Lawley Village Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school Leaders, governors and the trust have responded well to the changing needs of the school to ensure that teaching is good and pupils' outcomes are strong. They are aspirational for the school as it moves through a period of rapid growth. Leaders have a good understanding of the school's current context and its future needs.

They are developing middle leaders to enhance the leadership capacity in the school. Leaders are focused on further improving teaching and learning. They have developed a learning culture between staff, which continues to grow as new staff join the school.

Together, staff reflect on their practice and make improvements.... As a result, teaching is good overall. Leaders track the progress and attainment of pupils carefully, including specific groups such as disadvantaged pupils, pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities, and girls and boys.

Consequently, no pupil is left behind. Leaders have developed a broad and balanced curriculum. However, they recognise that pupils do not have as many opportunities to write at length in other subjects as they do in English.

Teachers make learning interesting for pupils. They develop pupils' reading and writing skills well. Pupils' spelling, however, is not as good as it could be because teachers do not have consistently high enough expectations.

In mathematics, pupils achieve well and make strong progress. Although they can carry out simple problem-solving activities, their ability to reason and explain their understanding in mathematics is less well developed. On occasion, the tasks they are given do not sufficiently challenge their thinking.

Children in early years develop literacy and numeracy skills well. Consequently, they achieve a good level of development at the end of Reception. Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is strong.

Pupils behave well and treat adults and each other with respect. There is a strong culture of safeguarding. Pupils demonstrate a clear understanding of how to keep themselves safe in school, when using the internet and outside school.

The school is well supported by the multi-academy trust and the local governing body. However, the local governing body does not currently have a sufficiently strategic overview of the work of the school.

Information about this school

Lawley Village Academy was built to serve a new estate, which is still being developed.

It opened in September 2015 with one Reception class. A new Reception class started in 2016 and again in 2017. Over the course of this academic year, 15 Year 3 pupils and eight Year 4 pupils also joined from 20 different schools.

Pupil numbers and staffing continue to grow rapidly. The school is sponsored by the REAch2 Multi-Academy Trust. The school is smaller than an average-sized primary school.

The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for support through pupil premium funding is well below the national average. The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is below the national average. The percentage of pupils who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan is above the national average.