Pontprennau Primary School, Cardiff

Pontprennau Primary 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 497 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

13% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 8% have additional learning needs (11% in 2020/21); 13% are learning English as an additional language; and 36% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 56 pupils (Year 3) to 61 (Year 1).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £4,703 per pupil, against £4,242 in 2021-22. It carried forward £95k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its February 2026 inspection summarises Pontprennau Primary School like this:

"Pontprennau Primary is a highly inclusive and community-centred school. Leaders provide purposeful and considerate leadership that promotes strong relationships among staff, pupils, and families. The school’s vision is shared by staff, governors and parents and contributes to the caring ethos and positive relationships across the school. The school provides a highly nurturing environment where care, support, and guidance are notable strengths. The school’s inclusion team ensures pupils and parents help to shape decisions, especially for those with additional learning needs (ALN). Leaders work with families highly effectively and transition arrangements from home to school for the youngest pupils are exceptional. The school prioritises pupils’ well-being successfully. Staff adopt a trauma informed approach and implement targeted support strategies for those in need."

"Attendance is monitored rigorously, with timely interventions that have improved overall attendance. Across the school, there is a strong culture of safeguarding, and nearly all pupils feel safe. Most pupils display highly positive attitudes to learning and relationships across the school are extremely positive. They engage enthusiastically in activities and often demonstrate resilience when facing challenging tasks. Opportunities for pupils to influence wider school decisions is a developing feature. Overall, teaching is effective. Clear learning intentions and appropriate assessment supports most pupils to make good progress in many areas of learning. In the best practice, questioning probes understanding and informs responsive teaching, though at times overly directed approaches can limit pupils’ independence."

"The school’s broad, engaging curriculum reflects the Curriculum for Wales purposefully. As they move through the school, pupils’ language, reading, and writing skills develop well, alongside their development in mathematics. Though opportunities to apply their numeracy skills across the curriculum are less well developed. Leaders provide a clear strategic direction aligned with national priorities. A culture of trust encourages effective professional dialogue, while distributed leadership strengthens collective responsibility and builds leadership capacity. Monitoring and evaluation processes provide leaders with a sound understanding of strengths and areas for improvement, though they are not precise enough to identify and address inconsistencies in practice across the school. Governors contribute robustly and financial management is prudent. Spending is aligned clearly to improvement priorities and to support pupils’ learning and experiences."

Estyn made 2 recommendations: (1) Refine self-evaluation activities to enable leaders to identify important aspects of teaching that need to improve; (2) Strengthen opportunities for pupils to apply their numeracy skills across the curriculum.

From the headteacher's welcome: "My name is Mr Ian James and I am the very proud Headteacher of the school. I joined the school in April 2021 and I have been struck by the wonderful pupils, incredible building and the warm, welcoming community of staff, parents and carers."

Clubs and activities named on the school's website include football, rugby, multi-sports, choir and art.

The school runs a breakfast club.

Coming up: an open day on Monday 2 November 2026, an open day on Monday 9 November 2026 and an open day on Friday 13 November 2026. Check the school's website before you go, as dates can change.

The nearest other state primary schools to Pontprennau Primary School are St Bernadette's R.C. Primary School (0.7 miles), Bryn Celyn Primary School (0.8 miles), St Mellons C.I.W. Primary School (0.9 miles) and Glan-Yr-Afon Primary (0.9 miles).

The nearest railway station is Llanishen Rail Station, about 1.8 miles away in a straight line.

8 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Pontprennau Community Centre (after), 100 metres away.