A LOCAL authority's education service is celebrating after a recent inspection resulted in a 'glowing' report.

Caerphilly county borough council’s education service has received a glowing report following a major inspection.

Estyn, the Welsh education watchdog, carried out an in-depth inspection of the council’s education service back in June. The inspection team spent a week at the council’s HQ, interviewing a range of key stakeholders and reviewing huge amounts of data and performance information.

The subsequent inspection report, published on Monday, September 2, includes many positive findings about all aspects of the council’s education service. 

A particular element that has been highlighted for praise is the team's work on improving attendance levels, with inspectors noting that their "targeted work" has seen the levels rise to the average for Wales, and has been "improved over the last year". 

Another area which has garnered significant praise is the "highly effective" work done by the additional learning service officers to support those students who need it, with the local authority having taken "a strategic and systematic

Cllr Carol Andrews, CCBC’s Cabinet Member for Education said, “We very much welcome the findings of this major inspection and I would like to thank all those who have worked so hard to contribute to this positive outcome.

"It’s clear that there is an ethos of continuous improvement which has been adopted by the LEA, our schools and our partners across the whole county borough.”

The report praised the leadership of the education service and the positive relationships that have been developed, as well as the support provided to schools across the area. Safeguarding and support for pupils with additional learning needs were also identified as key strengths in the report.

Cllr Andrews added: “The feedback received from the Estyn team is a positive endorsement of our ambitious education strategy entitled ‘pursuing excellence together’ and we will now build on our successes, while addressing any areas that need strengthening.

“I would like to assure the whole community that we will continue to work collectively as Team Caerphilly to deliver the best outcomes for all our learners."

Caerphilly has 27,576 pupils across 86 schools, including 73 primary schools, one all-age school, 11 secondary schools, and one special school.

Of these schools, 12 are Welsh-medium providers.

Although the report was overwhelmingly positive, there were some minor recommendations for further improvement to the service.

The report suggested that the evaluation and planning for continued improvement of the service should be more consistently focused on their impact on learner outcomes and their value for money. 

The other recommendation was that the strategies used to support and challenge schools to reduce the rates of fixed term and permanent exclusions could be improved.