Morriston Comprehensive School, Swansea

Morriston Comprehensive 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 1070 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

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

Of its pupils, 9% have additional learning needs (24% in 2020/21); 5% are learning English as an additional language; and 15% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 4 pupils (Year 14) to 212 (Year 10).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £6,832 per pupil, against £5,436 in 2021-22. It carried forward £681k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its September 2024 inspection summarises Morriston Comprehensive School like this:

"Morriston Comprehensive school fosters a strong sense of community. Staff are committed to supporting pupils and their families to improve their well-being and progress in learning. This is underpinned by the headteacher’s clear vision for creating an inclusive ethos that values the contribution that the whole community make towards school life. This has helped to place the school at the centre of its community and to provide high levels of care, support and guidance for their pupils and their families. As a result of this caring ethos, many pupils feel safe and free from bullying. In most lessons, there are positive relationships between staff and pupils. This helps pupils engage well at the start of lessons. The majority of teachers plan activities with an appropriate level of challenge, provide clear explanations and have suitable expectations of pupils’ progress and participation. In these lessons, pupils make sound progress in their learning."

"In a few lessons, pupils make strong progress because of effective teaching that stimulates their engagement and challenges their understanding and thinking. In a minority of cases, there are shortcomings in teaching that mean pupils make limited progress and often become passive in their learning. In these lessons, teachers often plan undemanding tasks, provide too much support for pupils and have too low expectations of what they can achieve. The school provides a suitably broad and balanced curriculum and offers an appropriate range of courses for pupils in Key Stage 4 and sixth form. This curriculum is enriched through a wide range of extra-curricular clubs and visits. Whilst staff have been committed to developing their Curriculum for Wales, the school’s provision for the progressive development of pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills is not planned or coordinated strategically. As a result, pupils do not have sufficient opportunities to apply or develop their skills alongside their subject understanding. Pupils in the sixth form enjoy being part of the school community. In general, they engage positively in lessons and work productively with one another."

"Leadership has secured valuable improvements in certain aspects of the school’s work, for example pupils’ attendance. The attendance of pupils eligible for free school meals has improved year on year and compares favourably to levels in similar schools. In addition, pupils feel that behaviour in lessons and around the school has improved. Despite this, leadership at all levels has not had enough impact on a number of important areas, in particular on the quality of teaching and learning and the progressive development of pupils’ skills. This is due to the variation in leaders’ ability to evaluate and plan for improvement and because senior leaders have not ensured that middle leaders consistently carry out their roles effectively. Although the senior leadership team has very recently been reorganised, leaders at all levels, including governors, are not clear enough about their roles and responsibilities. In addition, senior leadership roles are not distributed well enough which hampers the school’s ability to secure improvements. The specialist teaching facility provides a caring environment where pupils engage in a valuable curriculum and helpful learning experiences that support them to make strong progress from their starting points."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Ensure that self-evaluation focuses precisely on the impact of provision on pupils’ learning and progress; (2) Refine roles and responsibilities of senior leaders so that they and governors hold staff to account fully; (3) Improve the effectiveness of teaching so that pupils are consistently challenged to make strong progress; (4) Develop the strategic leadership of skills so that pupils receive a range of challenging and relevant opportunities to develop their literacy and numeracy across the curriculum.

Estyn follow-up status: Significant Improvement.

The nearest other state secondary schools to Morriston Comprehensive School are Bishop Vaughan R.C. School (1.5 miles), Birchgrove Comprehensive School (2.5 miles), Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe (2.5 miles) and Cefn Hengoed Community School (2.7 miles).

The nearest railway station is Llansamlet Rail Station, about 2.2 miles away in a straight line.

20 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Morriston School (opposite), 180 metres away.