Ysgol Bwlchgwyn School Self-Evaluation Summary 2023-24

Vision and leadership

The school continues to provide strong leadership to deliver on its vision and meet the challenges of the Curriculum for Wales  and ALN code whilst Building capacity for distributed leadership. Good progress has been made to ensure contribution to school improvement and evaluation from all staff,  the senior leadership team and through to the Governing body. Pupil voice has also been developed to contribute to the schools improvement aim and they have greater involvement and understanding in this area. The school seeks to work as a learning organisation developing a culture of enquiry and professional development that enables distributed leadership and drives school improvement. For example, school improvement priorities are linked to specific governors who visit school regularly, meet with staff and pupils to gain an understanding of the work undertaken and feedback to the governing body. This provides effective challenge and support for senior leaders who identify collaborative learning and professional development for staff.

Curriculum, learning and teaching

The school has made very good progress in delivering its CfW offer, as set out in its Curriculum Statement. Staff have worked collaboratively in teams across school to ensure a consistent and broad range of engaging learning experiences are developed and delivered in a consistent cross curricular approach. This has included the children in planning the direction of the learning and has challenged them to excel across each AOLE. 

Significant work has been undertaken to develop a collaborative approach to professional learning for all staff. This has included work related to pupil feedback through staff teaching and learning meetings and enquiry projects carried out in class. This has led to a greater consistency of approach as well as developing staff awareness of how pupils progress throughout the school. 

 Pupils have been included in the aim to develop a better understanding of progression and to this end school has welcomed parents in to share and celebrate the children’s’ learning through open curriculum learning celebration days hosted by the pupils, where they what and how they have learned through a cross curricular theme. Pupils have also contributed to reporting on their own progress in their end of year report to parents through videos and QR codes .

The shared work undertaken has  developed a greater understanding of our approach to curriculum and helped facilitate a shared approach to the teaching and learning holistically.

A range of monitoring such as listening to learners has identified that pupils are very engaged in all aspects of their work across the curriculum and demonstrate the qualities determined by the four curriculum purposes (ambitious capable learners, enterprising and creative contributors, ethically informed citizens and healthy confident individuals).

Well-being, equity and inclusion

The school continues to build on its nurturing ethos, securing the wellbeing of  all as a starting point to the learning they engage in. The prioritisation of wellbeing ensures a consistent approach from all staff that positively benefits  equity and inclusion for pupils.

A range of provision has ensured all vulnerable learners, and their families, where appropriate, have received the support they need. Additional staffing and resources have also been secured to meet the varying needs of our pupils with the most significant needs.

Delivery of the 2023-24 Wellbeing action plan has had a positive impact on our learners from the inclusion of a wellbeing week at the start of the year to UNCRC right based approach activities throughout the year. 

School has fully implemented processes and procedures associated with the New ALN Code of Practice.  All eligible pupils have been identified appropriately on the graduated response scale and are receiving appropriate support. Regular ongoing dialogue with the inclusion service has taken place throughout the year during ITaS meetings. The ITaS (Inclusion Team around the School) meetings allow school to share concerns, seek advice and implement any next steps involving relevant outside agencies.