A risk that the standard of education in Powys secondary schools is plummeting has been escalated to a council wide strategic register following a series of poor Estyn reports including inspectors finding that Ysgol Bro Hyddgen in Machynlleth requires “significant improvement.”

Promoting the risk from the education department own register to a council wide one, was agreed at a meeting of Powys County Council Cabinet on 25 March.

It is a response to a number of mediocre Estyn inspection outcomes for secondary schools in the county during the last year or so.

In January, an Estyn inspection report on Ysgol Bro Hyddgen said that attendance and teaching quality must be improved, while the current arrangements for safeguarding pupils are a “cause for concern” and “significant health and safety issues” were found on the school’s secondary site.

The risk says that “if standards in school leadership and teaching and learning decline in Powys schools, and learners underperform compared to learners in similar schools in Wales, then educational outcomes in Powys will be below local and national expected standards, leading to reduced opportunities for our learners, decreased parent/carer and stakeholder satisfaction, and potential reputational damage.”

Finance portfolio holder Cllr David Thomas said: “The reasoning behind the escalation is, there has been an increase in the number of secondary and all age schools in Powys falling into an Estyn category.

“This trend indicates that these schools are not meeting the required standards and Powys’s educational vision.

“The implications of this increase are significant, as it could lead to a decline in the quality of education provided to pupils, affecting their academic performance and future opportunities.”

Escalating the risk to the council wide register is supposed to “ensure” that the whole cabinet and senior staff have “oversight” of how the risk is managed.