Gorse Ride Infants’ School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

Gorse Ride Infants' School is a good school.

Pupils thrive both academically and personally in a very welcoming and well-organised environment. The strong ethos of care and consideration leads to pupils' good spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and good behaviour. Pupils have an excellent awareness of how to stay safe and contribute well to the community in which the school plays an important part.

The stimulating curriculum underpins pupils' enjoyment of school and their excellent understanding of how to lead a healthy lifestyle. The great majority of parents and carers have a high regard for the school, and as one parent commented, 'My child is very happy and making good progr...ess, especially in reading.' Pupils' achievement is good.

Children get off to a satisfactory start in the Nursery and make good progress in Reception. Their progress is good overall in Key Stage 1 so that, by the end of Year 2, pupils' attainment is above average, although higher in reading and writing than in mathematics. In Key Stage 1, more-able pupils do not always achieve as well as they should in mathematics because tasks are sometimes too easy for them.

Consequently, by Year 2, fewer reach higher levels than do so in reading. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress and those with speech and language difficulties make excellent progress in developing their speaking skills. Children in the Nursery are not given enough opportunities to make choices and learn independently and this limits their progress.

The outdoor area in the Early Years Foundation Stage is not used to its full capacity to develop all areas of children's learning. The very good leadership of the headteacher, ably supported by the deputy headteacher, is pivotal to ensuring there is a constant focus on raising pupils' achievement. The substantial changes to staffing have been well managed and the rigorous focus on checking and improving teaching has led to much good teaching and learning.

However, occasionally in Year 1, literacy tasks for lower-attaining pupils do not build so well on the reading skills they acquire in Reception. Excellent teaching of reading and writing in Year 2 leads to pupils' rapid progress in literacy across this year group. The curriculum provides a thorough structure for pupils to learn the basic skills.

Practical subjects, for example art and design and technology, are used well to bring academic learning alive. Good self-evaluation has led to the school having an accurate and honest view of its own performance. Leaders, together with staff, systematically use the school-wide assessment systems to accurately measure pupils' progress and identify any gaps in their progress towards demanding targets.

Leaders are vigilant in helping pupils from all backgrounds to do well and have provided robust procedures for helping those who need to catch up. The school has a good capacity to improve, partly because everyone shares the senior leaders' ambitions. New middle leadership roles are developing well and members of the governing body make a good contribution to the school's future.

There have been significant improvements since the last inspection in several key areas, such as attainment in writing for more-able pupils in Year 2.

Information about the school

The school is a little below average in size and mainly serves the immediate community. Most pupils are from White British backgrounds.

The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is below average. The number of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is average, including the proportion with statements of educational needs. The majority of these pupils have speech, language, literacy and/or emotional and behavioural difficulties.

The Early Years Foundation Stage children are in the Nursery or the two Reception classes. There have been significant changes since the last inspection. The headteacher was absent for over a term in the last academic year and over one third of teaching staff joined the school in September 2010.

The school's awards include Activemark and Healthy School status. Pupils from the school are eligible to attend an after-school club managed by the junior school on the same site. This provision was not part of this inspection.