St Giles VC Church in Wales Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

St Giles Church in Wales Primary School is a happy, inclusive school where leaders place a high importance on the well-being of pupils. Relationships between staff and pupils are positive.

Nearly all pupils are kind and considerate to each other and behave very well. The school develops strong working relationships with parents and the community. Nearly all pupils settle in well when they join the school.

Many pupils, including those with English as an additional language (EAL) and those attending the learning resource provision (LRP) class, make good progress in developing their speaking and listening skills. However, the quality of teaching and assessment is variable. As a result, staff do not build on pupils' knowledge ...and skills systematically.

By the time they reach Year 6, many pupils read with confidence and fluency. However, overall, the teaching of reading is inconsistent and pupils do not develop effective higher order reading skills, such as inference and deduction. Teachers plan a range of learning activities that focus well on the termly topics.

However, teaching often lacks pace and does not meet the needs of all pupils well enough. Staff tend to over-direct learning activities and do not regularly provide feedback for pupils to improve their work. As a result, pupils do not develop sufficiently strong independent learning skills.

Leaders' plans for school improvement do not focus sharply enough on the progress and development of pupils' outcomes or skills. Although they have identified areas to improve, such as the development of reading and phonics, progress is slow and lacks rigour. They do not always identify other important areas in need of improvement, such as pupils' digital skills and their use of numeracy across the curriculum.

Recommendations R1 Address the health and safety concerns raised during the inspection R2 Improve leadership and self-evaluation in order to identify and address areas for improvement more accurately and promptly R3 Improve the pace and challenge of teaching so that it meets the needs of all pupils and develops their skills as independent learners R4 Improve provision for the systematic development of pupils' reading, digital and numeracy skills What happens next In accordance with the Education Act 2005, HMCI is of the opinion that this school is in need of significant improvement. The school will draw up an action plan to show how it is going to address the recommendations. Estyn will monitor the school's progress about 12 months after the publication of this report.