Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr is a caring and happy community, with a strong Welsh ethos where pupils and staff show pride in their school.

The headteacher, senior leaders and the school's staff place a clear priority on supporting well-being and promoting a positive culture of inclusion, respect and raising aspirations. Most pupils behave in a civilised manner around the school, are welcoming and polite and willing to talk to visitors. Many pupils behave well in lessons.

Overall, pupils are clear about whom to approach when they need help and support and they appreciate the strong support they receive. A high proportion of pupils develop valuable leadership skills and, through the work of the school council and various working groups,... they raise their peers' awareness of important issues, such as respecting diversity, rights and social problems. Sixth-form pupils make a valuable contribution to the life of the school and have mature social skills.

The school provides a host of opportunities for pupils to take part in extra-curricular activities which enrich their education. In these clubs, pupils are given valuable experiences to develop their subject knowledge and understanding or to take advantage of cultural or physical exercise opportunities. Younger pupils are given beneficial opportunities to develop their personal and social skills through health and well-being lessons.

The physical well-being, nutritional well-being and holistic well being lessons are planned skilfully and provide a valuable range of purposeful learning experiences that help pupils to develop as healthy, confident and independent learners. This is a strong feature of the curriculum. In lessons, many pupils make appropriate progress in their subject knowledge, skills and understanding.

In these lessons, there is careful planning that engages pupils' interest and provides them with appropriate challenge. However, a few teachers do not plan their lessons effectively enough to ensure that pupils make sufficient progress. The senior leadership team work well together and place considerable importance on fostering a caring and supportive ethos.

Responsibilities across the leadership team overlap slightly and this prevents leaders from addressing improving teaching and learning in full. In addition, leaders at all levels are not part of the process of evaluating the school's work and there is not a wide enough range of activities to ensure that leaders gain a complete picture of the strengths and areas for improvement. They do not evaluate teaching by considering its effect on learning in sufficient detail.

Child safeguarding arrangements are appropriate and all staff understand their responsibilities to keep pupils safe. The school site is extensive and open and, as a result, there are a few health and safety issues which are cause for concern. The condition of the 'Y Ty' building itself is deteriorating and does not meet the requirements or needs of pupils who attend it.

Recommendations R1 Improve the shortcomings identified about teaching in the report R2 Ensure that leaders at all levels have clear and strategic responsibilities to drive improvements across the school R3 Ensure that all leaders undertake a wide range of quality assurance activities and strengthen their ability to evaluate the impact of provision on pupils' progress R4 Work with the local authority to address the health and safety issues identified during the inspection