Whitchurch High School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Whitchurch High School is a caring and inclusive community where pupils feel safe, and staff feel valued.

Although a large school, staff regard pupils as individuals. The school tailors its care, support and guidance effectively and provides a wide range of courses and pathways that meet the needs of nearly all. Support for pupils' well-being and the provision for pupils with additional learning needs (ALN) are significant strengths.

Pupils who attend the local authority specialist base, Ty Calon, enjoy school, make strong progress and achieve well. The recently appointed headteacher, and his senior leadership team are leading the school purposefully through a period of change. While retaining the well-established good pra...ctice in many areas of the school's work, senior leaders are enhancing and developing structures and processes to ensure that the curriculum and teaching meets the needs and ambitions of pupils.

The school is taking a research-informed approach to these developments, ensuring that the Curriculum for Wales is implemented with care and consideration and that teachers are supported to develop their practice with plentiful professional learning opportunities. However, this work, and recently implemented strategies, for example, to plan for the progressive development of pupils' skills in literacy and numeracy, are at an early stage of development. Where teaching is strong, many pupils make good progress.

These teachers have very good subject knowledge and are skilful in planning successful learning experiences. In a minority of instances, although teachers ensure that pupils make reasonable progress to develop the skills they need to achieve their qualifications, they do not always challenge them well enough to extend their thinking or deepen their learning. Leaders are committed to school improvement and are refining arrangements for evaluating the quality of learning and teaching.

However, these processes do not always focus sharply enough on the impact of provision on pupil progress. Senior leaders work with a strong moral purpose and have developed a range of worthwhile strategies to support pupils and families affected by poverty. This is beginning to have a positive impact on the attendance and achievement of these pupils.

The school is working with the local authority to address a few health and safety concerns discussed during the inspection. Recommendations R1 Continue to work with the local authority to address the health and safety concerns discussed during the inspection week R2 Sharpen self-evaluation processes and planning for improvement to focus precisely on the areas that require improvement R3 Improve the quality of teaching and use of assessment to meet the needs of all pupils R4 Strengthen the provision for and co-ordination of the progressive development of pupils' skills What happens next The school will draw up an action plan which shows how it is going to address the recommendations. Estyn will work with the local authority to review the school's progress.