Pen-Y-Dre High School, Merthyr Tydfil

Pen-Y-Dre 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 884 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

33% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 15% have additional learning needs (41% in 2020/21); 2% are learning English as an additional language; and 9% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 165 pupils (Year 10) to 193 (Year 8).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £6,400 per pupil, against £4,869 in 2021-22. It carried forward £307k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its January 2024 inspection summarises Pen-Y-Dre High School like this:

"Pen y Dre High School is an inclusive, caring and supportive environment that sits at the heart of its community. In this nurturing environment leaders and staff create a safe space where all are valued and encouraged to ‘aspire, achieve, believe’ despite the challenges they may face. Leaders are relentless in their vision to remove any barriers to learning, including those related to the impact of poverty and ensuring that all pupils have the best life chances. Pupils benefit from the outstanding opportunities to develop their Welsh language skills and to become immersed in the local and national culture and heritage of Wales. The wealth of opportunities provided ensure that pupils at the school develop an empathy and lifelong appreciation of Wales. The headteacher provides thoughtful and sensitive leadership. He creates a strong sense of belonging amongst staff and pupils, and a learning environment that encourages and supports pupils to make progress from their starting points in the school."

"The unique working relationships between staff and pupils creates a culture where pupils are confident to take risks. Staff support for pupils with a diverse range of needs is a notable strength. During the inspection, pupils’ attitudes to learning and their interactions with adults and their peers were an outstanding feature. The school provides an ambitious tailored curriculum that allows pupils the freedom to thrive in their areas of interest. However, currently, the school’s provision for the progressive development of pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills across the curriculum is underdeveloped. In many lessons, teachers’ high expectations and careful planning engage pupils’ interest and curiosity and encourage them to achieve their best. As a result, in these lessons pupils make secure progress in their knowledge, understanding and skills."

"In a minority of instances, teachers do not develop pupils’ understanding, knowledge and skills well enough, and this limits the progress they make. Leaders have developed a wide range of opportunities for professional learning, and this is having a positive impact on many aspects of the school’s work including understanding the diverse needs of pupils and developing leadership at all levels. There is a genuine ambition through secure self-evaluation activities to improve all aspects of the school’s work, though in a few instances processes need to be sharper. Despite considerable effort by leaders, whole-school attendance remains too low, in particular persistent absenteeism and is a concern. Despite the notable challenges faced during the refurbishment, staff have worked diligently to ensure pupils continue to learn and thrive."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Improve pupils’ attendance – especially of those persistently absent from school; (2) Address the shortcomings in teaching identified in this report; (3) Improve pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills by strengthening the planning for the progressive development of these skills across the curriculum; (4) Strengthen self-evaluation and improvement planning processes.

The nearest other state secondary schools to Pen-Y-Dre High School are Blessed Carlo Acutis Catholic School (0.8 miles), Cyfarthfa High School (1.3 miles), Afon Taf High School (4.3 miles) and Aberdare Community School (4.6 miles).

The nearest railway station is Merthyr Tydfil Rail Station, about 1.6 miles away in a straight line.

6 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Gurnos Tavern (near), 190 metres away.