Blaenbaglan Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Blaenbaglan Primary School is a happy, caring and inclusive school, that places high priority on the well-being of its pupils. The school is a highly supportive learning environment, where pupils develop very positive attitudes towards their learning. Pupils feel safe in school, and value the support they receive from staff.

They show high levels of interest in their lessons and participate enthusiastically in a range of pupil voice groups. There are strong relationships between pupils and staff. Across the school, pupils' behaviour is exemplary.

They are polite and courteous to adults and show kindness and care for one another. They listen carefully to instructions and respond in an articulate fashion. Pupils in the schoo...l make strong progress in their learning, including those in the school's learning support centres (LSCs).

However, the quality and organisation of the learning environment across the school do not always allow pupils to develop their independent skills well enough. The staff feel valued, and work well together to plan a broad and balanced curriculum. The school provides a range of worthwhile opportunities for staff to build their professional expertise, and as a result, the school is making suitable progress towards curriculum and additional learning needs (ALN) reform.

The school has recently implemented a programme to raise pupils' standards in literacy. However, the effectiveness of teaching and assessment across the school is too variable. The school has a well-established team of leaders, including proactive governors, that have high expectations of pupils.

They place a high priority on safeguarding and carry out self-evaluation processes to improve the school's work. However, the school's evaluation processes do not always identify important aspects that require improvement, for example the need to improve consistency in the quality of teaching and assessment. Recommendations R1 Sharpen self-evaluation processes to ensure that monitoring identifies all significant aspects for improvement R2 Improve the consistency of the quality of teaching and assessment across the school R3 Develop the quality and organisation of the learning environment to promote pupils' independence What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to address the recommendations from the inspection.