numeracy skills across the school is at an early stage of development. Most teaching is purposeful, and teachers use questioning well to move pupils' learning on and to support understanding according to the needs of pupils.

However, in a few classes where teaching is less effective, tasks are not always challenging enough for a few pupils and the quality of teacher feedback does not impact well enough on next steps in pupils' learning. The headteacher and governors provide compassionate and thoughtful leadership. They share a clear vision and promote collaboration among staff, build professional expertise and strengthen partnerships with parents and other local schools successfully.

They set clear goals for improvement; however, monitoring activity does not always focus sharply enough on the difference improvement work makes to pupils' learning. Recommendations R1 Strengthen the contribution of all leaders to the self-evaluation processes and focus more specifically on the impact of teaching on learning R2 Ensure that teaching provides appropriate challenge for all pupils and that feedback helps them further improve their work R3 Further develop the curriculum to ensure that the school provides a systematic whole-school approach to the development of pupils' skills 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 Welsh ethos and culture where the Welsh Language can thrive in an English-medium school, for dissemination on Estyn's website.