Chaddleworth St Andrew's C.E. Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Strengthen leadership and management by ensuring that all leaders and governors can demonstrate the impact of their work on pupils’ outcomes.
• Further increase pupils’ achievement across the curriculum so that it is outstanding by ensuring that:
  • the proportion of pupils who exceed the standards expected for their age increases across the school
  • teaching assistants provide support for pupils’ learning that is consistently as good as the best.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The headteacher has extremely high expectations for everyone in the community. Since joining the school in January 2016, she has taken highly effective action that has secured good outcomes for pupils. Staff, governors, parents and pupils rightly recognise that she is energetic, enthusiastic and empowers others to make a difference. Quickly, staff and governors formed a team to support the headteacher’s aims to do the very best for all pupils. Consequently, the school has improved considerably since the last inspection.
• There is a culture of continuous learning for staff. Teachers and teaching assistants benefit from valuable training that enables them to make their own improvements to teaching and learning. Systems to hold staff to account link closely to pupils’ outcomes and provide for ongoing, self-led development. As a result, teaching is consistently good.
• The headteacher sets and, with the staff, is striving to maintain high standards for pupils’ behaviour and attitudes. In all classes, staff support pupils to use their ‘learning powers’ to make the best of every opportunity. Incidents of poor behaviour and bullying have reduced considerably in the last year. The school is a hardworking and harmonious community.
• Disadvantaged pupils achieve well. The assistant headteacher makes effective use of the pupil premium funding to address disadvantaged pupils’ individual needs. These pupils benefit from tailored support that may include guidance from a learning mentor, work with an emotional learning support assistant and/or extra teaching.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities receive effective support. Leaders ensure that additional learning to help individual pupils catch up is led by teachers or well-trained teaching assistants. Consequently, pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress from their starting points. Additional funding is used well.
• The curriculum enables pupils to achieve well in a broad range of subjects. Topics such as ‘space’ and ‘living creatures and habitats’ capture pupils’ interest and generate tangible enthusiasm for learning. Extra-curricular and sporting activities widen the curriculum further. For example, the ‘bright sparks’ science club helps to extend pupils’ skills and talents.
• Pupils’ social, moral, spiritual and cultural development and British values are promoted well throughout school life. For example, news assemblies help pupils to learn about people from other cultures and consider moral dilemmas. Elections for prefects and house captains help pupils to understand individual liberty and democracy.
• Leaders and governors are committed to promoting equality. They ensure that all pupils achieve well and can participate in any available activities. Schemes of work promote pupils’ understanding of people from a wide range of backgrounds.
• The additional sports funding has been spent well. Pupils benefit from specialist teaching that improves their physical skills and sporting prowess. Teachers also participate in these lessons to develop their subject knowledge. In addition, there have been increased opportunities for pupils to compete against other schools in sports competitions. Pupils are rightly proud of their recent achievement in a rugby tournament.
• Middle leaders have a growing role in the school. They have received helpful training and support to develop action plans that support the school’s improvement work. As a result, they are taking the right actions to make changes to aspects of the school such as the teaching of mathematics, the early years outdoor area, and phonics. However, not all of these leaders are yet able to explain the impact of their work on pupils’ outcomes.
• Parents are positive about the school. They like the ‘close community’ that this small school provides. Parents particularly appreciate the approachable staff who ‘go the extra mile’ for them and their children.
• The local authority has provided close scrutiny, support and challenge to the school over time. The school improvement adviser helped governors to recruit the headteacher and continues to provide valuable support to leaders’ work.
• The diocese has an accurate understanding of the school’s effectiveness and provides appropriate support to leaders. In particular, the diocese has provided effective challenge and support to the governing body that has enabled it to hold leaders to account with greater rigour.

Governance of the school

• Governors have clear and effective oversight of their statutory duties. For example, the safeguarding governor checks that policies and procedures are fit for purpose. Governors show due diligence in ensuring that finances are spent wisely.
• The governing body has acted on helpful advice that it has received from the diocese. Minutes of meetings show that governors provide greater challenge and support to leaders than they had in the past. Governors can describe pupils’ achievement and some of the actions that leaders have taken. Nevertheless, governors have not checked the impact that the school development plan is having well enough. They cannot describe how well this aspect of leaders’ work is improving pupils’ outcomes.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders have ensured that there is a culture of deep care for individuals and that support is always available to families should they need it. Staff have built strong relationships with pupils and their parents that enable them to receive the right help at the right time. Parents appreciate this extra help very much.
• Staff know what to do if they are concerned about a pupil. There are clear procedures in place and staff receive regular training to support this work. Records show that staff have taken the right actions to help keep pupils safe. Where necessary, leaders provide challenge to other professionals to secure the best outcomes for pupils.
• Recruitment checks on staff are fit for purpose and meet current requirements. Records show that leaders take care when recruiting staff to ensure that they are safe to work with children.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers have strong subject knowledge that enables pupils to progress well across the curriculum. For example, in an English lesson the teacher reminded pupils of the important elements to consider when telling a story aloud. Following this, pupils were able to demonstrate clear speech and fluency, and use an appropriate tone of voice.
• Throughout the school, pupils make good progress in mathematics. Teaching in this subject supports pupils to build important skills, knowledge and understanding. For example, in a Year 1 mathematics lesson the teacher asked pupils to consider the differences between two addition sums and their answers. Pupils found out for themselves that there were many ways to make the same number.
• Pupils’ exercise books show that they write for a range of reasons and at length. This enables them to make good progress in writing. During the inspection, Year 6 pupils were writing non-chronological reports about brown trout, sharing their recently acquired knowledge of the fish.
• Pupils read well and show good understanding of what they read. In one class, the teacher asked pupils to answer questions in the role of a character from ‘Jack and the beanstalk’. One pupil could explain very well why Jack did not have a job, stating, ‘He doesn’t need to. He has a hen that lays golden eggs.’ Teaching enables pupils to become proficient readers.
• Staff have high expectations of what pupils can achieve. For example, they set high standards for the presentation of pupils’ work. Pupils’ exercise books in different subjects contain consistently well-presented work.
• Teaching assistants play an important role in supporting pupils’ learning. For example, one teaching assistant demonstrated her strong knowledge of phonics, and how children learn, to support a child to learn some initial sounds. However, on occasion, this help is not as effective at supporting pupils’ learning as well as at other times.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils are rightly proud of their school and work together to make improvements to it. Elected prefects and house captains take a leading role in gathering pupils’ views. Already, they have introduced a ‘friendship stop’ on the playground to help each other find friends. House captains have set their sights on improving homework next and are currently seeking other pupils’ ideas.
• There are plenty of opportunities for pupils to learn about safety. For example, the police and Childline have visited and helped pupils to further their awareness of their own safety. Pupils say that they feel safe at school.
• Strong relationships support individual pupils’ personal development very well. Pupils know that they can put a message in the ‘worry box’ and an emotional learning support assistant will help them. Parents note that staff know their children well and will provide any necessary help to pupils or their families.
• Leaders take effective action to address any poor behaviour, so pupils say bullying is rare. Pupils have learned about bullying, know what it is and are confident that staff will help them if they have a problem.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Around the school, pupils are polite, friendly and helpful. They understand what is expected of them at different times and behave accordingly. For example, the youngest children take turns to say the prayer in the dinner hall while others sit silently and join in at the right time.
• Pupils’ attendance is above the national average. Leaders set high expectations for pupils’ attendance and provide a range of support to families so that pupils are in school regularly. For example, the school minibus collects pupils from Chaddleworth to bring them to Shefford each day.
• In lessons and assemblies, pupils are mostly attentive and enthusiastic learners. They share ideas willingly and commit themselves to their work. However, on occasion some pupils lose focus when a few adults do not uphold the high expectations in place for pupils’ behaviour.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Across the school, pupils make good progress from their starting points in a range of subjects. Pupils’ progress information and exercise books show that they achieve well throughout the curriculum. This is because teachers have a good knowledge of the subjects that they teach and use it well.
• Disadvantaged pupils make similar rates of progress to their classmates because the pupil premium is used well to provide effective support for them. Across the school, differences between the progress of disadvantaged pupils and that of other pupils are diminishing.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress from their different starting points. Extra support addresses their individual needs well.
• There is very little difference between the attainment of boys and girls in reading, writing, mathematics and grammar, spelling and punctuation. Teaching enables all pupils to succeed.
• Pupils’ achievement in reading is a strength of the school. Last year, pupils’ attainment and progress were above the national average at the end of key stage 2. Teachers place a strong emphasis on pupils securing this essential skill.
• Current pupils’ attainment in phonics and writing is slightly lower than it is in other subjects. However, leaders have made astute changes to the curriculum that have enabled pupils to make better progress in these aspects. As a result, more pupils are reaching the standards expected for their age.
• The most able pupils, that the school has identified, make at least good progress in a range of subjects. Consequently, they are on track to exceed the expectations for their age. Nevertheless, leaders rightly recognise that they can increase the proportion of pupils who reach the higher levels in key stage 1 and key stage 2.

Early years provision Good

• Children join the school with varying skills and abilities. Some children have starting points that are below those typical for their age. Staff share and use their knowledge of each child well to help them to take appropriate next steps. As a result, over time most children, including those in different groups, make good progress across the areas of learning in the Reception Year.
• The early years leader is thoroughly committed to supporting other adults to help the children learn well. She has a deep understanding of the requirements of the early years foundation stage and has used this to make important changes to provision. For example, she has provided training for other staff in phonics. This is enabling them to help children acquire essential early reading skills.
• Staff promote children’s language development and understanding well. This enables children to talk at greater length. For example, the teacher takes time to have a conversation with the children each day at snacktime. Here, the teacher shows children how to use extended sentences to talk about a range of topics, including harvesting apples, tooth fairies’ castles, giants’ messy footprints and being kind!
• The early years leader builds important relationships that support children to achieve well at school. She has established close links with the local pre-school so that she can meet children before they start school. Through visits to children’s houses, she establishes ongoing discussions with parents that help them to support their child’s learning from their first day.
• Children’s personal development and behaviour are good. Children take turns and help each other with tricky tasks such as pouring drinks. This is because staff are always on hand to remind them of what is expected and suggest ways that they can do things for themselves. One child rightly said, ‘Everyone helps me.’

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 109957 West Berkshire 10024529 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Voluntary controlled 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 28 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Reverend Mary Harwood Bridget Goodrich 01488 638261 https://csf.w-berks.sch.uk/westberks/primary/csf Email address office@csf.w-berks.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 20−21 January 2015

Information about this school

• Chaddleworth is a small school that is well below the average size of a primary school. The school is part of a hard federation with Shefford Church of England Primary School. Both schools share the same headteacher, staff and governing body.
• In April 2016, both schools moved onto the same school site and began working fully as one school.
• Almost all pupils are White British. Very few pupils speak English as an additional language.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and/or an education, health and care plan is above the national average.
• Around half of the pupils are known to be disadvantaged. This is well above the national average.
• In all year groups, there are very few pupils. In some year groups there are only one or two pupils. This means that is not possible to report on the achievement of some groups of pupils without identifying individuals.
• In 2016, there were too few pupils in Year 6 to report on the government’s floor standards, which set the minimum standards for the progress and attainment of pupils.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

Information about this inspection

• This inspection took place at the same time as the inspection of the other school in the federation, Shefford Church of England Primary School.
• The inspector observed teaching and learning in all classes and looked at pupils’ exercise books across a range of subjects. Several observations were carried out jointly with the headteacher.
• Meetings were held with senior leaders, middle leaders, a group of pupils, four members of the governing body, a representative of the local authority and a representative of the Diocese of Oxford.
• The inspector spoke to four parents and took into account two responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View). She also considered responses to the pupil questionnaire.
• A range of documents were looked at including the school’s information about pupils’ achievement and records concerning pupils’ attendance, behaviour and safety.
• The inspector held discussions and considered evidence with the inspector of Shefford Church of England Primary School.

Inspection team

Caroline Dulon, lead inspector

Her Majesty’s Inspector