A VALLEYS high school has been placed in special measures following a damning report by education watchdog Estyn – just three years after they came out of Estyn monitoring.

An inspection of Brynmawr Foundation School in Blaenau Gwent found it was "unsatisfactory and needs urgent improvement" in four areas - standards, wellbeing and attitudes to learning, teaching and learning experiences and leadership and management - and "adequate and needs improvement" in one - care, support and guidance.

Pupils have “made much less progress than expected”, inspectors found.

“They do not recall or use prior learning well enough, nor do they develop their skills sufficiently, particularly in literacy and numeracy. This is an important shortcoming,” the Estyn report said.

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A majority of pupils also make frequent basic errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Almost one in four pupils who completed a questionnaire said they did not feel safe in school, although children said they were confident that staff dealt competently with any bullying that is reported.

The report added that “in a majority of lessons, learning is over-directed by the teacher."

“This means that pupils do not explore ideas well enough or deepen their understanding," it said.

“Teachers spend too much time talking, at the expense of engaging pupils in their learning.”

However, the report noted the school “has a supportive and inclusive ethos”.

Headteacher Gerard McNamara, who took over in September 2018, has embarked on a “programme of change” following a period of consistently poor outcomes, low staff morale and uncertain leadership, the report added.

Yet it said his work hadn’t yet had sufficient impact.

Moreover, the provision of learning support assistance is low and very few subjects have sufficient staffing levels to provide pupils with subject specialists.

In many subjects, resources are insufficient to meet the needs of pupils – in music lessons, there are too few instruments and the school does not have a library.

As a result of their findings, Estyn has placed the school in special measures which means it will monitor the school’s progress on a termly basis and has outlined a number of recommendations.

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The school gained foundation status in 1999 which means it is state-funded but that the governing body has greater say in how the school is run that in community schools.

The number of pupils eligible for free school meals – 22 per cent – is higher than the Wales average of 16.4 per cent.

Standards, wellbeing and attitudes to learning, teaching and learning experiences and leadership and management were judged as unsatisfactory and in need of urgent improvement; care, support and guidance were judged to be adequate and need of improvement.

These were Estyn’s recommendations:

• Improve pupils’ standards across the school, including their literacy and numeracy skills

• Improve pupils’ behaviour and their attitudes to learning

• Improve the effectiveness of teaching to motivate, engage and challenge pupils to make good progress in lessons

• Strengthen leadership at all levels to improve leaders’ ability to identify areas for development and to plan effectively for improvement

The school has been contacted for comment.