Headteacher praise for staff and pupils after Hawarden High School taken out of monitoring by education watchdog Estyn

Hawarden High School has been taken out of monitoring by schools inspectorate Estyn after making “good progress”.

The school, which has over 1,100 pupils, was put under Estyn review following an inspection by the education watchdog in March 2017.

The inspection found the school to be ‘adequate’ with the performance of boys highlighted as showing a downward trend.

It also found, in a minority of lessons, activities did not meet the needs of all pupils well enough and teachers’ expectations of what pupils could achieve was too low.

Following an Estyn review, the school has now been judged to have made good progress in addressing key issues from last years inspection.

The education inspectorate said it was satisfied that the school no longer needs monitoring.

In a letter sent to parents and guardians on Monday headteacher Mr Simon Budgen wrote:

“The school have this morning received the latest notification from Estyn, the school inspectorate in Wales, in regards to the monitoring activity that has taken place since the core inspection of April 2017.

Since that time, they, along with the Local Authority and the regional school improvement service, have been reviewing the school’s progress against the inspection report recommendations.

This has involved close scrutiny of all aspects of the school’s work and detailed consideration of examination results.

I am delighted to report that Estyn have deemed the school to have made good progress since the time of the core inspection, so much so that it is now taken out of the monitoring category in which it was placed.

As a result, this will mean that there will be no further inspection activity until such a time that the school will need to be inspected again as part of the normal cycle.

We are really pleased with this endorsement which recognises the progress that the school has made in a short space of time.

I would like to thank the Hawarden community for the support that has been demonstrated to the school over the last eighteen months.

However, I must also pay tribute to the students and staff at the school who have worked hard in responding to the newly implemented policies and practices since that time.

The school has a firm bedrock upon which further success can be built and has the promise of an outstanding future.

I, along with my team, remain committed to raising standards and achieving the very best outcomes for our students.”

Estyn Assistant Director Catherine Evans said:

“We have reviewed the progress the school has made since the Section 28 inspection.

We have considered the progress report in the context of feedback from the local authority and scrutiny of the all Wales core data sets.

The school is judged to have made good progress in respect of the key issues for action following the Section 28 inspection.

We will now remove the school from the list of schools requiring Estyn Review.

There will be no further Estyn monitoring visits.”