Cilffriw Primary School, Neath

Cilffriw 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 144 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

33% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 39% have additional learning needs (30% in 2020/21); and 10% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 11 pupils (Year 1) to 22 (Year 4).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £9,319 per pupil, against £4,825 in 2021-22. It ended 2024-25 with a deficit of £121k.

Estyn's report on its November 2023 inspection summarises Cilffriw Primary School like this:

"Pupils at Cilffriw Primary School enjoy coming to school and are happy and well behaved. Despite this, senior leaders and governors need to strengthen the school’s safeguarding culture. The school has an appropriate vision to develop pupils as independent learners who achieve well. However the quality of teaching is too variable and teachers do not have high enough expectations of the standards that pupils can achieve. They do not use ongoing assessment data well enough to help plan next steps in pupils’ learning. As a result, too many pupils do not make the progress they are capable of and do not develop the skills needed to become effective independent learners. Pupils’ standards in Welsh and digital competence are particularly weak."

"In addition, teachers do not provide pupils with sufficient opportunities to use their literacy and numeracy skills in meaningful and authentic contexts. Provision for pupils in the specialist classes is good. Teachers use a variety of different teaching methods to engage pupils with their work. As a result, all pupils in these classes make strong progress. However, the progress of pupils with additional leaning needs (ALN) in mainstream classes is too inconsistent. The school has recently revised its planning to implement the Curriculum for Wales. There is now greater consistency in teaching approaches, but too often staff do not build systematically on pupils’ existing knowledge and skills in learning activities that they plan."

"Senior leaders are committed to the school. However there are serious shortcomings in the way that they plan strategically to improve the school. Senior leaders do not ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly distributed and communication, particularly with parents, is inadequate. Senior leaders do not monitor and evaluate the work of the school in a systematic way or use the findings well enough to make improvements. As a result, they do not always identify and address important shortcomings in the school’s work quickly enough. Senior leaders and governors do not have an appropriate overview of how they are ensuring that pupils eligible free school meals and those from those from low income households are making appropriate progress."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Strengthen safeguarding arrangements and address the safeguarding and health and safety issues identified during the inspection; (2) Improve strategic leadership at all levels; (3) Improve teachers’ use of on-going assessment to inform appropriate next steps in pupils’ learning and to challenge pupils to achieve to the best of their ability; (4) Improve provision for the teaching of and the progressive development of pupils’ skills.

The nearest other state primary schools to Cilffriw Primary School are Tonnau Primary Community School (0.9 miles), Catwg Primary School (1.1 miles), Blaenhonddan Primary School (1.6 miles) and Bryncoch CIW Primary School (1.6 miles).

The nearest railway station is Neath Rail Station, about 2 miles away in a straight line.

7 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Cilfrew Post Office (nr former), 70 metres away.