Ludlow Junior School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Key findings

This is a good school. After a period of instability, teaching, pupils' achievement and behaviour have improved significantly and are now good. Most groups of pupils have made good progress over the last two years.

Some are now making outstanding progress. Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs have started to make good progress more recently. English and mathematics lessons are taught well.

Pupils use their literacy and numeracy skills in other subjects but are not always helped to improve these skills as they do so. An outstanding feature of teaching is the way the planned work is pitched to pupils' differing ability levels, so all are challenged to do well. Occasionall...y, teachers do not check that pupils remain challenged and engaged throughout the lesson.

The pace of learning is usually impressively high, but occasionally the lesson moves on a little too quickly, before some pupils are ready. Marking is exceptionally good in most, but not all, classes. A notable feature is the way pupils are often given a target for improvement for the next lesson.

Leadership and management are good. The many improvements have come about because of the school's outstanding system for helping teachers to teach better. The school evaluates the quality of its teaching and the extent to which pupils make progress extremely well.

It does not yet rigorously evaluate the success of the different strategies chosen to help individuals to overcome barriers to learning. Most pupils are highly engaged and motivated in lessons. The school has good systems for helping those who find good behaviour hard to maintain to do better.

It promotes many aspects of personal development well, but pupils' awareness of the wide range of cultures and religions present in Britain is comparatively limited.

Information about the school

The school is much larger than the average junior school, and most of its pupils are White British. Very few speak English as an additional language.

The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is broadly average. An above average proportion of pupils are known to be eligible for free school meals. Since the last inspection, there have been significant changes of staffing.

The executive headteacher was appointed in 2009, and the head of learning and teaching, who co-leads with the executive headteacher, was appointed in 2010, as was the assistant headteacher. New leaders of mathematics and literacy and new phase leaders took up their posts in April 2011, and a new inclusion leader in September 2011. Two thirds of the class teachers are in their first, second or third year of teaching.

The school has met the government's current floor standard. A privately-run childcare facility, Ludlow Kidz Club, includes before- and after-school clubs for up to 24 children. The provision was inspected separately in December 2011.