There are lots of references in school Log Books to the many problems that the early schools had to deal with. Some of these difficulties are shown on the pages of this website.
Many of the schools, however, still managed to give the children a good start in life.
The reports of the official School Inspectors are included in the school diaries, and the one shown here is from Llanganten Board School in 1878 -

August 6th - "This school has made a very good and satisfactory beginning. The work was of course very elementary, but the children were bright and well behaved, and the instruction is sure to improve under the master who seems to be a painstaking and efficient man".

The amount of money that schools were given in the Victorian years often depended on the marks obtained by the children in the school examinations. The main problems were caused by the absence of many children from school for various reasons. This meant that they missed a lot of lessons and might do badly in the exams, so the schools would have been very pleased to get a good report like this one !
There is another example of the inspection of a local school on the next page...

Watch out, the Inspector's about...