Old Fletton Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Old Fletton Primary School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils at Old Fletton Primary School experience a well-rounded education that helps them to become effective learners and develop a range of interests. Pupils appreciate the way that their teachers help them to understand new content in lessons.

Pupils are proud of their work. Teachers encourage pupils to aim for academic, sporting and personal success. Pupils appreciate the opportunities they have to celebrate their own and others' successes.

Teachers manage learning and behaviour well. Pupils listen, stay on task and respond quickly to teachers' requests. As a result, lessons... are calm and orderly environments in which pupils are able to learn effectively.

Pupils are respectful towards one another. They understand and behave in accordance with the school's values. Pupils say that the values help them to make and keep friends.

Pupils feel safe in school. They learn how to stay safe online and know who to speak to if they have concerns. Pupils are confident that adults will listen to them.

Pupils are confident that on rare occasions where bullying happens, it is dealt with well.

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

Since the inspection in 2016, leaders have continued to improve the quality of education in the school. Leaders have worked to improve curriculum plans in each subject.

Leaders have chosen ways of teaching that they believe will help pupils remember what they have learned. Pupils review what they have learned previously and build on this knowledge.

Leaders can see where changes to curriculum plans are making a positive difference to pupils' learning.

Curriculum plans now focus more on making sure that pupils have sufficient knowledge to be able to move on to the next aspect of their learning and apply this learning to more complex tasks. In mathematics, for example, a focus on arithmetic is helping pupils to develop their reasoning and ability to solve mathematical problems. However, some aspects of the curriculum are still quite new, and leaders' ability to monitor the impact of the newer curriculum plans has been hindered by the pandemic.

Leaders are still reviewing where curriculum plans may need further adaptations to improve pupils' learning.

Across the curriculum, there is a strong focus on developing reading, language and communication. Leaders carefully plan the journey that pupils will take to become fluent, confident readers as they get older.

In the early years, teachers use a range of activities and approaches to help children learn new, useful and interesting words. The teaching of phonics helps pupils to learn in an organised, structured, step-by-step way. Pupils repeat and practise the phonics knowledge they are learning, which helps them remember it.

Staff are well trained and supported and teach reading effectively. Pupils who need extra help are spotted quickly and supported so that they catch up. Pupils learn to read well and access the curriculum effectively.

Leaders work hard to ensure that they research the best and most up-to-date ways to support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Leaders ensure that staff have access to a range of resources and teaching strategies so that pupils with SEND get any help they need to access the same learning as their classmates. Staff know pupils well, and adapt learning in lessons as needed, to make sure that pupils stay on task and do not fall behind.

As a result, pupils with SEND progress well across the curriculum.

Pupils know, understand and respond well to the school's systems for encouraging the best behaviour. Pupils are polite and behave well in class and around the school.

They recognise how good behaviour links to their school values.

The school's CARE (Celebrate success; Aim high; Respect people, property and the environment; Embrace a challenge) values underpin all aspects of pupils' personal development. These values are interwoven with the personal, social and health education and relationships and sex education curriculums.

Leaders actively seek the views of pupils so that they can adapt and be flexible to pupils' interests and needs. For example, pupils take active roles in the recruitment of new staff, act as class representatives, house captains and pupils' champions.

Leaders are ambitious for what they want pupils to achieve.

Staff share leaders' vision and ethos of high aspirations. Staff feel well supported by leaders in all aspects of their work. Governors are committed and know the school well.

They have worked hard to check and support leaders' work over the last year. However, much of this focus has been about the school's management of the pandemic and on the curriculum theory. Governors acknowledge that much of their monitoring and how they hold leaders to account is underdeveloped in some curriculum areas.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders work hard to create a strong culture of safeguarding. Staff know the children, their families and the community well.

Leaders work closely with outside agencies to ensure that pupils and their families receive the timely help and support they need. Leaders' approaches to reporting, recording and following up concerns are robust.

Pupils learn how to keep themselves safe as part of the relationships, sex and health education curriculum.

Staff know what to do if they have a safeguarding concern and their training is regular and up to date. The school's single central record of pre-employment checks is comprehensive and up to date.

Leaders monitor pupils' attendance carefully.

Staff identify pupils whose attendance is slipping and support them and their families so that it improves.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Curriculum plans across most subjects are well implemented and well reviewed, and there is clear evidence of the positive impact on pupils' learning. Where some curriculum plans are newer, leaders' monitoring is also less well developed.

In these subjects, leaders and governors are in earlier stages of understanding where curriculum adaptations may be necessary to support pupils to make the best possible progress. Leaders should embed their systems to review the impact of these newer curriculum plans.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

This is called a section 8 inspection of a good or outstanding school, because it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on a section 8 inspection. However, if we find some evidence that a good school could now be better than good, or that standards may be declining, then the next inspection will be a section 5 inspection.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the section 8 inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will convert the section 8 inspection to a section 5 inspection immediately.

This is the second section 8 inspection since we judged the school to be good on 24 November 2011.