Beedon C.E. (Controlled) Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

Beedon School is a good school. It has a warm, enabling, family ethos in which its pupils thrive.

It is on a journey of sustained improvement, and has many strengths and a few areas in need of improvement. Pupils' attainment is rising and is above average by Year 6 in English and mathematics. Good teaching, a good curriculum, and good care, guidance and support all contribute to pupils' good behaviour and achievement.

Pupils are kept, and feel, exceptionally safe, and excellent relationships contribute to their good personal development and well-being. Pupils have an excellent understanding of how to keep fit and healthy. Guided by the headteacher's very good leadership and high aspirations f...or the school, the dedicated staff team shares her determination and drive to develop further.

The governing body provides the school with strong support and challenge. Pupils' progress is good overall, although fewer reach higher levels in writing than do so in reading and mathematics. Pupils write competently for a range of purposes but their vocabulary choices are not always imaginative and they do not always use correct punctuation.

Pupils' progress is only satisfactory in Reception and Year 1, however, with too few reaching the higher levels in reading by the time they enter Year 1. Those pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress in line with their peers. Later entrants to the school are helped to adjust quickly and do well.

There are robust procedures for helping those who need to catch up. The headteacher's strong focus on checking and developing teachers' work has led to good teaching and learning overall, with most impact in Years 2 to 6. Reception children are doing better than in the past but, in Reception and Year 1, there is not always enough direct teaching of reading.

In Reception, while there are suitable opportunities for children to make choices and learn through play, activities are not always challenging enough. The school's good systems for teaching basic skills, including daily phonics (the sounds that letters make), are having a positive impact on raising pupils' attainment in literacy. However, on a few occasions, during group work, adults do too much for pupils so that they are not able to apply their phonics skills to literacy tasks well enough.

The headteacher has introduced comprehensive and challenging systems for monitoring the work of the school. These have enabled the headteacher, staff and governors to have a clear understanding of performance and to identify accurately what needs to improve. The resulting actions have led to a rise in attainment in English and mathematics and in attendance.

This good track record, together with shared high expectations and a commitment to improve pupils' achievement, confirms that the school has a good capacity for sustained improvement.

Information about the school

This school is much smaller than most primary schools. It draws its pupils from the local village and a wide rural area.

Nearly all pupils are White British. The percentage of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is above average. The proportion with special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average.

The majority of these pupils have speech, language, literacy, numeracy and/or emotional and behavioural difficulties. The proportion with statements of special educational needs is above average. The number of pupils who either join or leave the school other than at the normal times is slightly above average.

The Early Years Foundation Stage children are taught in a mixed-age Reception and Year 1 class and the other two classes also contain pupils of mixed ages. Since the previous inspection, there has been a change of headteacher and substantial building improvement has recently been completed. The school holds a number of awards including National Healthy Schools status and Artsmark Silver.