Radnor Valley C.P. School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Radnor Valley County Primary School is an inviting, nurturing place to learn. The headteacher leads a small team of energetic teachers, many of whom are at the beginning of their profession. School staff strive to improve all aspects of school life and professional working relationships across the school are a strength.

Pupils are keen to come to school, parents feel they are included in the life of the school and governors are heavily involved in ensuring that the school is a safe and happy place to be. Throughout the school, pupils' behaviour is exceptional and they often engage positively with their learning. Pupils enjoy opportunities to learn more about the heritage and culture of Wales, beginning at their doorstep, and especi...ally enjoy learning and practising the language.

As a result, pupils become confident speakers, readers and writers and their enthusiasm spills into the community, where local businesses are now keen to practice the language too. Across the school, pupils develop extremely positive attitudes to reading and make accelerated progress in developing their reading skills. They use digital skills well and make the most of opportunities to be active, especially in the school's extensive, natural outdoor environment.

Many develop good mathematical skills and knowledge but do not use these skills often enough in their work across the curriculum. They do not always build systematically on literacy or creative skills coherently enough to make the progress they are capable of. Teachers use questioning well and provide pupils with appropriate guidance to support their learning during lessons.

The school is developing its understanding of how pupils make progress but this is at an early stage of development and arrangements to monitor pupils' progress over time are less secure. Teachers include pupils' ideas when planning learning experiences and when choosing how to learn during lessons. From a young age, pupils are keen to do well.

They develop as articulate learners and follow instructions carefully when completing work. However, pupils do not generally have enough opportunities to learn in a wide enough variety of ways to enable them to become independent learners. They do not learn in enough depth across the curriculum.

Recommendations R1 Strengthen leadership capacity in order to address improvement priorities R2 Develop teaching to secure effective progress for all pupils, and learning experiences that allow pupils to explore concepts in enough depth R3 Provide opportunities for pupils to take more responsibility for their learning and develop as independent learners What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to show how it is going to address the recommendations. Estyn will work with the local authority to review the school's progress. Estyn will invite the school to prepare a case study on its work in relation to the work of its governing body, for dissemination on Estyn's website.