Bryn Awel Primary School, Rhymney

Bryn Awel Primary School is an English-medium school in Wales. Welsh schools are inspected by Estyn rather than Ofsted, and its latest report is published on Estyn's website.

It had 130 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

52% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 16% have additional learning needs (24% in 2020/21).

Year groups range from 12 pupils (Year 1) to 22 (Year 5).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £6,161 per pupil, against £4,216 in 2021-22. It ended 2024-25 with a deficit of £28k.

Estyn's report on its March 2024 inspection summarises Bryn Awel Primary School like this:

"Bryn Awel Primary is a caring school where staff work closely with pupils and their families to develop strong working relationships. Across the school, most pupils behave well and show kindness and care towards one another. Following a period of change in leadership, both with senior leaders and the governing body, there are emerging strengths developing. Leaders are developing self-evaluation processes to evaluate and monitor the progress pupils make and these are beginning to have a positive impact, especially in reading and writing. However, overall, leaders’ use of self-evaluation and monitoring to support improvement planning is broad and lengthy and does not focus well enough on the most important areas for to bring about improvements in the quality of teaching and learning. Many pupils make good progress based on their starting points in reading and writing. Most pupils with additional learning needs (ALN) make suitable progress. Across the school, teachers have a good understanding of how to develop pupils’ reading skills and successfully promote the importance of reading."

"They also work well to develop pupils' writing skills. However, teachers' subject knowledge of mathematics varies and, as a result, they do not always build on pupils’ mathematical skills progressively. Opportunities for pupils to apply their numeracy skills across the curriculum are limited. Teachers' use of assessments to provide suitable learning varies. Leaders share a vision for curriculum design and work closely with families and the local community to strengthen links that will help improve the learning opportunities for all pupils. There are beneficial links with local partners and businesses and this helps enrich the activities in which pupils participate. Leaders and staff work with cluster schools effectively to develop their subject knowledge on Curriculum for Wales (CfW) and use this information well to support their curriculum design. There are emerging strengths in some areas of learning, for example the development of pupils’ skills in expressive arts."

"Leaders work with families and other partners to improve the attendance of pupils. Whilst these are beginning to have a positive impact, attendance rates overall remain too low. The headteacher is passionate and determined to strengthen standards at the school so that pupils access a broad range of learning experiences and develop a range of skills to help them in their future lives. She works closely with the governing body to manage the school’s budget effectively to support the costs of school trips and visits, and to provide good quality resources. Recent changes to the indoor learning environments set high standards of expectation and create calm, safe spaces for children to learn. Leaders and staff have a shared desire to work together to raise pupils’ aspirations and to provide high levels of care and nurture their pupils. Within a short space of time, leaders and staff have worked effectively to raise standards and broaden experiences for pupils at Bryn Awel Primary."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Improve self-evaluation, monitoring and improvement planning to ensure that the focus is on the most important areas in need of development; (2) Improve the quality of teaching and assessment; (3) Provide purposeful learning opportunities to ensure that pupils develop their mathematical skills progressively; (4) Continue to improve attendance.

The nearest other state primary schools to Bryn Awel Primary School are Ysgol Y Lawnt (0.5 miles), Upper Rhymney Primary School (0.9 miles), Fochriw Primary School (1.2 miles) and Georgetown C.P. School (2 miles).

The nearest railway station is Rhymney Rail Station, about 900 metres away (roughly a 11-minute walk).

10 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Moriah Street (after), 100 metres away.