Stedham Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are safe and happy at this nurturing village school. In the early years, children make a strong start to their education and develop highly positive attitudes to their learning. Pupils know and understand the school's '6 C' values such as creativity and consideration.

They celebrate these in their weekly celebration assembly which includes 'Caught you being kind awards'. These help pupils develop and model care towards each other. Pupils have many opportunities to develop their talents and interests.

Extra-curricular activities such as cricket, art festivals and netball events are highly valued. Pupils know about and understand why democracy is important. They ...enjoy learning how to debate in balanced ways, discussing topics that capture their enthusiasm.

Responsibilities, such as being school councillors, help pupils play an active role in contributing to the life of the school positively.

The school has high expectations for what all pupils can achieve. However, while pupils learn increasingly securely in reading, writing and mathematics because of improvements the school has made, this is not yet reflected in pupils' outcomes at the end of key stages.

Overall, the curriculum is still in development and is not yet implemented as consistently and effectively as leaders intend. This means that pupils do not learn as well as they should.

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

The curriculum does not build pupils' knowledge consistently and effectively across subjects.

In some subjects, the school has not set out the precise knowledge that pupils will learn clearly enough. Staff do not have sufficiently robust approaches in place to check what pupils have learned. As a result, pupils have gaps in their knowledge and understanding and do not achieve consistently well.

Core subjects such as mathematics and science are increasingly more effective because of positive changes the school has made. In these subjects, the school has identified the key steps of knowledge that they want pupils to learn. This is already having a positive impact on pupils' learning and is particularly strong in the early years.

While some staff demonstrate good subject knowledge and implement the planned curriculum successfully, this is not securely consistent.

Governors have not monitored the school's improvement work effectively enough. Importantly, they do not systematically assure themselves about the impact of the curriculum on pupils' learning.

For example, governors do not monitor progress against the school's improvement plan with enough rigour. They are supportive and committed and understand the school's ethos and values very well. They contribute to the community in supportive and thoughtful ways.

Governors are mindful of workload and staff well-being and support school staff in a range of conscientious and deliberate ways.

Pupils are increasingly learning to read well. Phonics teaching is securely embedded and supports most pupils effectively.

Staff check how secure pupils are in their phonics knowledge and then support those pupils who need additional help successfully. Pupils enjoy reading and speak about their class texts with real joy and enthusiasm. For weaker readers, reading books that they take home are not always matched closely to the sounds that pupils have learned.

This means that not all pupils' outcomes are as high as leaders expect and further work is needed to ensure that practice is as effective as it should be.

In early years, staff focus on communication and language and create a magical learning environment. Children in Reception are delighted and inspired by the stories, rhymes and creative approaches that help to drive learning forwards there.

In Reception, staff and children have exceptionally positive relationships that help all children to thrive and be ready for their next stage of learning.

The school identifies pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) quickly and works effectively with external agencies where appropriate. Support for pupils with SEND is thoughtful and precise, and makes good use of the specialism and expertise within and beyond the school.

In contrast to other groups of pupils, pupils with SEND achieve well overall.

Pupils have high levels of attendance. The school knows pupils and families very well and works closely to support pupils if they begin to have lower attendance.

In lessons, pupils are focused and engaged. Low-level disruption is not a feature of school life. Most staff understand the behaviour policy well and live and model the school's values.

The school's approaches to partnership with the community are strengths on which the school can continue to build. Parents are incredibly supportive. One parent summarised the views of many others, commenting: 'The school creates a community and huge sense of belonging, for the children and for the village of Stedham.'



Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Governors have not rigorously monitored the school's work to improve effectively enough. Governors do not systematically ask questions that enable them to check the impact of the curriculum on pupils' learning.

Governance at the school must be strengthened so that those responsible can assure themselves that pupils receive a good-quality education. ? Pupils' outcomes are not yet consistently good in reading, writing and mathematics. The school must continue to develop consistent and effective pedagogical approaches, ensuring that all staff develop the specific subject expertise that they need, maintaining a focus on pupils' outcomes at all stages of education.

In some subjects, the school is still identifying the precise knowledge and vocabulary that it wants pupils to learn and how this should be implemented. Pupils have gaps in their knowledge which affect their achievement. The school should ensure that clear cumulative knowledge is in place for all curriculum subjects, with agreed approaches about how to help all pupils to learn well.

• Assessment information in the wider curriculum is not always precise enough to show what pupils know and understand. This means that some pupils do not always build on their prior knowledge effectively. The school needs to ensure that teachers check what pupils know and can do consistently well.