St Lawrence CofE (Aided) Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

St Lawrence CofE (Aided) Primary School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are happy, inquisitive learners.

The school has high expectations for all pupils to achieve, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). It encourages them all to be a good 'St Lawrence Learner'. Pupils demonstrate the school's values, such as responsibility and kindness.

They are resilient and work well with others. They make good progress in their learning as a result.

Pupils get off to a good start when they join the school.

They settle quickly into the new routines and enjoy their learning. Pupils are not ...concerned about bullying. Pupils feel safe here.

Pupils enjoy a wide range of clubs and activities. Trips and visitors add to the curriculum. Pupils are proud of the responsibilities that the school gives them, such as being pupil librarians and play leaders.

They work with the local community and learn to take care of their environment. School staff know pupils and families well. The school provides a wealth of information for parents to support their children.

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

The school has an ambitious curriculum that provides pupils with the knowledge they need to achieve well. The curriculum in the early years helps pupils make a strong start to their learning. Teachers have the subject knowledge they need to teach the broad range of subjects.

They have sequenced the important knowledge and skills that pupils need to learn and remember. In some subjects, pupils remember recent content but there are some gaps in their knowledge from previous learning. This is because the school has recently refined the curriculum, identifying the knowledge that pupils should learn more precisely.

Pupils with SEND learn the same ambitious curriculum as other pupils. The school identifies their needs quickly and skilled adults support their learning well. They break ambitious targets down into small enough steps to make sure pupils are successful in their learning.

Teachers' checks in lessons help them to spot any pupils who begin to fall behind. This means that staff address pupils' misconceptions.

The school prioritises reading for all its pupils.

Learning to read starts as soon as children begin school. A consistent approach to teaching phonics means that all pupils learn the sounds that letters make. The books pupils read are matched closely to the sounds that they know so they read them with confidence.

Any pupil falling behind is identified, and adults give them extra support immediately. This means that they gain the knowledge they need to become confident and fluent readers. Pupils develop a love for reading through daily story time sessions.

They use the well-stocked library frequently.

Attendance is rightly a high priority for the school so that all pupils learn as well as they can. The school analyses information about absences and uses this to understand the causes, supporting pupils to attend more regularly as a result.

The school is taking a range of well-judged actions which are beginning to have a positive impact. However, currently, too many pupils do not attend regularly and, as a result, they miss lessons and need support to keep up with their learning. Leaders need to continue to address poor attendance with rigour.

All adults have consistently high expectations for pupils' behaviour. This results in calm and focused learning where interruptions are rare. If they occur, staff deal with them immediately.

The school's values underpin all its work. Staff, parents and pupils talk about the values and link them to life both inside and outside of school. The school believes that if you 'teach children how they should live, they will remember it all their life'.

Pupils are considerate of each other's needs and differences. Their spiritual, moral and social development is of high quality.

The school engages well with staff about their workload and well-being.

The school staff work well as a team. Staff feel valued. They appreciate the training the school provides, both for the subjects they teach and to help them carry out leadership roles.

The school is led well. The governing body fulfils its role effectively. It sets the long-term strategy for the school and supports its improvement well.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In some subjects, leaders have recently reviewed the curriculum to define the knowledge that pupils should learn more precisely. Pupils have some gaps in their previous knowledge.

This means that in some subjects, pupils are not yet developing a fully secure and coherent body of knowledge. Leaders should ensure that all subjects are delivered in a way that ensures that pupils secure this knowledge in the long term. While leaders are taking all of the actions they reasonably can to improve attendance, too many pupils still do not attend regularly.

As a result, they miss lessons and need support to keep up with their learning. Leaders need to continue to address poor attendance with both urgency and rigour.

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 an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

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

This is the second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in February 2014.

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