At their meeting last week, the Children, Young People & Learning Overview & Scrutiny Board spoke to Head Teachers and Chair’s of Governors from four Swansea schools about their ESTYN inspection reports. As I’m sure you know, every school gets inspected by ESTYN and, following the inspection, a report is published and an action plan is produced by the school to show how they are going to deal with any recommendations.
The schools were:
This is something new for overview & scrutiny in Swansea but talking to schools about their inspections has some obvious benefits for the Board:
- It gives the councillors a greater understanding of what is happening in schools
- It allows the schools to share what they have achieved and learnt in a public meeting
- It gives the councillors a chance to provide ‘critical friend’ challenge to the schools about their inspections and the action plans that follow from them
- It provides the Board with a chance to make recommendations about what they have found through a letter to the Cabinet Member for Education
In this instance the Board were very pleased with what they found – all four schools were demonstrating improvement and there were many, many positives to share. This presentation from Hafod Primary School is a good example:
The Board felt that the sessions with the schools were very useful and productive and are looking to schedule similar meetings with other schools in the future.
A big thank you goes to the Head Teaches and Governor Chairs who were willing to give up their time and contribute tot he work of the Board so constructively.
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