At the beginning of last month, Ofsted inspectors, visited All Saints Primary School in Freshwater.
This is the first inspection since March 2015 when the school was given an overall rating of ‘Requires Improvement’.
The inspector noted that since the last inspection standard had dipped in mathematics and phonics but there had been significant challenges in recruiting staff.
Many strengths
The school has the following strengths
- Leaders and governors have an accurate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the school. Plans are focused on the right things to further improve the school.
- Children in Reception make strong progress. The imaginatively designed environment meets children’s needs and interests well. Children are keen and enthusiastic about their learning.
- Achievement by the end of key stage 2 in reading and writing is in line with pupils nationally.
- The headteacher’s thorough monitoring and support are improving teachers’ and leaders’ skills. As a result, the quality of teaching and learning is improving.
- Leaders have worked effectively to highlight the importance of regular attendance. Pupils’ attendance is now good.
- Disadvantaged pupils make good progress. This is because staff understand their needs
well. - Pupils’ personal development and welfare are supported effectively. Pupils are well behaved and friendly towards each other.
Where improvement required
This is a school that requires improvement
- Over time, significant turbulence in staffing has hampered leaders’ and governors’ attempts to raise standards, particularly in mathematics and phonics.
- Some leaders, who are relatively new, do not evaluate the impact of their actions carefully enough. They do not always know precisely which actions are making a positive difference to pupils’ outcomes.
- The most able pupils do not always achieve as well as they should. Some teaching does not challenge pupils to think more deeply about their learning.
- Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities do not make the progress they are capable of.
- The quality of teaching is variable across the school. Although a focus on strengthening lesson planning has secured improvements in writing and reading, this has not filtered through securely to the teaching of other subjects.
- A legacy of staff changes has meant that some pupils have not made enough progress in key stage 1 across all subjects.
The report
Full details of the report can be found below. Click on the full screen icon to see larger version.
Image: hansel5569 under CC BY 2.0
