A SECONDARY school has been been judged as needing improvement by inspectorate body Estyn.

Gwernyfed High School, based just over the county border in Three Cocks, was visited by Estyn, the inspectorate for education in Wales, back in March.

They found that: the standards, wellbeing and attitudes to learning; teaching and learning experiences; care, support and guidance were all judged to be 'adequate and needs improvement'.

Meanwhile the leadership and management was judged to be 'unsatisfactory and needs urgent improvement'.

In the report summary the Estyn inspection team found that: 'The headteacher demonstrates a trusting and collegiate approach to leadership and his vision for a caring community is shared effectively.

'He is supported appropriately by a dedicated team of staff. However, self-evaluation processes do not focus well enough on key aspects of the school’s work and lack sufficient rigour. Leaders’ views of provision and standards across the school are therefore too positive.

As a result, leadership has not led to sufficient or sustained improvements in the quality of teaching and assessment, attendance, pupils’ attitudes to learning and the standards they achieve, including developing their skills.

Overall, Gwernyfed High School has a caring and respectful ethos where many pupils feel safe and generally well supported. Many pupils make suitable progress over time, have positive attitudes to learning and enjoy participating in the many beneficial activities that take place outside of lessons. However, in a minority of lessons a few pupils are too easily distracted and make insufficient progress, as well as disrupting the learning of others.

'The school offers broadly appropriate professional learning opportunities for all teachers. However, it does not have a sufficiently co-ordinated approach to the progressive development of pupils’ skills across the curriculum.

'In a minority of lessons, teaching and assessment do not challenge pupils well enough.'

Within the report it stated: "The school’s procedures for safeguarding children are satisfactory. However, during the inspection, a few safeguarding and health and safety concerns were brought to the attention of the inspection team. As a result, Estyn will issue the school and local authority with a wellbeing letter, which will require a swift and appropriate response to these concerns."

Estyn listed five recommendations for the school. These were:

.Improve the progress that all pupils make in lessons, including in the development of their literacy and numeracy skills and Welsh language development.

.Improve attendance overall and the attitudes to learning of a few pupils

.Strengthen the quality of teaching and assessment

.Improve the quality and impact of leadership at all levels, particularly by strengthening improvement processes

. Address the health and safety issues raised during the inspection.

The school survived a threat of closure by Powys County Council who wanted to transfer pupils to a newly built school in Brecon.

Powys County Council said the school needed 'significant improvement' and that education officers have started working with school staff and governors at the school to make sure that areas identified in need of improvement by Estyn are tackled 'as a matter of priority and urgency'.

The school will draw up an action plan which will detail how they are going to address inspection recommendations.

Estyn will monitor the school’s progress for 12 months.

Councillor Phyl Davies, cabinet member for education and property, said: “We are working with senior leaders at Gwernyfed High School to ensure that they have the support that is needed.

"The school is well regarded in the community but it faces challenges that need to be addressed.

“With everybody on board, we believe that they can address the matters highlighted by Estyn in order to raise expectations and give parents and learners the confidence that they need in the school.”

Diane Hebb, Gwernyfed High School’s acting chair of governors, said: “The Gwernyfed school community is disappointed with the outcome of the inspection but are pleased at the positive aspects noted in the report.

“We are determined to put right the matters that have been highlighted and our staff are already heavily engaged in discussions about the improvement journey.

"We’ll need everybody on board as we strive to ensure that we provide the best learning experiences and outcomes for all our students.”