THE children of Gladestry Church-in-Wales Primary School have been celebrating receiving an exceptional Estyn inspection report.

Estyn - the inspectorate for education in Wales - introduced a new inspection framework five years ago. Gladestry is the first school in Powys to be rated as ‘Excellent’ in all the new framework’s five key judgements: current performance, prospects for improvement and in response to the three key questions: ‘How good are outcomes?’ ‘How good is provision?’ and ‘How good are leadership and management?’

A Powys County Council spokesperson said the school should feel justifiably proud of this achievement. “It is rare that schools are awarded an excellent judgement for both current performance and prospects for improvement. I am delighted for the whole school community.”

The school and local community came together to join in the celebration at a hog roast following the school’s sports day. Local businesses generously donated prizes for a splendid raffle, and games were laid on for the children to enjoy. The annual ‘Yew Tree Bank Run’ from the village onto Hergest Ridge saw a good turn-out of enthusiastic participants and some impressive finishing times achieved. The winning youngsters were all from two families: Ewan Davies senior boy, Megan Cosgrove senior girl, the first Gladestry school pupils were Rhys Davies and Ben Cosgrove who crossed the finishing line at the same time, the first girl home was Thea Cosgrove and the first adult Callum Almon.

Reverend Mark Beaton, chair of the school’s governing body, congratulated pupils and staff on their achievement and said “The entire school community is absolutely delighted that Gladestry Church-in-Wales School has been formally recognised as an Excellent school. This is a well deserved reward for the hard work of all pupils and staff.”

The inspection report recognises that “The school has a strong ethos of continuous improvement that has resulted in consistently high standards over a number of years”, that the “the quality of teaching is consistently high” and that “the partnership between staff and pupils is an outstanding feature of the school”. It also reports that attendance is unusually high and that “behaviour is very good in lessons and around the school”. It concludes that “The school is a very strong learning community” and “provides excellent value for money”.

Headteacher Hilary Morris said “I am very proud that the ‘sector leading practice’ and ‘superb teamwork’ of our small rural school has been recognised by Estyn."

The complete report is available to read at www.estyn.gov.uk