Mortimer St. John’s C.E. Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

St John's is a good school. The excellence of the headteacher's leadership and management and her dedication to improvement is shared by the staff and the governing body, and all are committed to gaining the best provision and outcomes for the pupils.

The good quality provision ensures that pupils achieve well and make good progress in both their academic and personal development. The school has a warm and inclusive ethos which stems from the outstanding care, guidance and support that is provided. All pupils are known exceptionally well as individuals, and supporting their personal welfare is at the heart of the school's provision.

Consequently, the pupils have highly positive attitudes and,... when linked to their outstanding behaviour, this helps to create a happy and harmonious community. Pupils also have an outstanding understanding of the importance of adopting a safe and healthy lifestyle, as reflected by the Healthy Schools award. Even the youngest pupils understand the importance of a good diet and exercise and older pupils carefully and accurately considered the relative merits of drinking water or milk! Pupils enjoy school because the curriculum is carefully planned to build on their interests and stimulate their curiosity.

A good balance is secured between developing the pupils' personal and academic achievement, and this prepares them well for the next stage in their education. Teaching is consistently at least good, and sometimes outstanding. Teachers manage the pupils well, provide interesting and stimulating activities and generally match work well to their needs.

This is consistently the case in mathematics. In reading and writing, lower and higher ability pupils do well but middle ability pupils sometimes make slower progress because they are not always provided with sufficiently challenging activities. The provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is outstanding.

These pupils are catered for exceptionally well, and benefit from excellent individual educational plans that are based on a high quality analysis of need. As a result, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities make outstanding progress. Teachers use assessment information well to plan work, though pupils have limited opportunities to assess their own achievements and to check each other's work.

Arrangements to monitor the quality of provision and pupils' attainment are good. All staff play an important role. Teachers with responsibilities are very thorough in checking learning.

They analyse progress and teaching well and their good quality evaluations provide a secure range of information to ensure that they make a good contribution to the effective school development plan. This is a good tool for securing further improvement with evaluation being accurate and thorough. Staff work closely as a team and morale is high because all are trained well and given opportunities to take responsibility and to contribute to the school's success.

The improvements made in the pupils' personal development, the curriculum and aspects of teaching reflect the school's good capacity for further improvement.

Information about the school

St John's is smaller than most primary schools. A large majority of the pupils come from the village of Mortimer though an increasing number come from the surrounding area.

Almost all the pupils are of White British heritage. The number of pupils identified as having special educational needs and/or disabilities is above the national average. Very few pupils are known to be eligible for free school meals.

The school provides breakfast and after-school clubs. This provision is not managed by the governing body and was not included in this inspection. The school has gained a number of awards, amongst them Artsmark Gold and Healthy School.

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