Ofsted: Good School
Three judgements included near the beginning of the report letter are particularly important -
our children are well cared for, taught well and encouraged to do their best.
During the inspection Ofsted Inspector Mr Bruce Waelend saw evidence of genuine, effective learning partnerships between children and staff and positive relationships between children, who he feels behave well and are kind to each other. Importantly, Mr Waelend quickly saw that our Christian values of TLC underpin all of our work and he found we have a clear safeguarding culture which places the well-being of children at the heart of everything we do.
Mr Waelend praised the quality of teaching provided by our teachers and Learning Support Assistants (LSAs), particularly as a result of our recent school improvement work including our move away from setting to class teaching. The report states that lessons are interesting, purposeful and provide challenging activities to help children achieve well. It also refers to our teachers’ use of Assessment for Learning to ensure that teaching is precisely matched to children’s learning needs on a daily basis. Our children’s experience of this includes flexible grouping where they are taught in Keep Up, Catch Up and Enrichment groups each day for English and maths which vary according to the individuals’ learning needs for that lesson. The report also refers to our effective intervention strategies including guided group teaching together with pre- and post-teaching by LSAs.
The inspector praised our prompt and decisive action following lower than normal SATs results last year which immediately secured a positive impact on standards. We shared the outcomes of Year 6’s recent practice tests and he talked with several children to check they are well prepared for the tests in May. As a result, he judged that our children are in a strong position this year to secure good outcomes, particularly in maths where he saw evidence of rapid progress.
Mr Waelend met with our Senior Leadership Team and a group of our Governors. He was impressed by the incisive challenge and support offered by our governors and judged that we know our school well and have correctly identified appropriate priorities for improvement.
Ofsted’s role in all schools is to periodically assess the quality of education provided to children through a rigorous inspection process and our inspector gathered evidence forensically, leaving no stone unturned. We valued the opportunity to validate our own judgement that the quality of education we provide is really good and that our recent school improvement successes demonstrate the effectiveness of our leadership in identifying our strengths and acting decisively on areas for improvement as soon as they arise.
Our current improvement work will continue with a renewed focus on ensuring every individual child is enabled to be successful so that all disadvantaged children (those for whom the Pupil Premium applies) without exception make the same strong progress which many do. We must also continue to promote good attendance so that no child’s learning is affected by absence from school.
We look forward to continuing to work with our parents to secure excellent provision for all our children.