Ysgol Pen Y Bryn, Colwyn Bay

Ysgol Pen Y Bryn 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 439 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

8% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 4% have additional learning needs (11% in 2020/21); 8% are learning English as an additional language; and 12% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 51 pupils (Year 4) to 59 (Reception).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £4,036 per pupil, against £3,328 in 2021-22. It carried forward £29k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its June 2022 inspection summarises Ysgol Pen Y Bryn like this:

"Pupils at Ysgol Pen y Bryn primary enjoy coming to school and make strong progress in their academic and social skills. They are caring, tolerant and respectful towards each other and to adults. There is a feeling of mutual trust and respect between pupils and staff. Pupils know that adults in the school care for them and that they can turn to them when they face challenges or have difficulties. Senior leaders have worked hard to create this calm and nurturing ethos and it plays a key role in ensuring effective learning in the school."

"The school provides a rich, broad, and balanced range of learning experiences and additional provision that meets the educational and wider needs and interests of pupils well. Teachers take good account of pupils’ ideas when planning the curriculum and this helps to ensure that most pupils display high levels of interest and engagement in their learning. Staff ensure that most teaching is purposeful and enables pupils to use existing and newly learned skills in real life contexts. This means that, as pupils move through the school, most develop a secure understanding of what and how they are learning. Leaders set a positive and ambitious tone for the school’s work."

"They promote collaboration and teamwork very well and place a high priority on developing pupils as ambitious, confident, and independent learners. They are good at identifying the areas of the school’s work that are most effective and those aspects that need to be improved. This supports the school to plan and implement improvement strategies effectively. This is reflected in the work by the whole staff team to develop the school’s curriculum ready for the implementation of the Curriculum for Wales."

Estyn made 3 recommendations: (1) Provide opportunities for pupils to make decisions about how they organise and present their work and to decide for themselves how they respond to learning tasks; (2) Strengthen provision for the development of pupils’ Welsh language skills; (3) Provide regular opportunities for pupils in Years 3 to 6 to apply their numeracy skills across the curriculum.

From the headteacher's welcome: "From the news and events section, the Friends of the School page as well as the photo gallery, you will see that we are a busy school. No two days are ever the same! We work in partnership with parents and carers and very much value the support and contribution they make to school life."

The nearest other state primary schools to Ysgol Pen Y Bryn are St Joseph's R.C. Primary School (0.6 miles), Ysgol Bod Alaw (0.8 miles), Ysgol Nant Y Groes (0.9 miles) and Ysgol Minafon 3-11 Community School (0.9 miles).

The nearest railway station is Colwyn Bay Rail Station, about 0.8 miles away in a straight line.

12 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Taylor`s (near), 100 metres away.