Connah's Quay High School,

Overview

The report states that frequent headteacher changes have impacted the school’s capacity to maintain a consistent approach to improvement. Despite this, leaders have fostered an inclusive ethos, and a newly appointed headteacher has a clear vision for the future. However, the report concludes that the school is "in need of significant improvement" due to unclear leadership roles and insufficient impact on teaching quality and attendance.

Strengths

• Leaders have "fostered an inclusive ethos" and developed strategies to support pupils’ well-being.
• Pupils are generally "positive about their school experience" and value the support provided.
• The school has "beneficial provision to support pupils with additional learning needs" and those for whom English is an additional language.
• In the majority of cases, teaching is described as "suitably effective".

Areas to improve

• Refine senior leader roles to ensure they are equitable and enable effective accountability for securing improvement.
• Strengthen processes for self-evaluation and improvement planning, as current systems are not robust enough.
• Improve teaching and assessment to challenge and engage all pupils, and strengthen provision for attendance and skills in literacy, numeracy, Welsh, and digital areas.

Safeguarding

The report notes that while leaders support well-being, a few pupils feel that issues such as bullying are "not dealt with well enough," and a minority do not feel that behaviour management approaches are consistently fair.