IT was ‘good’ news all round when Llanvihangel Crucorney C.P. School at Pandy received its latest Estyn report.

A mark of ‘good’ from the inspection team indicates a school has ‘many strengths and no important areas requiring significant improvement’ - and Llanvihangel Crucorney was rated as ‘good’ across the board.

Areas as diverse as the care, support, and guidance offered to pupils, the quality of the learning environment, the leadership of the headteacher, and the management of resources including staff, were all marked by the independent inspectors as of a good standard.

The report also comments how the school has great potential to continue improving, saying “staff and governors share a good understanding of what the school needs to do to improve and how they can contribute to this, and there is a good track record of steady improvement in pupils’ outcomes.”

The Estyn inspector provided a list of four recommendations of how the school can continue to flourish.

These included developing pupils’ problem-solving and entrepreneurial skills from a young age, as well as providing more Welsh language education, and keeping a closer eye on the school budget.

The promising outcome of the report comes two years after a local education monitor, the Education Achievement Service, marked the school as one of ‘critical concern’ within Monmouthshire.

Mrs Sherri Davies, the headteacher at Llanvihangel Primary was very pleased with the outcome of the report by the independent education inspectorate for Wales.

She said, “Obviously we are thrilled to bits with the outcome of this report, and I think it reflects the hard work of the staff, pupils, governors, and parents in the last few years to do the best we can at Llanvihangel.

“We are a community school and we put the community at the heart of our everyday activities. Just last week we held a coffee morning for MacMillan Cancer Care that the school council organised.

“We raised £355 for the charity, and a further £150 for the school through a charity raffle.”

The village school has 54 pupils in two mixed age classes, and has the second largest budget per student in all of Monmouthshire, with £4,810 per pupil.

Mrs Davies added, “We welcomed the recommendations of the inspector, and we are happy to say that the improvements he suggested are already part of our current action plan, so we will continue to pursue them.”