Croesty Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

A group of children in a gymDescription automatically generatedA child and child playing with sandDescription automatically generatedA person and child sitting at a tableDescription automatically generatedMany pupils at Croesty Primary School make progress in their learning and develop as caring and enthusiastic learners. They enjoy learning and are positive about their school.

Pupils welcome visitors into school and are keen to share and discuss their work and achievements. Most pupils engage positively with learning opportunities and are keen to achieve their best. However, opportunities for pupils to challenge themselves and improve their skills are not always planned well enough.

For example, the overuse of worksheets ...does not allow all pupils to develop well enough as independent learners. Staff work hard to ensure that pupils feel valued, and their well-being is a school priority. The school has a strong team ethos, where all staff work collaboratively on improvement priorities.

Staff are developing their interpretation of the new Curriculum for Wales and are beginning to provide appropriate opportunities for pupils to influence their own learning. Parents are positive about curriculum developments and the variety of topics on offer for pupils. Topics involve the wider school community and allow opportunities for a range of creative learning opportunities.

For example, pupils in Year 3, investigated the properties of sound, to find a way to insulate the sound of the guitar in their school production. Leadership is in a period of transition. The newly appointed headteacher and governors have a clear vision for school development, based on a curriculum that develops a range of skills for all learners and works to ensure positive attitudes to learning.

Senior leaders and governors are in the very early stages of working collaboratively to ensure self-evaluation is thorough. They are beginning to identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. However, over time leadership has not evaluated pupil progress thoroughly enough, to ensure that teaching and learning challenges all learners.

Recommendations R1 Improve strategic leadership, evaluation work and improvement processes R2 Ensure that teaching and the provision for skills build effectively on prior learning and support pupils in all classes to make progress in line with their ability R3 Develop feedback and assessment for learning, so that pupils can clearly identify what they need to do to improve their work R4 Strengthen the governance of the school to ensure that the governing body develops its role as a critical friend with the capacity to hold the school to account