Independent schools
Early Insights
Teaching and learning
Schools continue to provide effective teaching to support pupils’ learning and secure strong outcomes in public examinations.
What’s going well
- Teachers apply their expert knowledge of public examination specifications highly effectively. As a result, overall, pupil attainment in public examinations is strong.
- Pupils’ communication skills are highly developed and are a particular strength.
- Pupils’ enjoyment and standard of reading are high.
- Pupils demonstrate strong writing abilities for a variety of purposes, particularly older pupils who write concise and cogent arguments in response to examination questions.
- Most pupils make strong progress in developing their mathematical skills with older pupils developing advanced mathematical skills during their time at school.
- Schools offer an extensive and frequently highly individualised curriculum, well-tailored to the needs and interests of pupils.
- Staff know their pupils’ needs, abilities and interests extremely well and build strong professional relationships with their classes.
- Teaching is well sequenced and supported by carefully selected and designed resources.
- Teachers provide effective verbal feedback, which helps move learning forward.
What needs to improve
- In all schools visited, pupils are confident users of digital technologies, although progress in developing their discrete digital skills is variable. This is because curriculum planning for the progressive development of these skills is at an early stage of development.
- Where pupil progress is less strong, this is more often due to teachers excessively scaffolding or leading activities and not providing pupils with sufficient opportunities to work independently.
Well-being, care support and guidance
Schools have worked highly effectively to ensure good levels of care, support and guidance to continue to successfully support pupils’ well-being.
What’s going well
- Each school inspected place an extremely high priority on the well-being of their pupils.
- A particular strength is the comprehensive advice and support pupils received when considering their future destinations and careers.
- Relationships between staff and pupils are strong, constructive and supportive.
- Pupils have a strong sense of belonging, take pride in their school and demonstrate respect for each other, members of staff and visitors to the school.
- Nearly all pupils’ behaviour and most pupils’ attitudes to learning are exemplary.
- Most pupils display high levels of concentration and engage enthusiastically throughout their lessons.
- All of the schools inspected actively promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well.
- Each of the schools inspected this year supports pupils with additional learning needs well.
- Pupils requiring additional support are swiftly identified and staff use helpful strategies during lessons to remove barriers to learning. As a result, pupils with additional learning needs achieve in line with their expectations.
What needs to improve
- In a few cases, school policies required minor amendments to meet the requirements of Welsh Government legislation.
Leading and improving
Leaders have sustained cohesive communities and continue to be ambitious for their pupils and work collegiately in their best interests.
What’s going well
- Leaders have a clear vision for their school, are ambitious for their pupils and have high expectations of their staff.
- Leaders have built and/or sustained cohesive communities that work collegiately in the best interests of pupils.
- Leaders promote a culture of safeguarding suitably.
- Governance arrangements are robust and provide an appropriate level of challenge and support.
What needs to improve
- In a minority of schools, systems and approaches to tracking individual pupils’ progress over time are not yet fully refined or embedded.
- Lesson observations conducted as part of leaders’ quality assurance activities do not consistently evaluate the impact that teaching has upon learning or identify the subtle aspects of teaching practice that may need improvement.
Overview of recommendations from inspections
In the 2023-2024 academic year, Estyn inspected five independent mainstream schools.
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Four providers were given a recommendation to refine quality assurance or self-evaluation processes, particularly in terms of the quality of teaching.
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Two providers were given a recommendation to build on existing practice to improve consistency across the school.
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Two providers were given a recommendation about leadership:
- Strengthen the school’s current practices to ensure that roles and responsibilities at directorate and governing body level are clearly defined
- Ensure that the leadership team effectively distil available information to develop a coherent overview of teaching, learning, attendance and the curriculum across the whole school
Other recommendations provided to independent mainstream settings included improving attendance, ensuring that teachers’ expectations are appropriately high, making best use of assessment data to inform/enhance pupil progress, and sharpening monitoring and improvement work to focus on pupil outcomes.