Bawtry Mayflower Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

The school has made considerable improvements since the last inspection in order to provide a good quality of education for its pupils, who consequently achieve well. Leaders have improved the quality of teaching, and hence pupils' achievement, and have consolidated strengths in pupils' personal development.

Self-evaluation is rigorous and accurate and gives a clear picture of the school's strengths and weaknesses. Staff work together very effectively as a team to address any shortcomings. All these features show that the school is well placed to sustain improvements in future.

Pupils enjoy learning and all the social aspects of school, greatly valuing their friendships. The school is a happy... community built on very positive relationships between different groups of pupils and with adults. Pupils feel extremely safe because they have great confidence in how the adults and the other pupils will take care of them.

Their behaviour is excellent and this contributes well to their improved progress. They are very knowledgeable about health issues and older pupils are strong advocates in promoting healthy lifestyles. They enjoy learning about the wider world, but have had few opportunities to engage with communities beyond the immediate locality in order to promote their cultural development and community cohesion.

The school has identified this as a priority for improvement. Pupils make good progress across the school because of good teaching. Teachers use assessment information well to match work to pupils' different needs, and provide interesting and challenging tasks that fully involve pupils in their learning.

Pupils are given a very secure understanding of how to improve their work. Significant variations in achievement between different groups and subjects have been eliminated. Children start school with skills that are in line with national expectations.

At the end of Year 6 attainment is average but is rising quickly as pupils' accelerated progress makes an impact on the levels they reach each year. At Key Stage 2 a relative weakness in mathematics, compared to English in 2010, has been eliminated. For some time, pupils in Key Stage 1 had not built sufficiently on the good progress they make in the Nursery and Reception classes, partly because of disruption to teaching.

In particular, boys' progress in English had been weak. With more stable teaching, this shortcoming has been addressed well and boys' progress has improved, particularly in writing. Pupils' progress is enhanced by a good curriculum which establishes meaningful links between subjects that make learning more enjoyable.

However, pupils have too few opportunities to use and develop their skills in information and communication technology (ICT) in other subjects. To some extent this is because portable ICT equipment is unreliable. However, in addition, not enough use is made of the school's computer suite.

Information about the school

The school is in a small town and is average in size for a primary school. The very large majority of pupils are White British, with the remainder from a variety of different minority ethnic heritages. Very few speak English as an additional language, and none is at the early stages of learning English.

The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is average. The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is below average. The school has a Reception class for older children in the Early Years Foundation Stage, who attend full time.

A separate mornings-only class caters for Nursery children. There has been considerable staff turnover since the last inspection, with particular disruption to teaching in Key Stage 1 in the last year because of illness and staff changes. There is an after-school club on the school site, Cygnets, which is managed privately and is inspected separately.