Ebbw Fawr Learning Community

Overview

Ebbw Fawr Learning Community is described as a school where staff are committed to creating a ‘safe, secure and caring environment’ that enables pupils to be ‘learning to achieve together’. The headteacher provides strong leadership, fostering an ethos encapsulated by the ‘Ebbw Fawr Way’ of being ‘Ready, Respectful and Safe’. This supportive culture contributes to pupils feeling safe and displaying a positive attitude towards their work and school life.

Strengths

• Leaders successfully create an inclusive environment with extensive provision to support pupil well-being.
• Most teachers plan and adapt work effectively, helping nearly all pupils, including those with additional learning needs, to make ‘at least suitable progress’.
• The school provides numerous opportunities for pupils to take on leadership roles.
• Robust arrangements promote good behaviour and attendance, with specific programmes like ‘EVE’ supporting at-risk pupils.
• Leaders effectively mitigate the effect of poverty on pupils’ attainment and well-being.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must ‘sharpen self-evaluation processes to focus more specifically on the impact of teaching on learning’, as they do not always consider this impact well enough.
• The school should ‘provide more opportunities for pupils to develop their writing skills and write at length for authentic purposes’, as pupils currently do not write purposefully enough.

Safeguarding

The report states that the school’s arrangements for safeguarding pupils ‘do not give any cause for concern’.