Willows High School

Template:Coord Willows High School (Template:Langx) is a secondary school located in the Tremorfa area of Cardiff, Wales. It caters for pupils aged 11 to 16 and is English-medium. As of September 2015, the headteacher is Chris Norman. He succeeded Joy Ballard, under whom the proportion of pupils attaining five A*-C grades rose from 14% to 50%.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In recent years, Willows has been oversubscribed for pupils.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

The school site is extensive and dates from the late 1960s, and was built on the site of the World War II airfield RAF Pengam Moors. The school is named after the air balloon pioneer Ernest Willows who had his airfield on the site.

Many of the buildings have since been modernised.<ref name="Estyn 2006">Template:Cite web</ref> There are plans to continue this modernisation in the future, including with a PFI agreement as part of plans by Cardiff Council.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A completely new building is planned,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which could be located in nearby Tremorfa Park.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The site proposed originally included St. Alban's Primary School, which was slated to close.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, in 2019 the closure was successfully petitioned, and stopped in 2020.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The school featured in the 2015 Channel 4 documentary series Educating Cardiff.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> This detailed every aspect of school life, and also highlighted many of the improvements the school has made in recent years.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Starting in 2015, Willows participated in the South Wales Challenge (SWC) Initiative, sharing best-practice in education with Tonyrefail School, Rhondda Cynon Taf.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This aimed to help the school to improve academic standards further.

Estyn Inspections

In 2012, Estyn rated the school as "unsatisfactory",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> reporting that it needed "significant improvement". The inspectors reported that, although pupils often had unsatisfactory English grammar and literacy skills, leadership was "adequate" and there were real prospects of improvement.<ref name="Estyn 2012">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The school substantially improved after this, and by 2014 no longer requires significant improvement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, the more recent 2018 has found there are still many aspects of school life that could be improved, particularly in the methods of teaching and leadership.<ref name="Estyn 2018"/> Despite this, the school had improved enough that in 2019 it was removed from monitoring by Estyn.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

There were 586 pupils at the school during the 2018 Estyn inspection, a significant drop since the 2012 inspection. The proportion of pupils receiving free school meals is 44%, which is much higher than the national average of 17.4%. Almost two-thirds of the pupils live in the 20% most deprived areas in Wales. Around 8% of pupils have English as an additional language. Twenty-nine per cent of the pupils come from minority ethnic backgrounds.<ref name="Estyn 2012" />

Former students

Notable former students include Jessica Leigh Jones.<ref name=jswho>Template:Who's Who </ref>

External links

• 2006 Estyn Inspection Report
• 2012 Estyn Inspection Report
• 2014 Estyn Monitoring Report
• 2018 Estyn Inspection Report