Walsden St Peter’s CE (VC) Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Walsden St Peter's CE (VC) Primary School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Walsden St Peter's CE (VC) Primary School is a welcoming environment for pupils.

The school emphasises to pupils the importance of resilience, being inquisitive and caring. This supports the positive relationships pupils have with each other and the staff in school.

The school has high expectations for all pupils, both personally and academically.

Pupils learn in a supportive and caring environment. The school gives pupils the emotional and learning support that they need to be happy and successful. For example, the school utilises its own mental health ...and family liaison staff effectively to support the most vulnerable pupils and families.

Pupils at this school feel safe and know how to keep themselves safe, including online. Pupils show high levels of respect and tolerance for others. This means that their behaviour across the school is very positive.

Pupils enjoy the responsibilities they have in school. Being on the school council or a buddy for the Reception children are roles that they value. There are many clubs that are available to all pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), especially around sport.

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

In most subjects, the school has designed an ambitious and well-organised curriculum through which pupils, including pupils with SEND, learn well. However, in a few subjects, such as design technology, physical education (PE) and history, the school has not identified the precise knowledge that it wants pupils to know and recall. In addition, pupils do not revisit their learning as often as they should to ensure that they remember what they have been taught.

This is a barrier to pupils achieving as well as they could in these subjects.

The school prioritises reading across the whole school. The design of the early reading programme is well structured and ambitious.

Staff have received appropriate training to ensure they have the required knowledge to deliver the programme well. They ensure pupils read books that are well matched to their stage of development. Staff keep a close eye on pupils' progress.

If pupils begin to fall behind, staff put support programmes in place to help them catch up quickly. Pupils have access to a wide range of fiction and non-fiction reading books. They enjoy the well-thought-out daily story times.

The support that pupils receive helps them to become fluent, proficient and confident readers.

Teachers have secure subject knowledge. In general, they plan activities effectively to enable pupils to meet the school's longer-term learning aims.

However, teachers sometimes do not use assessment strategies well in lessons to check that pupils' understanding is secure. This means that some misconceptions are not addressed effectively or swiftly. On occasion, some pupils, including pupils with SEND, do not achieve as well as they could.

Pupils follow a planned programme of personal development that teaches them essential knowledge, such as about healthy relationships. Staff plan activities that develop pupils' confidence and resilience. Staff provide high-quality pastoral care for pupils to help them to thrive at the school.

The school is improving the provision for pupils' outdoor learning to ensure that it contributes fully to pupils' mental and physical well-being. Pupils have a number of valuable opportunities to take responsibility and serve others.

The school identifies the needs of pupils with SEND promptly and carefully.

It works effectively with external agencies, parents and carers to support pupils with SEND. Teachers make appropriate adaptations to the delivery of their lessons to meet the needs of pupils with SEND. This means these pupils can access the same curriculum as their peers.

Children in the early years make a positive start at the school. Staff take opportunities to teach children how to behave appropriately. This is noticeable in the consideration that children show to each other.

Children sustain concentration during activities and enjoy their rich and varied learning. Staff make use of well-chosen questions to strengthen children's knowledge.

Mostly, the school, including governors, knows what the school does well and where further work is required.

However, the school does not make sure that subject leadership is equally well developed in each subject. This means that the school has a variable understanding of the subject-specific changes needed to improve the curriculum further.

The school ensures that staff are supported well to manage their workload and well-being.

It has developed a culture of high expectation, trust and support in the school.

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, the school has not identified the key knowledge that pupils need to acquire and the order in which this knowledge should be taught.

This prevents pupils, including pupils with SEND, from building their learning on what they already know. The school should make sure that the content of teaching in each curriculum area is carefully selected and set out in a logical order. ? The school's arrangements for checking closely on pupils' learning are not consistently implemented.

Some misconceptions and errors are not addressed quickly enough. The school should ensure that teachers sharpen their use of assessment strategies so that pupils are moved on to new content when they are ready, and misconceptions are addressed swiftly. ? In some subjects, such as PE, history and design technology, the school has not checked that the curriculum is being delivered as intended.

It does not know how well pupils learn in these subjects. The school needs to routinely check how well the delivery of the curriculum is enabling all pupils to learn the important knowledge that they need to know.

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 first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in May 2018.