Blenheim Road Community Primary School is in Cwmbran in the Torfaen local authority. Since September 2016, the school and Coed Eva Primary School have formed the Federation of Blenheim Road Community and Coed Eva Primary Schools. Both schools share the same executive headteacher and governing body. Blenheim Road Primary was last inspected in March 2015. This is the first inspection of the school since the federation. The school has 276 pupils, including 47 part-time nursery pupils. There are eight classes, including one mixed-age class. There is also a separate class for pupils who have additional learning needs or need additional support. The three-year average of pupils eligible for free school meals is around 35%, which is well above the national average of 19%. The school identifies that around 25% of pupils have additional leaning needs, which is slightly above the national average of 21%. Most pupils are of white British ethnicity. A very few pupils speak Welsh at home or have English as an additional language. The headteacher has been in post since 2014. She became executive headteacher of both schools in the federation in September 2016. 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 Blenheim Road Community Primary School June 2018 Summary The school is a happy and nurturing community where the high level of care and co-operation between staff and pupils contributes successfully to pupils’ wellbeing. Most pupils develop strong attitudes and behaviours to help them learn and many are developing well as confident and curious learners. During their time at the school, many pupils achieve appropriate standards in most aspects of their learning. They develop strong oracy skills that support them appropriately in all areas of learning, and are confident to share their ideas and opinions. In most classes, effective curriculum planning identifies opportunities for pupils to use and improve their literacy and numeracy skills in other curriculum areas. However, this varies too much from class to class as pupils move through the school. As a result, all pupils do not make as much progress as they could in developing their writing, numeracy and Welsh language skills. Senior leaders have established a clear vision for the federation. There is a clear leadership structure and all leaders undertake their well-defined roles and responsibilities effectively. Members of the governing body bring a rich mix of skills to their roles and provide purposeful support and challenge to the federation. Across the federation, leaders undertake a wide range of monitoring activities, but not all have strong enough evaluative skills to make specific judgements that support teachers to improve. 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 Good 2 A report on Blenheim Road Community Primary School June 2018 Recommendations R1 Improve pupils’ numeracy and literacy skills across the curriculum R2 Improve pupils’ standards in Welsh R3 Improve the quality of teaching so that pupils achieve their learning objectives consistently in all classes and that the delivery of the curriculum provides pupils with balanced and consistent learning opportunities R4 Develop leaders’ skills to ensure that they evaluate and identify specific areas for improvement more effectively when monitoring standards and the quality of provision What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to address the recommendations from the inspection.