How improvements will be made at Pembrokeshire’s schools over the next few years form a draft ‘roadmap’ drawn up following 2020’s critical Estyn report.

An inspection found that the local authority’s educations services “are causing significant concern and require follow-up activity” and added that “standards are good or better in only half of the primary schools inspected in the last three years.”

Members of the schools and learning overview and scrutiny committee received a draft vision and roadmap for education improvement at its meeting on Thursday (June 10), which had been developed with support from the ISOS partnership.

It aims to “support the reshaping of the strategic direction of the education directorate” and develop better partnerships with school to bring about improvements, a report to the meeting states.

Director of education Steven Richards-Downes said the roadmap had been created in collaboration with headteachers, with a primary and secondary headteacher from south, north, mid and Welsh schools on a working group, and there had been a positive response to the work so far.

It highlights key priorities for immediate action “that we think can make the biggest difference to learners and will support staff at all levels to develop their practice to achieve this” with implementation to be “driven by heads working with the directorate at locality and cluster level.”

Five priorities highlighted include a focus on quality teaching in every classroom, high expectations for all, strengthening school leadership, strengthening recruitment and retention and strengthening the impact of school-to-school working.

By 2027 there will be 100 per cent good or better teaching at all schools, all students supported into pathways that suit their interests, career pathways developed and peer support between schools will be a key driver of improvement the roadmap states.