Llangattock School Monmouth, Monmouthshire

Llangattock School Monmouth is a school in Wales. Welsh schools are inspected by Estyn rather than Ofsted, and its latest report is published on Estyn's website.

Estyn's report on its March 2025 inspection summarises Llangattock School Monmouth like this:

"Llangattock School is an inclusive and supportive community in which nearly all pupils feel safe, valued, and engaged in learning. Strong relationships between staff and pupils create a nurturing atmosphere, which is particularly successful in helping pupils overcome previous disengagement with education. The school prioritises well-being, with a focus on emotional support. This ethos is contributed to and embodied by staff at all levels and, as a result, nearly all pupils make rapid personal development, developing their resilience and self-regulation. The school offers a highly flexible and individualised curriculum, educating pupils based on their ‘stage, not age’. Pupils follow personalised timetables, with a minority attending part-time. The curriculum is broad and balanced, with younger pupils’ experiences founded on Curriculum for Wales, and older pupils following courses leading to accreditations including BTECs, iGCSEs, and A levels. A tailored approach allows pupils to progress along customised learning pathways at their own pace, with exams entered when pupils are ready. PSHE is embedded across the school, promoting cultural awareness, well-being, and life skills. Teaching at the school is highly adaptive, with teachers using their subject expertise to modify lessons and learning in response to pupils, employing scaffolding and varied teaching methods to suit each pupil’s needs. As a result, most pupils make suitable progress in the development of their knowledge and skills in line with their needs and ability, with a few making very rapid progress. However, in part due to the challenges of its flexible approaches to learning, the school lacks over-arching, structured processes for tracking pupil progress. Founded on the clear vision articulated by the proprietor, leaders at the school have successfully established a strong, shared sense of purpose among staff. The school is a highly collaborative professional environment, which encourages professional learning. Safeguarding is a priority, with senior leaders closely monitoring pupil well-being. However, rapid school growth and the demands of highly flexible provision limit leaders’ capacity for strategic improvement work. Self-evaluation processes are underdeveloped, and the close involvement of the proprietor with operational matters limits their ability to objectively evaluate the school’s performance and thereby drive improvement. The school is not fully compliant with the Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2024. Main evaluation An inclusive community with well-being at its heart As a result of the highly inclusive, friendly, family atmosphere that leaders have created, nearly all pupils feel safe, happy and supported at Llangattock School. They value the strong relationships they form with their teachers and feel part of a welcoming and inclusive community. Pupils feel known as individuals and trust that, as a result, the school is highly effective in enabling them to make progress. These strengths of provision are particularly effective in enabling pupils to overcome previous disengagement with education. The school provides a calm, purposeful and supportive learning environment. Staff foster highly positive, nurturing professional relationships. This creates a sense of trust and understanding of individual pupils that encourages them to engage, and sustain engagement with, their learning. As a result, nearly all pupils make rapid improvements in their well-being and personal development. Nearly all pupils have confidence that their teachers know them very well and want them to do their best. They value that lessons are tailored to their academic levels and staff are extremely supportive. Pupils actively seek recognition of their achievements from staff; they want their teachers to be proud of them. Throughout the school, most pupils are confident and articulate communicators. They speak assuredly, using a wide range of subject specific and topic related vocabulary. Most pupils are polite and well-mannered. They speak with confidence, and articulate their thoughts and ideas clearly to teachers, support staff and visitors. Many pupils understand that they and their peers have differing academic needs. Pupils exhibit a high level of tolerance, understanding and respect towards each other, readily accepting each other’s differences and behaviours. Nearly all pupils feel that unkindness is rare but that, should it occur, it is dealt with promptly by staff. Staff consistently demonstrate patience and an understanding of each pupil's unique needs, fostering a positive learning environment. Staff encouragement for pupils supports the development of good attitudes towards learning. For example, pupils improving their phonics skills are effectively guided to remain focused to complete their learning task and their progress is positively reinforced. The diverse needs of the children means that staff must be ready to adapt and be flexible, getting to know the child and their family well so they are in the best position to offer the most effective support. Teaching assistants (TAs) play a key role in offering emotional and well-being support, particularly for pupils with additional learning needs (ALN). They are highly successful at encouraging and focusing pupils. This has a highly positive effect on pupils’ ability to self- regulate and, as a result, pupils develop their ability to persevere and develop resilience in line with their needs successfully. Nearly all parents feel that the small class sizes, and the strong positive relationship between teachers, pupils and home, contribute to supporting each individual pupil’s learning and well-being needs."

"They feel that the school suits the needs of the pupils because of the individual attention received, trusting that staff know the children very well as individuals. For nearly all members of the school community, its location and setting are key to its appeal and effectiveness. Pupils regularly access outdoor spaces including wooded areas and nearly all participate enthusiastically in outdoor activities such as the ‘daily mile’. Pupils benefit from extensive grounds with extended views across the surrounding countryside. Bespoke curriculum pathways The school provides pupils with a broad and balanced curriculum that aims to educate pupils according to their ‘stage, not age’. Pupils’ timetables are highly individualised. A minority of pupils attend the school on part-time basis to support their elective home education or their studies in another school or college. Younger pupils follow a learning pathway linked to the Curriculum for Wales, whilst older pupils are prepared for a range of qualifications and accreditations, including BTECs, iGCSE and A levels. Pupils move between or across stages to access their learning. For example, pupils may move between the two primary classes, or between primary, middle and initial classes when learning about literacy or numeracy. Older pupils may be entered for iGCSE examinations one or two years early or study an individually tailored programme of GCSEs to maximise their opportunities for success. Most pupils value this flexibility of teaching and learning approach and its responsiveness to their individual needs for academic support or challenge in each subject. The school’s flexibility to provide learning, or to support independent learning, at each pupil’s level is a notable strength of provision. The PSHE programme is embedded across the school and pupils experience a wide range of age-appropriate topics. There are opportunities for discussion and celebration to develop understanding of different faiths and cultures. For example, pupils across the Primary classes celebrated Chinese new year and made Diya lamps to celebrate Diwali. The oldest pupils are prepared well for adult life through learning about substance use and healthy relationships. Health and well-being sessions support pupils to develop their ability to know how to manage their feelings, develop resilience, and be able to persist and persevere. Learning and teaching Across the school, teachers demonstrate a strong understanding of subject knowledge and pedagogy appropriate to their ‘stage’ of education. They use this to support and challenge pupils at different stages in their learning and development appropriately. Teachers delivering subjects leading to public examinations have a secure understanding of their subject and the requirements of these courses. Most lessons begin with clear routines and high expectations that pupils generally follow. Nearly all teachers are highly skilled at adapting their teaching in response to pupils’ contexts and needs, with learning activities and teaching methods re-planned ‘in the moment’ to ensure that progress is made. Most lessons, particularly for older pupils, are well-paced and include open questioning, supporting active learning. The tutorial-style approach in sixth form is particularly effective in helping pupils progress at an appropriate rate. During teaching, many staff use a range of communication strategies and methods. They are adept at simplifying concepts, including complex aspects of physics such as photons, using language and approaches that suit each pupil. Scaffolding, suitably adapted to each pupil, is used effectively during learning activities. Further, in nearly all lessons activities, tasks or learning intentions are suitably adapted to meet each pupil at their next learning step. As a result, most pupils make suitable progress in the development of their knowledge and skills in line with their needs and ability, with a few making very rapid progress. Many primary pupils are keen readers, who take part in shared reading enthusiastically. They read loud with confidence, commenting on their favourite parts and sharing their thoughts. As they progress through primary, many pupils read with developing fluency and apply their phonic knowledge to decode unfamiliar words. By the time they reach Key Stage 4, many pupils read for meaning highly effectively and read aloud with fluency and accuracy. Nearly all primary pupils make suitable progress with their writing over time, writing for different purposes and within topic areas. For example, older primary pupils write about their creations and the steps they took to design and make an object in art. Middle pupils complete a diary entry from the time of King Arthur. A few pupils in the lower senior years independently edit their own work to improve. By the time they reach Key Stage 4, nearly all pupils write extended sentences to answer questions successfully. The writing of a few, most able, older pupils is highly engaging and employs complex vocabulary and sentence structure to build atmosphere and emotion. As they move through the school, nearly all pupils develop their mathematical skills suitably, in line with their needs and ability. Many younger primary pupils demonstrate an understanding of numbers up to 10 and accurately compare length of items using non- standard units. Most older primary pupils recognise odd and even numbers, represent three-digit numbers on place value charts and are beginning to understand, and make comparison with, units of measure. In the senior school, many pupils put their mathematical skills to suitable use across the curriculum."

"For example, pupils studying the photoelectric effect in A level physics successfully calculate the energy passed by photons to electrons and the resulting current. Pupil progress and attendance Across the school, the collection, analysis and use of information related to pupil progress is undeveloped. This limits staff’s ability to identify factors that may lead to pupil progress accelerating or stalling. For example, the impact of flexible attendance on pupil progress is not yet fully understood nor captured by leaders. In the context of pupils with highly individualised learning programmes, leaders have yet to establish clearly how best to evaluate and measure pupil progress or develop a strategic approach to monitoring pupils’ learning and development. In keeping with the prevalence of pupils for whom prior disengagement with education has been an issue, encouraging attendance is a key part of the school’s work. Increasing their attendance is an explicit target for a few pupils. The school is working closely with these pupils and their parents to transition to increased on-site learning. Attendance rates are low compared with mainstream expectations but, for many of the school’s pupils, attendance at school is part of their progress journey, and a key element in their social, emotional and well-being target-setting. The school’s processes and practice regarding analysis of attendance, and the inclusion of this information in progress tracking, are in the very early stages of development. Leading and improving Staff feel highly supported and value the collaborative professional environment established by leaders. As a result of communication that is open, honest and effective, staff feel trusted and listened to. They feel a strong, shared sense of purpose, extending across the whole school, which underpins a close-knit, supportive community. This is a strength of the school. Leaders have begun to create a culture of continuous professional development, in which nearly all staff feel empowered to seek out and engage with training and learning opportunities that will increase the effectiveness of provision. The school has made extensive use of a wide range of training, for example learning modules on trauma informed practice. However, leaders’ processes for tracking these, and for evaluating their impact, are currently underdeveloped. Leaders at all levels contribute to an effective culture of safeguarding. A well-established and effective team of senior leaders oversee the day-to-day safeguarding work of the school. They meet regularly to discuss pupils’ well-being and to manage any ongoing concerns. Leaders actively seek advice from a range of external partners, including the local authority safeguarding team, should it be required. This ensures that the school’s practice is up to date. School leaders and proprietor undertake a suitable range of activities to evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements. These include safeguarding audits, analysis of pupil information, and pastoral meetings with pupils. The headteacher and senior leaders work tirelessly on behalf of pupils, parents and staff, and have a clear vision of the school they want to lead. The headteacher is a highly visible presence around the school, and performs many key operational roles, including additional learning needs coordinator (ALNCo) and designated safeguarding person (DSP). As a result, they have a well-developed, first-hand understanding of all aspects of the school’s work and are able to act promptly when required. However, the rapid growth in the size of the school over the past few years, along with a highly flexible approach to provision, have meant that teachers and leaders are regularly occupied with operational matters, and therefore lack capacity to act strategically. The proprietor and senior leaders have established a regular cycle of self-evaluation and improvement planning. However, business matters are not always separated from educational provision sufficiently. In addition, systems to collect and analyse evidence for the quality and effectiveness of provision are underdeveloped. As a result, improvement work is not always focused sharply on improving the quality of education and pupil outcomes. The proprietor and members of the board of advisors play active roles in the day-to-day operations of the school. The proprietor is highly effective in setting the tone and ethos of the community. However, the close involvement of the board members makes it challenging to create the separation needed to objectively evaluate the school’s work and to offer strategic guidance and challenge to school leaders. Compliance with the regulations for registration Independent school inspections are governed by the Education Act 2002 and related regulations: the Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2024. These regulations require an independent school to meet an appropriate standard in the following areas: The quality of education provided by the school The school meets the regulatory requirements for this standard. The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils The school meets the regulatory requirements for this standard. Welfare, health and safety of pupils The school does not meet the regulatory requirements for this standard. Although the school meets almost all of the regulatory requirements for this standard, in order to comply fully with the Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2024 the school should: • Ensure that a Fire Risk Assessment is made by a suitably competent person as soon as is practicable, and that any matters raised by this assessment are addressed [3(14)] The suitability of proprietors and staff The school meets the regulatory requirements for this standard. Premises of and boarding accommodation at schools The school does not meet the regulatory requirements for this standard. Although the school meets most of the regulatory requirements for this standard, in order to comply fully with the Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2024 the school should: • Prepare and implement a legionella testing regime, overseen by an identified and suitably trained responsible person [27(a)] • Prepare and implement an asbestos management plan [27(i)] • Ensure that there are appropriate facilities for pupils who are ill in accordance with school premises regulations [27(l)] The provision of information The school meets the regulatory requirements for this standard. The manner in which complaints are to be handled The school meets the regulatory requirements for this standard. Safeguarding The school's arrangements for safeguarding pupils do not give any cause for concern."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Comply fully with the Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2024; (2) Increase leadership capacity to facilitate focussed, strategic improvement work; (3) Develop and implement whole-school assessment and progress tracking processes; (4) Develop and implement quality assurance processes that focus sharply on the quality of teaching and learning.

Estyn follow-up status: The school does not require any follow-up activity by Estyn..