Llanishen High School, Cardiff

Llanishen 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 1759 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

22% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 11% have additional learning needs (16% in 2020/21); 5% are learning English as an additional language; and 29% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 143 pupils (Year 13) to 297 (Year 7).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £5,927 per pupil, against £5,415 in 2021-22. It ended 2024-25 with a deficit of £261k.

Estyn's report on its September 2023 inspection summarises Llanishen High School like this:

"Llanishen High School provides pupils with a vibrant environment where they are nurtured and valued as part of its inclusive community. Leaders are committed to ensuring that every pupil succeeds. They have taken decisive actions to reduce the impact of poverty and support all its pupils. The school offers an exceptionally broad range of extra-curricular activities, which enriches pupils’ experiences and raises their aspirations. Staff foster positive working relationships with most pupils, who in turn engage well in their lessons. They behave well and demonstrate high levels of respect for staff and their peers. In many lessons, teachers capture pupils’ interest and help them to make effective progress in their knowledge and understanding. In these lessons, teachers use questioning skilfully to check pupils’ understanding and develop their verbal responses. As a result, many pupils speak confidently and use a broad range of vocabulary to express their views."

"However, teachers do not always offer pupils useful written feedback on targeted pieces of work. In a few lessons, pupils do not make enough progress, mainly because of teachers’ low expectations and undemanding tasks. There is a broad range of subjects for pupils to choose from in Key Stage 4 and the sixth-form. They receive useful advice and guidance to help them make informed choices about their subjects and their future. The school has begun to roll out its Curriculum for Wales In Year 7 and Year 8 after piloting approaches. The curriculum enables pupils to develop a beneficial understanding of diversity and inclusion. However, it is not always demanding enough to ensure pupils make progress and the provision for developing pupils’ skills and their grasp of Welsh across the curriculum is underdeveloped. Leaders and staff secure a positive safeguarding culture where most pupils feel safe and free from bullying. The school’s work to restore relationships following any reported incidents of bullying helps to create an inclusive culture where pupils feel confident to challenge or report any behaviour that causes them concern."

"Pupils with additional learning needs, including those who attend the school’s Hearing Impaired and Autistic Spectrum Disorder resource bases, benefit from highly effective support. They make good progress against their targets and are fully integrated into the school community. Leaders have focused closely on improving pupils’ attendance, in particular to reduce persistent absenteeism. While this work is having a positive impact on steadily improving pupils’ attendance, these rates remain below the levels they were prior to the pandemic. Leaders regularly review relevant data to identify areas of strengths and improvement. However, they do not use a broad enough range of evidence to support their evaluations. As a result, improvement planning is not sharp enough and leaders at all levels do not have a clear enough view of the impact of teaching on pupils’ learning."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Strengthen self-evaluation and improvement planning so that they focus more precisely on the impact of teaching on learning; (2) Improve the provision for the progressive development of pupils’ skills including Welsh across the curriculum; (3) Improve the quality and impact of written feedback; (4) Continue to improve attendance.

From the headteacher's welcome: "We are delighted to introduce you to The Sixth Form at Llanishen High School - a vibrant and successful learning environment with around 250 students. Our Sixth Form provision is unique and our students enjoy excellent teaching across a broad curriculum of 30 subject areas. Every year, exam results achieved by our students are outstanding."

The nearest other state secondary schools to Llanishen High School are Corpus Christi Catholic High School (1.1 miles), Cardiff High School (1.1 miles), Whitchurch High School (2 miles) and St Teilo's C.I.W. High School (2.3 miles).

The nearest railway station is Llanishen Rail Station, about 370 metres away (roughly a 5-minute walk).

16 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Wolf`s Castle Avenue (before), 160 metres away.