Four schools removed from council list of ‘concern’ after improvements

Four schools across Caerphilly which fell short of Estyn standards after inspections have been removed from follow-up categories.

The county borough council’s education committee heard the four had also been taken off the authority’s list of schools causing concern.

Cllr Carol Andrews, the cabinet member for education, said the four schools – Risca Comprehensive, St James Primary, The Twyn School, and Ty Sign Primary – all received “intensive levels of targeted support” after inspectors told them to make improvements.

The four schools were all removed from follow-up monitoring in 2025.

The committee heard the council had subsequently removed all four from its own list in response – but Cllr Mansell Powell asked whether the schools had been given enough time to show sustained improvement.

“You could have a spike in the data where you improve short-term… and the following year you go back to normal,” he said.

Council education advisor Sally Speedy said the council would “continue to work with” such schools and “where necessary we continue that enhanced support”.

“We don’t want the situation where a school goes into an Estyn category and a few years later they go back,” she said.

“Estyn has deemed them to make sufficient progress, and while not everything might be where schools want them to be, Estyn can see the schools have got robust systems in place to continue that journey, and they have a good model for improvement.”

Schools improvement lead Paul Warren said the council wanted to take a more preventative approach to performance at all schools.

“When schools get into difficulty following an Estyn inspection, we pride ourselves on working well with the schools to really rectify that as quickly as possible,” he said. “But we’d rather be in a position where we can intervene early so that issues are identified, so they don’t find themselves in difficulty when inspectors call.”

The council has set up a ‘peer model’ for headteachers to work alongside each other in a bid to improve standards and detect weaknesses early, Mr Warren said – adding the council had already received “really good feedback”.

He said the project would help the council “identify where schools need some additional support”, ranging from teaching and budget matters to additional learning needs provision and attendance.

“We are creating this culture where we know our schools better than we did before,” he added.