DUFFRYN High School has received a good Estyn report following its inspection earlier this year.

Estyn inspectors visited the school, which serves 1,161 pupils, who are aged 11 to 18 years old, on Lighthouse Road in February and judged the school’s current performance as good, as well as the school’s prospects for improvement.

The school is led by headteacher Jon Wilson.

The school’s current performance is judged as good for factors including pupils’ performance at key stage four has improved, in lessons pupils make good progress in gaining new knowledge, and pupils develop their literacy and numeracy skills well.

Also most pupils behave well; pupils participate in opportunities to influence aspects of the school’s life, and teaching is of good quality in many lessons.

The report highlights that the school has good prospects for improvement because the headteacher, Jon Wilson and the school’s team provide effective leadership that has improved standards.

Many of the school’s pupils stay on in full-time education and training after 16.

At A level, pupils generally make the expected progress, while at key stage three, performance in English and mathematics has improved steadily over the last four years and it is now better than that for similar schools.

But, the gap between the performance of boys and girls is larger than that for other schools.

Attendance is an important area for improvement, even though it has improved slightly over the last five years.

It was recommended in the report that the school increases its performance in the level one threshold (volume of pupils receiving five GCSEs at grade D to G) as it is below that of similar schools, improves attendance rates, addresses the few remaining shortcomings in teaching and enhances the provision for Welsh second language in key stage three.

The school will draw up an action plan, which shows how it is going to address the recommendations.