The Winchcombe School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

The Winchcombe is a good school that is improving. The quality of care, guidance and support is good and based on close relationships with families, and effective links with external agencies that promote successful support for pupils, parents and carers. Parents and carers are pleased with the school.

One wrote, 'The school is great for my child's learning,' and another said, 'I am more than happy with my child's progress. It is a happy, friendly environment.' Parents and carers with children at the speech and language unit are also pleased.

One said, 'The school provides the help and support my child needs. The headteacher is supportive and friendly, and governors are highly approachable.' ...Pupils' attainment is broadly average, and rising.

The proportion of pupils reaching the higher National Curriculum levels has risen, most noticeably in mathematics. Pupils practise basic numeracy skills regularly and, as a result, are competent with mental calculations. They have sound problem-solving skills and work with fractions and decimals proficiently.

Literacy skills, while broadly average, show some unevenness. Spelling is sometimes inaccurate and pupils do not always use words correctly, which means that their writing is a little stilted and clumsy. This is further aggravated by some pupils not producing sufficient good-quality writing to consolidate what they have been taught.

Nevertheless, pupils of all abilities generally make good progress, and despite occasional patchiness, the rate of pupils' progress is improving. Overall, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, in both the main school and the speech and language unit, make good progress. Good and improving teaching is leading to the increasing rate of progress.

Assessment of pupils' attainment and progress is accurate and assessment information is mostly used well to provide work that is matched to pupils' learning needs. The pace of learning is generally good and teachers' expectations are usually high, especially for older pupils. However, this is not always the case and occasionally teachers do not check that all pupils produce the quality and quantity of work they are capable of or know what they are doing.

This slows the pace of learning. Marking is regular and gives pupils a good idea of how well they are doing, but does not always indicate to pupils what the next steps in their learning are. Classroom support is good, especially for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

In particular, encouraging these pupils to think about what they are doing and make decisions, rather than depending on adults to tell them answers, contributes well to their good learning. The curriculum is well planned and supported by a good range of visits and visitors to successfully motivate pupils to learn. There is a wide range of well-supported out-of-school activities.

Pupils enjoy school. This is seen in good levels of attendance for most pupils, and improving levels for the small minority who are persistently absent. Pupils behave well, and with good attention to their personal safety.

They say they feel safe and that the school deals well with rare incidents of bullying. Pupils take on responsibilities readily and carry them out maturely. They have a good understanding of the importance of a balanced diet and regular exercise.

Leaders and managers are effective. The headteacher provides very clear direction for how the school should improve, and he is well supported by other leaders. Self-evaluation is accurate, and leaders know the areas they need to work on further, especially in embedding effective teaching methods, to continue driving up attainment and progress.

The governing body is well informed, fully involved in development planning, and focused on improving attainment and progress. Given the improvements made in attainment and progress, the capacity to sustain further improvement is good.

Information about the school

The Winchcombe is a larger-than-average primary school and pupils come mainly from a White British heritage.

The majority of pupils speak English as their first language. The other main languages spoken by pupils are Polish, Portuguese, Urdu and Punjabi. The proportion of pupils known to be entitled to free school meals is broadly average.

The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average. The school has Healthy Schools status, Activemark and the International School awards. It runs a before- and after-school club each day.

The speech and language unit based in the school was inspected at the same time. Children enter the Early Years Foundation Stage in the Nursery Year. A privately managed nursery on the same site as the school is inspected separately.

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