THE head teacher of Ysgol Glan y Mor has criticised the banding system and called on the education minister to visit his school, after it was given the lowest banding by the Welsh Government.
Steve Jones, head teacher of the Burry Port school, spoke after hearing his school had been given a band five in the latest figures, but hit back at the low grading.
He said: "If Leighton Andrews is so concerned about pupil wellbeing and standards in schools, maybe he would like to come out to our school to see us."
Mr Jones added that he "wasn't pleased" about the move in banding, adding that he and others believed the system to be flawed.
"I have never met a teacher or head teacher who thinks the band system works, because of the way they are such narrow areas of data," he said.
"It does not reflect the very good things that go on in schools.
"For the top school in Wales last year to end up in band four this year, to use a kind of football league analogy, that can't possibly happen."
He said a mid-term inspection by Carmarthenshire Council, held between two Estyn inspections, found Glan y Mor to be a "good school", praised in "20 to 30" different aspects, including discipline, uniform and use of resources.
He added: "We have got departments continuing to improve procedures and a number of strategies in place for further developing literacy and numeracy.
"Like all schools, we've got extra work going on with departments working hard on improving their results.
"The results last summer were poor, but we knew they were going to be poor.
"We worked hard with the pupils we had, and based on the data we had of what the children were capable of and what those pupils achieved, they did very well." He stressed that despite AM Mr Andrews's insistence on "pupil wellbeing", the downgrading of the school was not productive.
"We know that we, like all schools, have areas we continue to develop and work on, like literacy and numeracy," he said.
"Staff and patents work very, very hard towards that and those positions within the band system don't help with the morale in the school."
Carmarthenshire had no band one schools in the figures, and a further two schools — Ysgol y Gwendraeth and Queen Elizabeth High, in Carmarthen — were also banded in the lowest category.
