Weston Turville Church of England School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Weston Turville Church of England School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are proud of their caring and welcoming school. They demonstrate the school values of kindness and respect in their attitudes towards staff and peers. Pupils meet the school's high expectations of behaviour.

They go out of their way to give others a helping hand. Every year, pupils look forward to writing manifestos in order to be elected to one of the many coveted leadership roles.Staff are ambitious for all pupils to achieve well.

Classrooms are hives of activity. Pupils usually achieve positively and are well prepared for their continued education. Howev...er, 2023 phonics and key stage 1 reading results were well below the national average.

The school has taken swift action to address this, and strengthening early reading remains a priority.Pupils have a strong sense of citizenship and are keen to be part of the school and wider community. They value the opportunities to work with organisations from the village.

Pupils look forward to activities with the local rangers in the school's nature reserve and singing at the church carol concert. They take great delight in working with their teachers to organise an interesting range of extra-curricular activities. This enables pupils to pursue their own interests and share them with others.

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

Reading is a high priority across the school. Staff promote a love of reading by sharing a range of stories and texts, often linked to work in the rest of the curriculum. Pupils have developed an impressive knowledge of different literature from the school focus each term on a different author.

Children in pre-school revel in the rhymes, stories and songs that staff share with them. Older pupils relish the books they choose to read and enjoy in the school library. Following the weak 2023 phonics and key stage 1 published results, the school has made changes to the phonics programme.

It is being followed closely but, on occasion, staff subject knowledge is not yet consistently secure. Staff quickly identify weaker readers, but the support that a few pupils receive who are at the early stages of learning to read is not as strong as it should be.The school's curriculum is ambitious and interesting.

It has identified the important knowledge that pupils should learn each year across every subject. The school has sequenced the essential skills, knowledge and vocabulary that pupils should learn in each year group and how these build over time. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are quickly identified and supported to access the same learning as their peers.

Teachers have strong knowledge of the subjects they teach and appreciate the training they receive. Staff usually recap previous learning and check what pupils have remembered. If needed, staff adapt their teaching and resources to help pupils learn well.

This is particularly well developed in mathematics. Pupils use secure subject knowledge to link learning across subjects. For example, they use their knowledge of number to find averages in science experiments or read coordinates in geography lessons.

Children in early years focus well on their many counting activities. They enjoy the challenges of counting blocks of towers or comparing heights of robots. Occasionally, staff are less clear what knowledge pupils should be able to remember and so the recaps lack precision.

This means that staff do not have an accurate understanding of pupils' gaps in learning.Attendance for some pupils is too low. The school is prioritising supporting families to improve this by removing barriers to attendance.

This is having some positive impact but needs to continue so that the attendance of all pupils is high.The provision for pupils' wider development is a strength of the school. Pupils take their leadership roles seriously.

This includes positions such as house captains, science ambassadors and school councillors. Older pupils enjoy supporting the younger children at playtimes through buddy roles and also when reading with them once a week. This creates a strong sense of community.

The school ensures that pupils develop a broad understanding of healthy lifestyles and how to keep safe, including when online. Pupils can express and manage their emotions and appreciate the care and nurture they receive at school. The school provide many opportunities for external visitors to the school who inspire pupils for their future learning and careers.

Staff feel valued and supported. They are proud to work at the school and appreciate how their well-being and workload are considered. Training is purposeful and designed to refine classroom practice.

Governors fulfil their responsibilities and provide the school with appropriate challenge and support in equal measure.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The recent introduction of the new phonics scheme means that not all staff have acquired secure subject knowledge.

This means they do not have the required expertise to support pupils to quickly become fluent and confident readers. The school should ensure that all staff are equipped with expert knowledge to teach early reading effectively. ? In a few subjects, staff do not routinely recap previous learning and check what pupils have remembered.

As a result, in these subjects, pupils' achievement is less strong because staff do not identify and address pupils' gaps in learning. The school should ensure that all staff check pupils' understanding and adapt their teaching to support them to learn the intended curriculum securely.

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 October 2018.

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