Caerphilly wants to split its only Welsh-language secondary in two. Its own report says that would not clear the school's £2.717m

Caerphilly County Borough Council wants to turn Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni, the only Welsh-medium secondary school serving the county borough in the south Wales valleys north of Cardiff, into two separate schools, one on each of the two sites it already uses. No pupil would have to move school or move site, and sixth formers would carry on at Gellihaf, the council says. Its own committee report also says the accumulated deficit at the school "cannot be recovered within a five-year period", and paragraph 2.3 adds that it "cannot be eliminated through the operating model alone". Splitting the school in two would hold what each part spends each year inside its budget. It would not clear the £2.717m already accumulated. A separate strategy for that money will have to be developed under the School Funding Regulations, and the report carries no figure and no timetable for it.

Nothing is decided on Tuesday 8 September. Caerphilly's Education and Social Services Scrutiny Committee, a committee of councillors that can recommend but not decide, sits at 5.30pm and is asked to endorse a recommendation to Cabinet that the council proceed to consultation. No consultation is open yet. A consultation is a formal period in which parents, staff and anyone else can send in views before councillors decide. The first proposal, in the report's own words, is "the proposed reduction of the capacity of Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni through the discontinuation of the Y Gwyndy satellite provision by September 2027", which means closing Y Gwyndy as a part of Cwm Rhymni. The second is to establish a new Welsh-medium secondary school for 11 to 18 year olds within the Caerphilly Basin by the same date, using the existing Y Gwyndy site. One school becomes two on the same two sites. The consultation happens only if Cabinet agrees, and paragraph 5.16 sets it at 42 days with at least 20 school days inside it, so parents can take part in term time.

Paragraph 8.3 puts the school's deficit balance at £2.717m at the end of 2025/26, meaning the school has spent that much more than it was given, added up over several years. That is an increase of £723,000 on the £1.994m reported a year earlier, and the council projects the figure growing by roughly £1m a year if nothing is done, about 38 per cent worse than the year just closed. Clearing £2.717m over five years would mean finding about £543,000 a year, against a school the same paragraph projects losing roughly £1m a year. The same paragraph carries the council's case for the split: modelling indicates two separate schools "would result in financially sustainable operating models based on estimated future budget allocations and current planning assumptions", letting both "operate within their annual delegated budgets going forward and avoid a continuation of the projected in-year deficit position". What it says cannot be cleared inside five years is the balance already accumulated. Paragraph 8.2 records that the council's Education Finance Team, education colleagues and HR have concluded that operating as one school across two sites seven miles apart is adding a financial pressure, linked to time for staff movement, that is not sustainable.

The school is full at one campus and close to a quarter empty at the other. Paragraph 5.3 counted about 650 pupils aged 11 to 16 at Y Gwyndy in September 2025, in a building that holds 854, and about 1,200 pupils aged 11 to 18 at the main Gellihaf campus, in a building that holds 1,210. That leaves 204 empty places at the site the council proposes to turn into a school of its own, and about ten at Gellihaf. Gellihaf houses the sixth form. Paragraph 5.2 records that when the split site was set up, the 2012 consultation already envisaged Y Gwyndy developing over time into "a viable secondary school in its own right".

Paragraph 2.2 says the school approached the council to explore sustainable long-term solutions to a budget deficit that forecasts showed would keep rising, and paragraph 5.6 says it was the head teacher and governing body who did so. On what changes for pupils, paragraph 5.10 says sixth form provision would continue to be delivered at the Gellihaf site and the two schools "would be expected to collaborate closely to ensure a coherent and complementary curriculum offer, in line with the model already operating across English-medium secondary schools", with "no change for pupils, who would continue to access sixth form education through the existing arrangements". The report does not say how that collaboration would be funded or governed.

Correction, 7 September 2026: an earlier version said Cwm Rhymni was close to full on both sites. Only Gellihaf is. Y Gwyndy holds about 650 in a building for 854.