16/1/2024

Trelai Primary School in Caerau, has received a positive assessment from Estyn, His Majesty's Inspectorate for Education and Training in Wales.

During a recent visit, inspectors highlighted the school's commitment to creating a calm, happy environment that fosters successful learning and development. Several key strengths were identified including;

• Calm and Happy Environment: Trelai Primary School is described as a calm and happy place for pupils to learn and develop safely and successfully. The report acknowledges the school's focus on nurturing individuals to bring out their best.

• Community Understanding: The school's staff understands the challenges faced by the community it serves and offers pupils a broad range of interesting experiences to develop essential skills, knowledge, understanding, and resilience.

• Leadership and Improvement: The headteacher and senior leaders form a strong team that drives improvement. The school's approach to self-evaluation has led to significant progress, with a track record of improvement in recent years.

The school has been invited by Estyn to prepare a case study on its work in relation to its improvement journey to be published on Estyn's website.

While celebrating Trelai Primary School's achievements, the report highlights specific areas for improvement which will be addressed through the school's action plan.

• Mathematical Understanding: The school is encouraged to secure the progressive development of pupils' mathematical understanding to enable confident application of numeracy skills in various contexts.

• School Improvement Priorities: The focus of school improvement priorities needs to be sharpened, as covering too many areas makes it challenging for staff to concentrate on what matters most.

• Attendance Improvement: The school is urged to continue its rigorous efforts to increase attendance, recognizing it as an ongoing challenge.

Reflecting on the report, Carolyn Mason,  Headteacher at the school said: "I am delighted that the Estyn inspectors recognised the achievements of our pupils. Through our vision of ‘We show Respect, We act Responsibly, We work Hard' pupils enjoy and engage in learning through our planned curriculum that all staff have worked so hard to achieve.

"Our parents are to be commended for their interest, support and involvement with their children, it makes such a difference at so many different levels, this is a strong feature of our school."

Alex Jackson, Chair of Governors said: "On behalf of the Governors of the school I was also delighted that Estyn have recognised the achievements of our pupils. Additionally, the hard work, commitment and enthusiasm of the whole school community was clearly recognised.

"It is very clear that the school vision sits at the heart of the school's purposeful development. Over the last few years, we have been pleased to witness the imaginative and diligent work in developing a bespoke curriculum for Trelai. We have also seen growing engagement with the community, parents actively involved with their children's education.

"We look forward to continuing the schools progress as we address the Inspections recommendations."

Cardiff's Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Sarah Merry said: "Estyn have recognised Trelai Primary School for its dedication to providing a calm, nurturing, and inclusive learning environment for its pupils.

"Importantly, the report also acknowledges the schools excellent track record of improvement in recent years, delivered through a thorough approach to self-evaluation so that leaders and governors know the school's strengths and areas for development well. This has led to significant progress in many important areas and will now be used by Estyn as an example of best practice.

"Congratulations to the headteacher, staff, pupils and the wider school community."

During the time of inspection Trelai Primary School had 371 pupils on roll with 69.6% eligible for free school meals and 15.1% identified as having additional learning needs. The inspection report notes that 14.4% of pupils have English as an additional language.

Estyn has adopted a new approach to inspection in schools and Pupil Referral Units across Wales. Inspection reports will no longer include summative gradings (e.g. ‘Excellent', ‘Good' or ‘Adequate') and now focus on how well providers are helping a child to learn.

The new approach aligns with the personalisation of the new curriculum for Wales with inspections involving more in-person discussions, placing less emphasis on achievement data.

Estyn believe that the new inspection approach will make it easier for providers to gain meaningful insights that help them to improve without the spotlight on a judgement.