Sawston Village College

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.

GCSE examination results are well above the national averages. Students make good progress and achieve well, particularly in mathematics, science and humanities. Standards of work are rising in English and are good.

Students are articulate, read fluently and write well. Teaching is typically good and sometimes outstanding. Teachers have good subject knowledge, plan their lessons carefully and use questioning well to extend students' understanding.

Students' behaviour is excellent, as seen in the high levels of concentration in lessons and the exemplary attitudes shown in the classrooms, where they work extremely well together. T...hey are polite, friendly, and respectful to staff and each other. Students feel safe at the college.

Vulnerable students and those with social and emotional needs receive good support. The college is led and managed well. The Principal and his leadership team know what it needs to do to become better and are taking decisive action.

This demonstrates the college's strong capacity to improve. Governors are well informed about the work of the college and hold leaders to account for its performance. The college promotes students' spiritual, moral social and cultural development very well and provides a wide range of lunchtime and after-college activities in sport, the arts and music.

The college prepares students well, both academically and personally, for future success. It is not yet an outstanding school because : Results are not yet consistently high across all GCSE subjects. The quality of teaching is not yet outstanding.

In some lessons, work is not pitched at the right level of difficulty for everyone in the class and this slows down progress. Sometimes teachers do not set enough time aside in lessons to question students, and this means they do not have enough opportunities to think and talk about what they have learned.

Information about this school

Sawston Village College converted to become an academy on 1 June 2011.

When the predecessor college, known by the same name, was last inspected by Ofsted it was judged to be good. The college is similar in size to the average-sized secondary school. It serves the local community of Sawston and the surrounding villages.

The proportion of boys attending the college is higher than average. Most students are White British. The proportion of students supported by the pupil premium (extra government funding to support particular groups of students such as those known to be eligible for free school meals or in local authority care) is well below average.

The proportion of disabled students and those who have special educational needs supported at school action is average. The proportion supported through school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is average. Seven students spend time at Cambridge Regional College as part of the work-related courses they are studying.

A very few students attend the Phoenix Trust part-time, and a very few attend a tuition college in Cambridge full-time. The college meets the government's current floor standards, which set minimum expectations for students' attainment and progress. The college is a member of the local teaching school alliance, the Cambridge and Suffolk School Alliance, and also the Henry Morris Community Trust which works with local primary schools, the Diocese of Ely, the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education and a local charity to raise aspirations and achievement.

Also at this postcode