Dylan Thomas Community School, Swansea

Dylan Thomas Community 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 708 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

51% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 15% have additional learning needs (58% in 2020/21); 6% are learning English as an additional language; and 14% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 124 pupils (Year 11) to 154 (Year 10).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £7,620 per pupil, against £6,916 in 2021-22. It carried forward £717k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its February 2024 inspection summarises Dylan Thomas Community School like this:

"Staff at Dylan Thomas Community School offer pupils consistently high-quality care support and guidance. The school has an inclusive, family feel and there are strong working relationships between pupils and staff. Pupils understand the school’s rules well, and behaviour in lessons and around the school is generally good. Most pupils really enjoy coming to school and feel well-supported. Leaders ensure that all pupils, whatever their background have access to beneficial cultural and educational experiences. Senior leaders are passionate about giving pupils the very best chances in life. They ensure that pupils receive beneficial opportunities to take part in a wide variety of cultural, sporting and academic experiences."

"A notable strength of the school is the way in which staff develop pupils’ understanding of the Welsh language and Welsh culture. The school offers pupils a broad range of subject choices in Year 10 and Year 11. However, the school's work to develop its curriculum including ensuring continuity from Year 6 to Year 7 with its partner primary schools is in its infancy. Across the curriculum, staff do not ensure that pupils develop their literacy, particularly reading, and numeracy skills well enough. In the majority of cases, teachers have suitably high expectations of what pupils can achieve. They plan engaging lessons that ensure pupils make secure progress. In a minority of cases, teachers do not have high enough expectations of pupils and plan lessons that keep them busy but do not ensure progress."

"The school has two specialist teaching facilities (STFs), one for pupils with moderate and significant learning needs and a second for those who have autism. There is consistently high-quality teaching in the STFs. As a result, pupils in these facilities, make a great deal of progress in their social and academic skills. Leaders at all levels carry out a wide range of self-evaluation activities. Planning for improvements in pupils’ wellbeing has been successful. However, leaders do not evaluate the quality of teaching in light of its impact on pupils’ progress closely enough. As a result, they do not have a precise enough understanding of the strengths and areas for improvement in teaching."

Estyn made 3 recommendations: (1) Strengthen the school’s self-evaluation and improvement planning procedures, ensuring that leaders evaluate the quality of teaching by its impact on learning; (2) Address the shortcomings in teaching identified in this report; (3) Improve planning for curricular continuity between Year 6 and Year 7 and the progressive development of literacy and numeracy skills across subjects.

From the headteacher's welcome: "Dylan Thomas Community School is a thriving, community-focused school serving the heart of Swansea. This is a school close to my heart, and I feel extremely privileged to serve as your Headteacher."

The nearest other state secondary schools to Dylan Thomas Community School are Bishop Gore School (1.3 miles), Olchfa School (1.4 miles), Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe (1.6 miles) and Pentrehafod School (1.8 miles).

The nearest railway station is Swansea Rail Station, about 1.9 miles away in a straight line.

8 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Fry's Corner (after), 110 metres away.