Minister praises Tenby school’s “honesty”

TENBY’S Greenhill School today received praise from Welsh education minister Huw Lewis for its “honest approach to self-evaluation”.
In a bid to achieve high standards, Greenhill School takes “the pupil voice very seriously”, he said.
The minister’s tribute followed a recent visit to the school (24 March), organised by local AM Joyce Watson.
During Assembly question time this afternoon, Mrs Watson suggested that other schools could learn from Greenhill School’s model of pupil engagement. She said:
“Sometimes, what is missing from the conversation about schools standards is the importance of school governance. The Government’s school effectiveness framework talks about the role of school councils and what they can do.
“Minister, thank you for joining me in Pembrokeshire last week to visit Greenhill School. Were you struck, as I was, by how effective the Greenhill school council was in empowering pupils to help to shape their education by engaging them as learners? Do you agree that that is a model of best practice that could be spread out across other schools in Wales?”
The minister replied:
“Yes. I would like to thank Joyce Watson for that opportunity and for pointing out that the school improvement journey in Greenhill School in Tenby is worthy of a very close look.
“I made a trip down there to talk to the headteacher, Joyce Watson, the governors and so on. It was a fascinating visit. What stood out most of all about the way in which Greenhill was approaching its school improvement journey was its honesty around self-evaluation and, as an in-built part of that, taking the pupil voice very seriously. Pupils are rising to that challenge with an incredible degree of maturity and honesty in terms of what they felt should be improved around the workings of the school.
“The visit was well worthwhile and if there was one word that summarised the approach of Greenhill, it would be ‘honesty’, in terms of self-evaluation.”