Treorchy Comprehensive School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Treorchy Comprehensive School is an inclusive caring community with a clear focus on equity and supporting pupils' well-being.

Leaders have ensured high levels of well-being and care, and pupils benefit from a broad range of support. Staff know their pupils well and work beneficially with outside agencies to address their needs. The headteacher has made recent changes to the senior leadership team.

However, although they work well together, roles and responsibilities are not equitable and there is a lack of clear, strategic leadership. Leaders gather suitable first-hand evidence such as learning walks and lesson observations, but they do not evaluate the effectiveness of their work well enough. As a result, they have not h...ad enough impact on making the improvements required to important aspects of the school's work.

These include the quality of teaching, attendance and behaviour, and the provision for the progressive development of pupils' skills. In about half the lessons, teachers plan a variety of activities to challenge pupils suitably and engage them in their learning. In these cases, pupils make at least suitable progress.

In a very few lessons pupils make strong progress. In these lessons, teachers have high expectations of pupils and use questioning effectively to develop their understanding. However, in about half of lessons pupils do not make as much progress as they could.

This is mostly due to a lack of suitable challenge and teachers' low expectations of what pupils can achieve. The school provides a wide-ranging curriculum to meet the needs of its pupils which includes academic and vocational options. Pupils benefit from valuable learning experiences as part of their personal and social education (PSE).

In addition, pupils enjoy a wide range of extra-curricular activities and beneficial opportunities to develop their leadership skills. However, the school's provision for the progressive development of pupils' skills is at an early stage of development. In Ty Seren, staff know their pupils well.

They work well to provide a curriculum that supports their individual needs and provides useful support and guidance. Staff at Ty Seren have created an inclusive environment where many pupils make good progress. Many pupils are friendly and welcoming and enjoy positive relationships with staff and peers.

However, a minority of pupils are passive in their learning and are easily distracted. A few pupils do not behave well enough in lessons and around the school and this impacts on their own progress and that of others. Despite leaders' efforts, pupils' attendance remains too low and the rate of persistent absenteeism is a concern.

Recommendations R1 Improve the approaches used by all staff to support pupils' behaviour R2 Refine the roles and responsibilities of senior leaders to enable them to carry out their roles more strategically and be held to account for securing improvement R3 Improve the precision of self-evaluation and improvement planning R4 Improve teaching to ensure that pupils of all abilities are challenged well and make suitable progress in their learning R5 Strengthen processes to improve pupils' attendance R6 Improve the provision for the progressive development of pupils' skills R7 Address the health and safety concerns shared with the school during the inspection What happens next In accordance with the Education Act 2005, HMCI is of the opinion that special measures are required in relation to this school. 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 usually every four to six months.