Welsh-medium secondary school removed from monitoring after making progress

The only Welsh-medium secondary school in Wrexham has been removed from monitoring by inspectors around five years after issues were first raised.

Ysgol Morgan Llwyd was found to be in need of closer scrutiny from Wrexham Council following an inspection carried out in 2014, and was later placed under Estyn monitoring in the same year.

Despite being given several chances to sort out the problems identified, a follow up visit in March 2017 found some aspects of the school were in need of ‘significant improvement’, including performance in Key Stage 4.

A further spot check was carried out by the inspection body last month.

Estyn has now published a report which shows the school has made sufficient progress to be removed from monitoring.

In the document, inspectors said headteacher Catrin Pritchard had provided ‘a clear direction and expectations’ for the school.

They said: “Following the re-structuring of the senior management team, the roles and responsibilities of senior leaders are clear and sensible.

“Staff and pupils understand these roles, and lines of accountability are now clear. In a majority of lessons, pupils make sound progress.

“A majority of pupils recall subject knowledge successfully and apply information appropriately to new situations.

“Since the core inspection, the school has strengthened its arrangements to boost the quality of feedback and assessment and ensure that pupils follow up on teachers’ comments.”

One of the recommendations previously made by Estyn was for the school to reduce the amount of temporary exclusions against pupils.

In the report, inspectors said staff had successfully cut down on cases of disruption.

They said: “Ysgol Morgan Llwyd is a very inclusive school, which ensures that all pupils are able to complete their education through the medium of Welsh.

“Since the core inspection, the school has introduced a number of beneficial strategies in order to support pupils with profound behavioural problems.

“As a result, the number of fixed-term exclusions has reduced significantly and has been low in every one of the last three years.”

However, they added that a small number of teachers do not implement behaviour management processes consistently.

Overall though, they found enough progress had been made to allow the school to be removed from the list of those in need of significant improvement.

By Liam Randall – BBC Local Democracy Reporter (more here on the LDR scheme).