St Neot Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

In this school, pupils grow and develop in a nurturing environment that prepares them well for their future lives.

The school is central to village life. Pupils of all ages share their talents with open performances in the church or singing to residents at the village hall. They also take part in events supporting the community, such as litter picking.

This strong relationship was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when the school worked closely with the local community to provide resources and support for pupils' learning.

Pupils benefit from meaningful opportunities for them to contribute to life in the school, such as membership of the school council and... sports crew. Pupils are encouraged to reflect on their feelings, their beliefs and their culture.

They build personal well-being books, which help in developing their sense of self-worth. Personal achievements and exceptional talents are recognised and celebrated regularly at the school.

Pupils behave well.

They meet the school's high expectations, showing good levels of self-discipline and motivation. Pupils work hard in lessons. They are proud of their work across the curriculum.

Children in the Nursery follow instructions well. They quickly learn good self-care routines and table manners.

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

The school has designed a broad curriculum that meets the needs of its pupils.

Everyone is encouraged to achieve their best. Effective adaptations reduce the barriers for individuals with special educational needs and/or disabilities. These pupils are fully included in all aspects of school life.

This includes well-considered enrichment opportunities that bring the curriculum to life for all pupils. This is reflected in the school's published outcomes.

Pupils learn to read well.

In the Nursery, children enjoy listening to, and joining in with, rhymes and familiar tales. This sets them up well for learning to segment words and blend sounds in the Reception Year. The few pupils who struggle to keep up with the school's phonics programme are well supported.

This is because teaching identifies the sounds pupils find difficult quickly. The books pupils read are well matched to the sounds that they know. This helps them to develop their fluency and understanding.

The school has ensured the important knowledge pupils need to learn is sequenced clearly in its curriculums. For example, it has redesigned its writing curriculum so pupils are inspired to write more creatively. Pupils enjoy the new books that they study and find them exciting to read.

While the school's focus has been to ensure the content is right, it does not have a collective understanding of effective teaching strategies to be used. As a consequence, sometimes the way the curriculum is delivered is not as effective in helping pupils secure knowledge in their long-term memory.

The school checks that the intended curriculum is being taught.

Teachers use a range of methods to understand how well pupils progress through the curriculum. However, in some wider curriculum subjects, the checks are not used consistently to consider how well pupils are learning. When this is the case, it makes identifying gaps in pupils' knowledge difficult.

At times, this hinders teachers when designing work to support or challenge pupils to deepen their knowledge of curriculum content. While the school's published outcomes demonstrate that most pupils leave the school prepared for the next stage of their education, some do not deepen their knowledge and reasoning as well as they could.

The school has a clear picture of individual pupils' attendance.

However, some pupils do not attend regularly enough. The school has taken action to reduce persistent absence but recognises it is not reducing as fast as leaders intend.

Staff are appreciative of the school's recognition of workload and well-being.

Staff support each other well. They feel valued by leaders and governors. Parents and carers are overwhelmingly positive about the school.

Governors have strategic oversight of their statutory responsibilities. They keep the impact on pupils at the centre of their work. There have been many recent improvements to governance.

Just like the staff, governors are keen to develop themselves. They gather rich information about the effectiveness of the school, which helps them have oversight of its development.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The school does not have a secure grasp of the teaching knowledge needed to deliver all subjects sufficiently well. This leads to pupils learning effectively in some subjects but not in others. The school must ensure that staff have the teaching expertise they need to implement all subject curriculums as intended so that pupils secure knowledge in the long term.

• In some subjects, the school does not assess effectively how well pupils learn. Consequently, in those subjects, pupils do not build and deepen their knowledge as well as they could. The school should ensure it assesses pupils' progression through the curriculum effectively so that future learning helps pupils deepen their knowledge over time.