Inspector’s praise for city schools
A CITY high school has been singled out for praise by the Chief Inspector of Training and Education in Wales.
Launching his annual report published today, Meilyr Rowlands said leadership and sharing best practice at Fitzalan High had driven the school’s progress.
“In schools like Fitzalan High in Cardiff, that have a strong commitment to continual improvement, leaders focus on improving teaching and learning, supporting teachers to innovate, investing in staff development and creating the right conditions for staff to work together within and beyond their organisation.”
The school, along with the city’s Ysgol Pencae, Ty Gwyn Special School and Tredegarville Primary, is one of a number of case studies of best practice across Wales mentioned in the report,
Fitzalan deputy head Mark Tidman, who has been at the school five years, said: “I am delighted on behalf of the school. A lot of hard work has gone into it from staff, parents and pupils.
“We try to work very closely with partners in education and local primary schools and the local community.”
The 1,730-pupil school has more than 200 teachers and was rated excellent by Estyn inspectors last year.
Praise for the school came as Mr Rowlands said school performance in Wales has remained broadly similar for the past seven years.
Seven in 10 primaries inspected in 2016-17 were rated good or excellent by inspectors, while half of secondary schools were in those top two categories.
That is similar to the picture for the past seven years, but leaves half of high schools and three in 10 primaries as adequate or unsatisfactory.
While numeracy and literacy has improved, more work needs to be done to drive up standards in those and other subjects, said Mr Rowlands.
On ICT teaching, the report says schools have not kept pace with advances in technology. Some teachers lack knowledge and confidence using Welsh and numeracy across the curriculum and there is still too much variability,
For the youngest pupils, Wales’ innovative learning through play programme, The Foundation Phase, is only delivered well in one quarter of schools, seven years after being rolled out.
Mr Rowlands said standards are where he expects them to be during a period of change to qualifications and the curriculum.
In nurseries, maintained special schools and FE colleges, inspections show quality of education is good or better in most cases but variability “remains a challenge”.
While there is a continuing attainment gap in performance of pupils eligible for free school meals schools addressing this successfully are those which encourage involvement of parents and the community, the report adds.
As the secondary school accountability system became increasingly linked to examination results, some secondary schools have focused too much on exams in the last seven years, to the detriment of wider learning, it notes.
Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives said the report showed little change and the same problems.
Darren Millar, Welsh Conservative Shadow Education Secretary, said: “With Wales sliding down the international education league tables, GCSE results getting worse, and evidence of a growing teacher recruitment crisis, it’s clear that we need to make much more rapid progress to ensure that our children get the high quality education they deserve.”
But Education Secretary Kirsty Williams insisted the report showed policies are working.
She said: “I am heartened to see the chief inspector welcoming the steps we have taken to drive up standards and support improvement in our schools – particularly our efforts to work with the teaching profession in developing the new curriculum.”