Ysgol Maes Owen

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Ysgol Maes Owen is a community school, catering for children aged seven to eleven years. The school is organised into four mixed classes in the lower school of Year 3 and Year 4 pupils, and five mixed classes in the upper school of Year 5 and Year 6 pupils. In addition, there is a twelve place Learning Resource Base (LRB) provided by the local authority, catering for learners with moderate learning difficulties.

The school is both caring and inclusive and the staff promote a very positive atmosphere, which helps in improving pupils' outcomes. Pupils enjoy learning and they are enthusiastic during lessons and in activities. This is due to the very strong working relationships that exist with their teachers and other staff.

...The LRB, and its pupils, play an important part in the school's daily life. On the whole, teaching and assessment are good. However, there are inconsistencies in teachers' expectations of pupils and the quality of their feedback.

Learning is particularly successful where the teaching and responses to pupils' work are purposeful and challenge pupils to perform at their best. This helps most pupils to make effective progress in developing their listening, speaking, reading and digital skills. Additionally, many pupils' extended writing skills and their ability to improve their own writing independently are developing appropriately.

All staff promote a very positive ethos of support and care for pupils. This encourages pupils to consider their own well-being and behaviour responsibly. This contributes to their positive attitudes to learning and their resilience to persevere with tasks.

The school helps pupils to build confidence in themselves as individuals, while also developing a strong respect for the feelings of others. Overall, the school environment promotes beneficial learning opportunities, which includes a stimulating woodland area. Leaders evaluate the school's work to plan for improvements thoroughly.

The headteacher provides strong and effective leadership. She has a determination to succeed for the benefit of pupils, staff and the community. The senior leadership team, the staff and the governors share her engaging and purposeful vision.

They work together progressively to ensure that the school is inclusive and that it promotes beneficial learning opportunities. However, the provision for developing pupils' Welsh speaking skills and their use of numeracy across the curriculum are not as well established. The headteacher's determination to improve the quality of provision and pupils' outcomes is a significant strength of the school.

She shares responsibilities intelligently among staff and provides relevant and effective opportunities for professional learning. This contributes to positive and challenging whole-school initiatives, where staff and pupils feel valued for their contributions to school life. Recommendations R1 Ensure that teachers' expectations of pupils' outcomes and their responses to pupils' work are consistent across the school R2 Improve the opportunities for pupils to apply and develop their numeracy skills R3 Strengthen the provision for pupils to speak Welsh What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to address the recommendations from the inspection.

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