Frome Valley CofE VA First School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils enjoy attending this school. Adults care for them well. This helps pupils to be happy and secure.

Nevertheless, the quality of education they receive requires improvement. Pupils sometimes complete work that does not help them to learn well. Some pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) do not receive the right adaptations they need for learning.

New leaders are ambitious for the school. However, while pupils learn some parts of the curriculum securely, they can learn more than they do currently.

Pupils behave well in the classroom and at social times.

They have positive attitudes to learning. Pupils try their best in l...essons, even when the curriculum is not well matched to their needs. They know that adults will help them address any worries they may have.

In the early years, children listen well to adults' instructions. They sustain concentration on tasks independently.

Pupils benefit from a range of clubs, such as scootering, gardening and dance.

This allows them to experience new interests. Pupils develop their leadership skills through different roles in the school. For example, the eco-group helps to promote healthy eating.

Pupils learn to be out of their comfort zone through a residential trip.

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

The school, including the trust and local governing committee, is realistic that the quality of education needs to improve. The trust has provided additional support from both within and outside the trust.

It has accurately identified the key issues that need to be addressed. It has started to address these. For example, following weak results in the multiplication tables check, pupils now learn their times tables in a more systematic way.

Pupils experience a broad and balanced curriculum. Typically, pupils build upon their knowledge in a logical order in key stages 1 and 2. The school continues to make refinements where it identifies the curriculum is not as logically ordered, such as writing.

The school has clear systems for recapping on pupils' knowledge. This helps teachers to check how well pupils have learned the curriculum over the long term. In some subjects, pupils recall their learning well.

However, the teaching of the curriculum is variable. This is because some staff lack the expertise they need in certain subjects to teach the range of required knowledge effectively. On some occasions, they give pupils work that does not deepen their learning or match the intended aims of the curriculum.

When this happens, pupils do not develop new knowledge well. Furthermore, while pupils with SEND have their needs identified early, staff do not provide effective support to help some of them in lessons. They do not adapt learning well enough.

Consequently, these pupils are given work that is too difficult for them, and their progression through the curriculum slows.

The school places a high priority on pupils' learning to read. Pupils have positive attitudes to reading.

They enjoy 'story time'. This exposes pupils to a range of different authors and genres. Since the last inspection, staff have been retrained in the teaching of phonics.

This is helping staff to implement it more in line with leaders' expectations. In lessons, teachers support most pupils to learn well. Pupils receive additional support if they fall behind.

However, a small number of pupils have their gaps inaccurately checked. They are incorrectly judged as being able to read some phonemes independently. As a result, they come across words in their reading books that they cannot decode.

Unlike their classmates, these weaknesses prevent this small group from becoming fluent and confident readers.

The curriculum in the early years requires more careful consideration. The pre-school and Reception curriculums, while coherently sequenced individually, are too separate.

There has not been enough oversight to ensure that they link together effectively. As a result, children sometimes do not build on their prior learning well.

The school has a calm and orderly feel.

Low-level disruption is rare. However, if it occurs, staff deal with it immediately. Pupils are polite and courteous when speaking to visitors.

The school works closely with families to ensure that pupils attend well.

The school ensures it has strong links with its community. For example, children in the early years sing Christmas carols for residents in a care home.

Pupils learn about other faiths and cultures through assemblies. They understand aspects of discrimination, such as racism. Pupils have an age-appropriate knowledge of how their bodies change as they get older.

The school's well-being days help pupils to discuss their feelings.

Parents' and carers' views of the school have improved recently. They rightly praise the school's nurturing ethos.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Some staff do not have the expertise needed to implement the curriculum effectively. They do not consistently plan work that deepens pupils' knowledge or matches the intended curriculum.

As a result, some pupils do not develop new knowledge as securely as they should. The trust must ensure that staff have the skills to teach effectively so that pupils can progress well through the intended curriculum. ? Staff do not provide some pupils with SEND with the necessary adaptations to help them learn well.

They sometimes give these pupils tasks that are too hard. When this happens, they do not learn well. The trust must ensure that staff have the skills to provide all pupils with SEND with the necessary support or adaptations to help them achieve well.

• The school has not considered how learning develops well enough from the pre-school until the end of the Reception Year. As a result, children do not build on their prior learning securely across some of the curriculum. The trust needs to ensure that the curriculum is carefully considered from the provision for two year olds to the end of the Reception Year so that children's knowledge and skills build sequentially in the early years.

• The school has not accurately identified the gaps in phonics knowledge for a small number of pupils who have fallen behind in reading. As a result, these pupils have words in their reading books that they cannot decode independently. The trust needs to support staff to accurately assess pupils' phonics gaps so that they become fluent and confident readers.