Cockfield Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils in this small village school are happy, confident and inquisitive individuals. They embody the school's values of honesty, respect, kindness, positivity and care. Pupils of all ages are polite and well mannered.

They feel very safe at school. Parents, carers and staff agree. Staff and governors receive regular training to ensure they know how to keep pupils and themselves safe.

Poor behaviour and bullying at this school are rare. Pupils and parents are confident that staff would deal with any incidents quickly and effectively. Cockfield is a place where parents are happy to send their children.

One parent summed up the feelings of many by saying, 'I am... proud my children attend this school.'

Leaders have established high expectations of themselves, of staff and of pupils. This ensures that pupils' behaviour and attitudes to learning are both positive.

Pupils show a clear understanding of equality. They demonstrate commendable empathy for others and are respectful to all.

The school occupies a central position within a tightly knit community.

Parents feel part of this school community. They believe that staff are approachable and listen to any issues that they may have. Pupils enjoy coming to school.

They describe the school as being like 'one big family'.

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

From children's first days in Nursery, the school identifies and meets their needs well. The support and education for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is a strength of the school.

Where appropriate, the school seeks advice and support from external professionals to further strengthen this provision. Support for pupils with SEND is personalised to remove barriers to achievement for these pupils. Staff put appropriate extra resources in place to enable pupils to access learning alongside their peers.

Reading is promoted well throughout the school. With a sharp focus on communication and language in early years, children develop effective speaking and listening skills. Across the school, the purposeful teaching of phonics ensures that most pupils become confident and fluent readers by the time they reach key stage 2.

When needed, extra support from well-trained staff helps pupils who may be falling behind with phonics to catch up. However, some younger pupils struggle to retain what they have learned. Opportunities to secure and embed knowledge are not planned with consistency.

This means that these pupils do not make the progress that leaders expect.

Children in early years enjoy high-quality experiences and become confident and considerate members of the school community. Children talk with excitement about their play and their learning.

Staff help children to develop their knowledge and skills and become enthusiastic learners. Children make good progress and are ready for learning in Year 1 and beyond.Most subjects in the curriculum are carefully designed and sequenced.

Pupils build a rich understanding of their learning and develop strong knowledge and skills. They talk about their learning in a range of different subject areas with genuine understanding. The school's religious education curriculum positively supports pupils' appreciation of other faiths and religions.

In mathematics, the planned curriculum is not consistently implemented as leaders intend. Where this is the case, pupils do not make sufficient progress in their learning and do not achieve as well as they could.

The school takes effective action to address pupils' absence, including persistent absence.

These actions are successfully helping to improve attendance and reduce the number of absences. The school engages well with families to promote the importance of attendance.

The curriculum for pupils' personal development is strong.

Close links with the local church ensure that pupils benefit from effective spiritual development. They develop commendable attitudes towards equality and diversity. Pupils were unanimous in their belief that everyone at Cockfield is treated the same.

For example, when asked about racial equality, a typical comment described it as being 'like 8/32 or 4/16 – they might look different but they're the same'. Pupils talked with enthusiasm about the opportunities they have within school. These include roles as house captains and members of the school council.

Pupils fulfil responsibilities as peer mentors with pride. They work alongside the school's mental health leader to help other pupils.

Leaders, including governors, have a clear understanding of the school's priorities.

Staff feel supported in their roles. They are adamant that leaders promote the well-being of staff and try to reduce their workload wherever possible.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The curriculum in mathematics is not being consistently implemented in line with the school's intent. This means that, sometimes, pupils do not receive work at an appropriate level and make less progress than they could. The school must ensure that teaching and learning in mathematics matches more closely the school's intent.

• Some younger pupils do not retain phonics knowledge sufficiently well. This has a negative impact on their acquisition and application of phonics to learn to read. The school should strengthen their approach to practising and embedding phonics knowledge and check how well pupils are remembering and applying phonics to ensure that all pupils learn to read as quickly as possible.