Dunvant Primary

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Pupils enjoy learning and are enthusiastic during lessons and in activities around the school.

This is mainly due to the very positive working relationships that they have with their teachers and other staff. There is a vibrant and inclusive atmosphere at the school. The specialist teaching facility, and its pupils, are an integral element of daily school life.

Overall, the school environment promotes beneficial learning opportunities. Learning is particularly successful in classrooms, but the outdoor provision is not consistent and equitable across the school. Teaching is engaging and well planned and lessons are fun.

They meet pupils' needs effectively. This helps most pupils to make strong progress in developin...g their literacy and numeracy skills, and they achieve well from their starting points. However, teachers do not always allow pupils to use their well-developed independent skills, for example when writing extended pieces of work.

All staff promote a positive ethos of support and care for pupils in all areas of the school. This encourages pupils to take responsibility for their own well-being and behaviour extremely well and contributes to their positive attitudes to learning and their resilience to persevere with challenging tasks. The school helps pupils to build confidence in themselves as individuals, while also developing a strong respect for the feelings of others.

Pupils' speaking in English, listening, reading and numeracy skills make rapid progress as they move through the school, and many use these skills effectively across all areas of the curriculum. However, generally, pupils do not develop their Welsh oracy skills well enough. Leaders evaluate the school's work to plan for improvements thoroughly.

The headteacher provides strong and effective leadership, with a determination to succeed for the benefit of pupils and the community. The senior leadership team, the staff and the governors share her purposeful vision, and they work together well to ensure that the school is successful. The headteacher shares responsibilities effectively among staff and provides innovative opportunities for professional learning.

This contributes to a thriving whole-school ethos, where staff and pupils feel valued for their contributions to school life. Recommendations R1 Improve pupils' Welsh oracy skills across the school R2 Ensure that teachers provide opportunities for pupils to write extensively using their well-developed independent skills R3 Ensure that learning experiences in the outdoors are consistent and resourced equitably across the school 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 creating and operating a secondment project for teachers in Swansea, to enrich their teaching and leadership skills through working for a year in another school, for dissemination on Estyn's website.