Heolddu Comprehensive School is an English-medium, mixed 11-18 comprehensive school situated in the town of Bargoed. The school serves the surrounding areas including Gilfach, Aberbargoed, Deri and Tirphil. Heolddu Comprehensive School works in partnership with five other schools and the local further education college to provide a joint sixth form. There are 546 pupils on roll, including 83 in the sixth form. This compares with a total of 723 pupils, including 99 in the sixth form, when the school was last inspected in 2011. Around 26% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. This figure is above the Welsh average of 17% for secondary schools. Forty-three per cent of pupils live in the 20% most deprived areas of Wales. Around 21% of pupils have additional learning needs, and just over 1% have a statement of special educational needs. Both of these figures are below the Welsh averages of, respectively, 22.7% and 2%. Almost all pupils are from a white, British background. Very few speak English as an additional language. Very few pupils speak Welsh as a first language. The current headteacher took up his post in April 2014. Since then the headteacher has appointed a new senior leadership team. The current leadership team includes the business manager, a deputy headteacher and three assistant headteachers, one of whom is seconded to the team. Further information is available from the Welsh Government My Local School website at the link below. http://mylocalschool.wales.gov.uk/Schools/SchoolSearch?lang=en 1 A report on Heolddu Comprehensive School May 2018 Summary Heolddu Comprehensive School is a caring learning community that promotes inclusivity and wellbeing successfully. Pupils are proud to belong to the Heolddu school community. Most pupils are courteous and respectful towards staff, visitors and fellow pupils. They behave well, arrive promptly to lessons and demonstrate positive attitudes to learning, although a minority lack suitable levels of resilience. During lessons, many pupils recall prior learning well and the majority make suitable progress in developing their knowledge, understanding and skills. However, a minority of pupils have underdeveloped literacy and numeracy skills. Teaching has many strengths, in particular the constructive working relationships between teachers and pupils that help engage pupils and contribute well to building their confidence and self-esteem. However, in a minority of cases, learning activities do not challenge pupils of differing abilities well enough. The headteacher and senior leadership team share a sense of purpose and commitment to the school’s values and ambition of ‘Achieving Excellence Together’. However, there are a few important areas of the school’s work, such as the consistency of teaching and the standards pupils achieve, where leadership has not led to sufficient and sustained improvements. Inspection area Judgement Standards Adequate and needs improvement Wellbeing and attitudes to learning Good Teaching and learning experiences Adequate and needs improvement Care, support and guidance Good Leadership and management Adequate and needs improvement 2 A report on Heolddu Comprehensive School May 2018 Recommendations R1 Raise standards, particularly at key stage 4 R2 Improve provision for the development of pupils’ literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology skills, especially their writing R3 Improve the quality of teaching and the effectiveness of assessment R4 Work to reduce the deficit budget What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to show how it is going to address the recommendations. Estyn will review the school’s progress.