Ysgol Yr Esgob

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Ysgol Yr Esgob joined with Lixwm Church in Wales Voluntary Aided School to become the Bryniau Clwyd Federation in 2020. At that time, the headteacher from Ysgol Yr Esgob took on the role of headteacher for the federation. In September 2023, the headteacher took a temporary position with the regional school improvement service.

To cover this absence, a headteacher from another local school has taken up the role of headteacher on a secondment basis. This arrangement is set to be in place until April 2025. Pupils at Ysgol Yr Esgob generally have exceptionally positive attitudes to learning and immerse themselves fully in the experiences provided at school.

Their behaviour is exemplary. Pupils have a notable influence on the l...ife and work of their school which they use wisely and with high levels of autonomy to bring about positive change, for example to the school environment. They develop particularly good literacy skills and use these effectively across all areas of learning.

During their time at school, they make very good progress as learners and in their development as compassionate and caring contributors to school and the wider community. There are highly effective relationships between staff and pupils. Teachers and a highly skilled team of teaching assistants know the pupils, their needs and interests very well.

They provide an exciting and varied range of learning experiences that capture pupils' interests extremely well and promote a love and enjoyment of learning and being at school. Provision to develop pupils' skills is effective overall and supports pupils to make good progress in learning the Welsh language, using number and applying digital skills to research and present their ideas. However, pupils receive fewer opportunities to learn about other mathematical concepts such as shape and measure and their experience of coding and working with databases is limited.

School leaders have a clear vision to develop one school over two sites and are making good progress towards this goal. They have established a strong team ethos and are beginning to make effective use of the opportunities that a federation of school presents, for example by enabling leaders, teachers and teaching assistants to begin to share their ideas and practice. In a few instances, this work has had a notable and positive impact on pupils' experiences at school and their progress.

Leaders work well with external partners, and this helps them to have a good understanding of many of the schools' current strengths and to identify opportunities for further improvement. However, within the federation, leaders' roles in evaluating the difference that teaching makes to pupils' progress in lessons and over time are generally at an early stage of development. Recommendations R1 Further develop leadership capacity across the federation by sharing effective practice and improving the ability of staff to monitor and evaluate the difference that teaching makes to pupils' learning and progress R2 Further improve provision to support the development of the full range of pupils' numeracy and digital skills What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to address the recommendations from the inspection.