Cavendish Church of England Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are enthusiastic and keen to learn. However, too many are not able to read, write or use number as well as they should for their age. This includes children in the early years.

There are ongoing staffing changes, especially for the oldest pupils. Some of these pupils have had six different teachers in two years. Pupils say that they struggle to remember most of the things they have been taught.

Pupils enjoy visits, and various clubs. However, there have been limited opportunities for these recently. Many older pupils do not feel ready enough for secondary school.

Pupils typically follow adults' instructions. The school is calm. Most pupils behave well ...and are kind.

In the Reception Year, the youngest children are well settled.A small number of pupils misbehave. There is some bullying.

Pupils say that most adults, but not all, deal with this effectively. Many pupils say there is an adult they can talk with if they have a problem. Pupils are safe.

An increasing number of parents are very concerned about a range of issues. These include staff turnover, leadership communication and the experiences of their children. Many parents have lost confidence in the school to address the issues they raise.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

In the last 18 months, there has been near constant staffing and leadership change. There is not an appropriate action plan or sufficient leadership capacity to address the urgent priorities. Despite the efforts of individual people, there has not been an effective enough approach between the governing body, the school, the local authority, and the diocese to work collectively to address urgent weaknesses in a timely or sustained way.

The school's approach to teaching reading and writing lacks rigour. Pupils in the early stages of learning to read access resources, activities and books that are not well matched to the sounds they are learning. Pupils who need extra help are not well supported.

Following poor writing outcomes in Year 6 last year, the school has not acted to improve the teaching of writing. Standards by the end of Year 6 are low and show little sign of improvement. Pupils are not ready to move on to secondary school.

Staff are not able to identify and effectively address the precise gaps that pupils have in their learning. This includes in the Reception Year. This means that often, pupils receive work that is either too easy or too hard for them.

They cannot apply their learning in more complex ways. This causes some pupils to lose interest in their work. Many do not finish work or they complete it to a low standard.

In the Reception Year, resources are not of a high enough quality or well matched to the curriculum.The school is implementing a new curriculum. The precise plans showing what pupils learn and when they will learn it are not in place in many subjects.

Adults are not well trained to deliver the different subjects being taught. Many pupils receive a disjointed set of activities in these lessons. Their learning is poor.

This includes the school's personal, social, health, economic (PSHE) and relationship and sex education (RSE) curriculum. Consequently, the school's personal development offer is weak. Pupils are not being prepared well enough for life in modern Britain.

Leaders have worked recently to establish some basic approaches to supporting pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), especially for those pupils with physical and/or sensory needs. However, there are not clear processes to identify and meet pupils' precise needs in other areas, such as speech, language and communication. These pupils are not supported well enough to access the curriculum.

Staff are caring, kind and trying their best. They have very positive relationships with pupils. Although proud to work at the school, some staff feel that there is not sufficient support for them.

They are positive about the recent work of new senior leaders in managing their workload.

Senior leaders who are new to their roles are working tenaciously to try and address the issues. They have prioritised their work around behaviour, bullying, attendance, parental concerns, and safeguarding.

They are managing the day-to-day work to ensure the safety and well-being of pupils are being met.

Since the previous inspection, there has been a range of external support commissioned to support the school. However, despite this, the support has been fragmented in its approach.

It has not provided sufficient capacity to address the wide-ranging issues.

There has been significant change in governance since the previous inspection. Over time, governors have relied too heavily on the information provided by the school without checking on its accuracy.

The constant turnover of governors means that those who are left are stretched thin to cover the wealth of information they need to know.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The plan for how the school is going to secure capacity and act to address the inadequacies in the provision for its pupils is not precise enough.

Additional support is not closely aligned to the needs of the school. Leaders, governors, the local authority and the Diocese, need to work as a collective to ensure that there is a well-considered, structured approach to addressing these weaknesses as a matter of urgency. ? The curriculum planning, delivery and assessment of reading, writing and phonics do not support pupils to learn and achieve well.

Many pupils have significant gaps in their understanding. The school needs to ensure that staff are well trained to deliver these areas of the curriculum effectively and that assessment helps staff to identify and support those pupils with gaps, to catch up. This includes for the youngest children in the Reception Year.

• Many subjects are in the early stages of being developed. Curriculum plans do not lay out the precise content that is to be covered. Staff are not well trained in these subjects.

This includes in the delivery of the PSHE and RSE content. Pupils do not learn well in these subjects and their work is often of a poor quality. The school needs to ensure that curriculum planning and staff training ensure that these subjects are delivered consistently well.

• Pupils with SEND are not routinely well identified and well supported. This is especially the case for pupils with cognition and learning or communication and interaction needs. These pupils are not well supported to learn, develop, and achieve well.

The school needs to ensure that there are leaders with sufficient expertise to be able to identify and guide staff in the provision required for these pupils. ? The youngest children in the Reception Year are getting off to a poor start. Although well cared for and well settled, staff turnover and a lack of staff training means that adults do not deliver the curriculum as leaders intend.

Leaders need to secure sufficient staffing expertise and high-quality resources to ensure that the curriculum can be delivered effectively, so that children are ready for Year 1. ? Leaders' monitoring is underdeveloped. Many areas of the school's work are not monitored.

Where some monitoring is in place, often this is only more recently, for example in behaviour and bullying. Leaders need to establish ways in which to monitor the impact of their work moving forwards, including in using the views of parents, pupils and staff in a meaningful way to inform their evaluation of their effectiveness.

The school may not appoint early career teachers before the next monitoring inspection.