Yorkley Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are very proud of their school.

It is easy to see why. It is a caring, cohesive community where everyone has pupils' best interests at heart. Everyone strives to make every day the best it can be for each pupil.

Pupils' happiness and confidence are clear to see in their smiles. They feel completely safe. Pupils look after one another.

There is always someone on hand for anyone who needs a friend to play with or someone to cheer them up.

Pupils behave beautifully. They like the rewards that come with behaving well and see little point in behaving badly.

They are eager to make the most out of all that school has to offer.

Pupil...s play an active role in shaping school life. Well-being champions ensure that playtimes are happy times.

Older pupils organise clubs for other pupils to join. The school council gets involved in decisions about how the school is run.

Pupils achieve well in this positive climate.

Even so, leaders are not complacent. They strive to make the curriculum as good as it can be. They want pupils to have the best education possible, and are well on the way to achieving this goal.

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

The school is exceptionally well led and managed. Leaders and governors have a clear vision to help pupils to be the best they can. They have established a set of values and principles that drive the work of the school.

Everyone works together to turn the vision into reality. Staff feel privileged to work here.

All decisions are informed by a set of aims for pupils (the 'drivers').

These are: 'Creativity; Building Me; Belonging; Communication; Active Adventure.' Through the drivers, leaders have developed a school experience that encompasses an ambitious academic curriculum and an extremely wide range of opportunities to develop pupils' character.

The school provides exceptionally well for pupils' personal development.

There are wide-ranging opportunities to learn a new skill, to be active, to take part in a competition or to take on responsibility. Leaders use the drivers to determine what might be missing from the options. Then, they set up what is needed to fill the gap.

Individual pupils' needs inform these decisions. For example, the well-being champions are the result of leaders getting to the heart of a falling-out between pupils.

By putting pupils' needs at the heart of their experience, the school provides well for all.

Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities thrive in this climate. Disadvantaged pupils are helped to reach their full potential, as are their classmates.

Pupils' behaviour contributes much to how well they achieve.

They pay attention and work very hard. Beyond that, they listen to, and learn from, one another. They treat each other with a tangible degree of respect.

The curriculum is designed to ensure that pupils learn, step by step, what they need in each subject. This starts in the Reception Class. Leaders make sure that staff know what pupils need to learn at each stage and how best to teach it.

Teachers carefully choose the right approaches to teach each part of the curriculum. As they go along, they check that pupils have learned what they need to be ready for the next step. Where necessary, teachers go over something again or give more time to it.

As a result, pupils are learning what leaders intend they should.

Leaders have invested much time and money into ensuring that every pupil learns to read well. A 'reading squad' of highly trained teachers and teaching assistants delivers a systematic programme of phonics teaching from the moment children enter school.

Pupils learn new sounds and practise reading daily. This helps them learn to read fluently and independently. Anyone who falls behind receives high-quality support to keep up with the programme.

Pupils achieve exceptionally well in some subjects. This is down to the quality of thinking that has gone into curriculum planning. For example, in physical education (PE), pupils do not just learn to run, jump, throw, catch, dance and so on.

They learn exactly why they are performing the action, what effect the activity has on their body and how to improve the way they carry out the activity. Pupils, even those in the early years, can explain such things in precise detail.

Similar thought is evident in other subjects, such as science and mathematics.

The remaining subject leaders are going through a process of refining planning to match the exceptional quality of the best.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders have created a culture where all staff take very seriously their responsibility to protect pupils.

They are well trained to do so. Staff know each pupil as an individual. Even the smallest indicator that a pupil might be at risk of neglect or harm is acted upon.

Leaders leave no stone unturned in their efforts to secure the right help for pupils and their families.

Pupils learn how to manage risk and protect themselves, as in the example of a pupil who spotted a scam while playing a video game because of what he had learned in school.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Leaders are going through a process of making further refinements to the curriculum.

They are identifying in even finer detail the intended knowledge that pupils should learn at each stage in each subject, from the early years to the end of Year 6. This exists in some subjects and is leading to exceptional achievement. Leaders need to complete the process so that pupils achieve exceptionally well in every subject.

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