Connah's Quay High School, Flintshire

Connah's Quay High 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 1008 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

24% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 7% have additional learning needs (20% in 2020/21); 6% are learning English as an additional language; and 16% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 192 pupils (Year 9) to 218 (Year 7).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £6,193 per pupil, against £4,875 in 2021-22. It carried forward £224k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its January 2023 inspection summarises Connah's Quay High School like this:

"In recent years, the school has had a number of different headteachers in a short space of time. These changes have had an impact on the school’s capacity to maintain a consistent approach to improving key aspects of its work. Despite this, leaders have fostered an inclusive ethos and developed a range of strategies to support pupils’ well-being. The recently appointed new headteacher has a clear vision for the school’s future and is quickly gaining an understanding of the strengths and areas for improvement in the school’s provision. In general, pupils are positive about their school experience and value the support that is provided."

"However, a few pupils feel that issues such as bullying are not dealt with well enough, and a minority do not feel that the school’s approaches to managing behaviour are consistently fair. Although membership of the senior leadership team other than the headteacher has remained relatively stable during recent years, over time, their roles have become unclear and unbalanced. This hampers their capacity to secure improvement and makes it difficult for them to be held to account fully. In addition, systems to evaluate the school’s provision and plan for improvement are not robust or precise enough. This has led to leaders at all levels having an overgenerous view of the school’s performance."

"As a result, leadership has not had sufficient impact on, for example, the quality of teaching or pupils’ attendance, engagement and progress. In the majority of cases, teaching is suitably effective, but pupils are not always challenged enough, which limits the progress they make. The school has beneficial provision to support pupils with additional learning needs and those for whom English is an additional language. However, it does not have a coherent strategy for developing pupils’ skills in literacy, numeracy, information and Welsh, or their digital skills."

Estyn made 5 recommendations: (1) Refine the roles and responsibilities of senior leaders so that they are equitable and enable them to carry out their roles effectively and be held to account for securing improvement; (2) Strengthen processes for self-evaluation and improvement planning; (3) Improve teaching and assessment in order to challenge and engage all pupils; (4) Strengthen provision to improve pupils’ attendance, engagement and attitudes to learning; (5) Strengthen provision for the progressive development of pupils’ skills in literacy, numeracy and Welsh, and their digital skills.

The nearest other state secondary schools to Connah's Quay High School are St Richard Gwyn Roman Catholic High School (2.4 miles), Flint High School (2.6 miles), Hawarden High School (2.8 miles) and Elfed High School (3.5 miles).

The nearest railway station is Shotton Rail Station, about 1.8 miles away in a straight line.

5 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Connah's Quay High School (at), 60 metres away.