Wolsingham Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

Wolsingham Primary is a good school.

The school has rigorous self-evaluation procedures, which have led to an accurate analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. As a result, school actions are successfully tackling the underperformance of boys, compared to that of girls. This has been achieved partly by curricular changes, making it more practical and skills-based.

In addition, the introduction of new reading and writing schemes has also provided boys with more challenge and ensured that they now make good progress. Recent appointments have strengthened the school staff and morale is high. Leadership is good, because the headteacher has empowered senior leaders and given them time and the ski...lls to oversee their areas of responsibility.

The governing body works well in monitoring the school's work and updates school policies and procedures regularly. These strengths indicate that the school has a good capacity for sustained improvement. Attainment on entry to the Nursery is generally at age-related expectations in most, but not all, areas of learning.

Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage make good progress and by the time they leave Reception their skills are often above those expected for their age. The pupils feel extremely safe in school, which is also the view of an overwhelming proportion of parents and carers. The reasons for this are the actions taken by the headteacher and governing body to ensure that the site is very secure; the excellent safety advice pupils receive through the curriculum; and the pupils' good behaviour in and around the school.

Pupils have an excellent understanding of what makes an unsafe situation. Attendance is above average, but the school is making further efforts to improve it even more. All other aspects of pupils' personal development are good.

Pupils' attitude to their work is very positive. They have good social skills and constructively support their school community as playground buddies and sports leaders. They work extremely well in lessons with their 'talking partners'; this was observed as a considerable strength in lessons.

They are polite and friendly to visitors, because all staff work as a team to create a calm, safe learning environment for pupils. In the words of one parent, who expressed the views of many, 'Children 'are happy and enthusiastic about school'. The school was able to show that it had, by careful intervention programmes, improved opportunities for pupils, including those whose circumstances make them potentially more vulnerable than most.

Teaching is good. In all lessons teachers plan imaginative tasks and use resources well to guide and inform pupils. Lessons are well-structured so that little time is wasted.

In some lessons, the work is not always carefully matched to pupils' learning needs. Pupils are given very sound advice in exercise books on what they need to do to improve a particular piece of work, but they are sometimes less clear where they are in relation to longer-term targets. Most aspects of leadership and management are good.

However, the headteacher is aware that more careful analysis of the impact of the actions taken to improve pupils' outcomes would provide clearer evidence of how successful those actions have been. The school's promotion of community cohesion is satisfactory.

Information about the school

Wolsingham is of average size for a primary school.

The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and the proportion with special educational needs and/or disabilities are both well below average. Most pupils are of White British heritage. The percentage of pupils from minority ethnic groups is well below average.

The school has been awarded Healthy Schools status and Investors in Children. Pupils' mobility is higher than the national average. Several new staff have joined the school in the last four terms.

Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms