Education boss wants “zero” schools in special measures

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

The man in charge of driving forward education in Powys has declared that he is working towards having “zero” schools in special measures.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Learning and Skills Scrutiny Committee, councillors went through the performance report for education from quarter three, 2025/2026.

The Corporate and Strategic Equality Plan Scorecard (CSEP) shows performance measure trends over time, along with further information about how the council has been delivering the ambitions of the Corporate and Strategic Equality Plan through its well-being objectives and the supporting actions and measures.

Cllr Angela Davies said: “I’m interested in the measure 306 on the number of secondary schools, all age schools and pupil referral units (PRUs) in an Estyn category, a low number is better.”

Following a school inspection, education watchdog Estyn can give a school one of four categorisations.

These are: no follow up which means the school is doing well; Estyn review which means that there are areas of improvement needed which Estyn want to keep an eye on; Significant improvement is a category that means a school has important weaknesses that require rapid and substantial improvement; Special measures – which is the highest level of statutory intervention, used when a school is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and shows limited capacity to improve.

Cllr Davies added: “I’m curious as to how we set these targets. The target is 10 which is about two thirds of (these) schools.

“So, I wonder how they meet objective three and our work to tackle poverty, inequality and supportive wellbeing of the people of Powys, because if we’re willing to accept effectively 10 high schools in Estyn category that can’t be called educational equality.

“How is 10 acceptable as a target in that measure?”

Director of Education, Dr Richard Jones, said that number 10 was an “error”.

He explained: “I’m not sure if it’s a formatting issue, I’ll need to check that at source because something has gone wrong with the data. The target is clearly zero.”

Cllr Davies asked for clarification that the target is zero.

Dr Jones said: “The absolute target is zero and the ambition is to have no schools in a statutory category.”

But due to the cycle of Estyn inspections and re-inspections, Dr Jones explained it could take some time for this ambition to filter through into performance reports.

Cllr Davies welcomed the ambition and asked how many Powys schools are currently in an Estyn category.

School Improvement Manager, Mark Wakeley, said: “We have four schools in special measures and four schools in the significant improvement category.”

The four schools currently in special measures are – Llanidloes High School, Welshpool High School, Ysgol Maesydderwen high school in Ystradgynlais, and Llangors Church in Wales primary school.