Risca Community Comprehensive School, Newport

Risca Community 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 599 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 (20% in 2020/21); 3% are learning English as an additional language; and 7% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 111 pupils (Year 10) to 127 (Year 9).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £7,375 per pupil, against £5,221 in 2021-22. It ended 2024-25 with a deficit of £540k.

Estyn's report on its September 2022 inspection summarises Risca Community Comprehensive School like this:

"The headteacher and senior leaders provide supportive and compassionate leadership, which has helped to develop a strong sense of teamwork amongst staff. Leaders demonstrate clear commitment to the school community and staff and pupils feel valued, supported and respected. The school has a wide range of strategies in place to support the well-being of all pupils, including those that have additional learning needs and those who require emotional support. Pupils who attend the Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) centre, make good progress in relation to their abilities and recognised needs. It is a supportive environment where pupils with profound needs develop a wide range of skills and an extremely positive attitude towards learning. Overall, many pupils have positive attitudes to school life and feel safe. Many pupils behave well in school and a majority are enthusiastic to learn."

"However, in a minority of lessons, pupils do not listen attentively enough, are slow to settle to work and lack concentration to persevere with tasks . They make appropriate progress in lessons but there is too much inconsistency in how effectively teachers plan to promote strong progress. Overall, activities in these lessons do not provide enough challenge for pupils. The expectations of a minority of teachers are also not high enough in terms of behaviour. In Key Stage 4, there is a wide range of interesting courses from which pupils can choose, considering pupils’ aspirations and needs. There is a bespoke curriculum for vulnerable learners and a tailored curriculum to meet the needs of the pupils attending the ASC. There is a range of valuable extra-curricular experiences available for pupils to enrich their learning experiences further."

"Leaders remained committed to supporting the well-being of pupils and staff throughout the pandemic and have a desire to secure improvements. Although leaders gather information about the school’s work, evaluation and improvement processes are not precise enough. They have not had enough impact to drive the improvements needed in teaching, learning, provision for pupils’ skills and attendance. Leaders do not have a clear enough strategic vision for improvement that is understood by all staff. The school has a strong culture of safeguarding and a caring ethos towards all pupils. However, there are a number of health and safety issues concerning the school site."

Estyn made 5 recommendations: (1) Strengthen self-evaluation processes so that leaders at all levels have an accurate view of the school’s areas for development and can plan for improvement precisely; (2) Improve the effectiveness of teaching to provide sufficient challenge and ensure progression; (3) Develop cohesive provision for the development of pupils’ skills across the curriculum, particularly their literacy and numeracy skills; (4) Strengthen provision to improve pupils’ attitudes to learning and attendance; (5) Address the health and safety issues identified during the inspection.

The nearest other state secondary schools to Risca Community Comprehensive School are Newport High School (2.3 miles), Bassaleg School (2.3 miles), Cwmbran High School (3 miles) and St Joseph's R.C.High School (3.5 miles).

The nearest railway station is Rogerstone Rail Station, about 1150 metres away (roughly a 14-minute walk).

4 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Risca Leisure Centre (grounds), 80 metres away.