Bigyn County Primary

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Leaders, governors and staff at Bigyn Primary School know pupils well. They place a high priority on ensuring good emotional support for pupils and this means that pupils enjoy coming to school, and feel safe and well cared for by staff. In most cases, pupils behave well and show care and respect for each other, their teachers, and other staff.

Leaders have worked effectively to develop the school's support for pupils with additional learning needs (ALN). In many classes, teachers provide interesting and enjoyable lessons and activities that help pupils to make progress. However, the overall quality of teaching is inconsistent, often lacks purpose and does not help pupils to understand what they do well and what they need to improv...e.

In a few classes, teachers do not provide enough challenge for pupils in the activities that they plan or have high enough expectations of what pupils can achieve. This means that too many pupils do not build their skills systematically and make consistent progress as they move through the school. Whilst leaders are aware of some of the issues with teaching, their self-evaluation and improvement processes are not rigorous enough and progress in improving the quality of teaching has been too slow.

The school's curriculum needs improvement. The school is at the early stages of implementing Curriculum for Wales. Leaders have not taken advantage of the freedom it offers to design a curriculum that allows pupils to learn through meaningful activities that reflect the needs of pupils and their community.

Recommendations R1 Improve the rigour of self-evaluation and school improvement activities to ensure that pupils receive consistently good teaching in all classes across the school R2 Develop an engaging curriculum that meets the needs of pupils and develops their digital, numeracy and literacy skills systematically in meaningful contexts R3 Ensure that lessons and learning activities have a clear purpose and provide opportunities for pupils to understand what they do well and what they need to do to improve further R4 Improve attendance 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.