I am delighted to welcome you to our new school website and hope that whether you are a current or prospective pupil or parent/carer, or a visitor to the school, that you will find the content both helpful and informative.
Our website will enable you to get a flavour of the wide range of exciting learning opportunities that we are able to provide for our learners at MACS, from academic to creative, sporting, and vocational experiences. You may wish to follow our official school Twitter feed (@Main_MACS) for frequent examples of the day to day happenings at our school.
All that we do at the school is guided by the principle that every child is an individual. We pride ourselves on knowing the strengths, interests, needs and aspirations of our pupils, in order to support and develop each and every one of them to reach their potential. This is underpinned by our school motto – “Every Child Will Succeed”.
Thank you for your interest and please do not hesitate to contact us should the need arise.
Samantha Evans, Headteacher
School History
The school was originally founded as Mountain Ash County School and was established in 1907. It was later to become Mountain Ash Grammar School until 1966 when it became a comprehensive. From 1966 onwards the school has been known as Mountain Ash Comprehensive School.
In 1926 the then Lord Aberdare had sold Dyffryn House and the surrounding land to the Glamorgan Education Authority. The purpose of this was to provide a new site for the education of the children of the town and the surrounding villages in the lower end of the Cynon Valley.
Dyffryn House was originally the home of Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare (1815-1895). It was a fine late 19th century creation and was built in mock-Elizabethan style. It was a 2-storey construction with attics, ornate tall chimneys, gable timber finials, fretted eaves boards, a pyramid roofed tower and half-timbering.
From 1926 Dyffryn House was used to deliver lessons at the current school site. However, in 1983 the building was declared unsafe for continued use as a school. This was following a structural investigation by Mid Glamorgan Education Authority. Dyffryn House was eventually demolished, despite being a Grade II listed building that many people locally campaigned to save. The current school and its buildings were developed from 1983 onwards.
