Springwood Junior School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school The executive headteacher and her senior leadership team have secured an ambitious vision to ensure that all pupils achieve well. All staff share these high expectations and so the school is improving rapidly.

Leaders have developed a community where pupils are keen to learn. Teaching is improving and standards are quickly rising in all subjects. Leaders have ensured that boys' progress in reading, writing and mathematics has accelerated to match that of girls.

Pupils who are disadvantaged are supported well to make good progress. Differences between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and others are diminishing. Leaders are fully inc...lusive and determined to meet the needs of all pupils.

Leaders and teachers know their pupils well. They provide good-quality support and care, especially for vulnerable pupils. Pupils report that they feel well supported.

The presentation and care taken by pupils of their work does not consistently reflect their good attitudes to learning. Pupils enjoy their time at school. They behave well, and understand and respect the views and opinions of others.

Pupils report that bullying is very rare or non-existent. They feel safe. Attendance is rising and is now broadly average for all pupils.

Leaders effectively follow up any persistent absence. Leaders have successfully gained the support of the majority of parents. Parents report positively about their child's experience and progress.

Governors provide good support and challenge leaders diligently. They are skilled and effective in their monitoring of the school. Newly appointed subject leaders have not had enough time to improve pupils' progress in the way senior leaders do.

There remains some inconsistency in the precision of feedback to pupils. This means that the progress of some pupils, including the most able, is not as rapid as it could be. Pupils in Year 5, while making progress in English, are not improving as rapidly as pupils in other year groups.

Information about this school

The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website. There have been significant changes to both the leadership and the teaching team since the last inspection. The previous headteacher retired at the end of the summer term and since then an executive headteacher has been appointed to lead this school in federation with Springwood Infant School.

Heads of school, who have responsibilities across both schools, are new to the roles and, with the executive headteacher, they form the senior leadership team. A middle leadership team are also new to post, the science lead being appointed in September 2016 and the English lead in January 2017. The school did not meet the government's floor standards in 2016.

These set the minimum expectations for pupils' learning and progress. Most pupils are White British and few speak English as an additional language. The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average, as is the proportion of disadvantaged pupils.

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