Setting

Aviation House 125 Kingsway London WC2B 6SE T 0300 123 1231 F 020 7421 6855 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Ms L Atkins Headteacher Goostrey Primary School Main Road Goostrey Near Crewe CW4 8PE

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bullying practice in schools

Thank you for your hospitality and cooperation, and that of your staff and pupils, during my visit on 29 November 2011 as part of our survey of schools’ work to create a positive school culture and prevent and tackle bullying. This visit had a specific focus on how the school community works together to prevent and tackle bullying of disabled people and those with special educational needs.

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bullying practice in schools

The visit provided valuable information which will contribute to our national evaluation and reporting. Published reports are likely to list the names of the contributing institutions but individual institutions will not be identified in the main text without their consent.

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bullying practice in schools

This letter briefly summarises our discussion at the end of the visit.

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Strengths of this aspect of the school’s work

 The school’s aims are explicit about the inclusive nature of the school and demonstrate a strong commitment to being a community school providing education for as many children in the local community as possible.  Pupils and staff alike present a very consistent understanding and commitment to the rules of the school, especially those about how people treat each other. This helps to provide a strong sense of fairness and a view that pupils have a right to the support they require to ensure equal opportunities.  The rules are short and succinct and create very clear expectations for the behaviour of everyone in the school community. Staff have an explicit role in building and bolstering pupils’ self-esteem. They ensure that rewards are far more frequent than the use of sanctions. Achievement and diversity are frequently celebrated and staff are very consistent about when sanctions need to be used.  Any disrespectful or hurtful behaviour is challenged and close attention is

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Strengths of this aspect of the school’s work

paid to monitoring the issues to ensure that further action is taken if they rise again.  The school acknowledges issues of prejudice and disrespect in the wider community and actively seeks ways to ensure that pupils are taught about discrimination and the poor attitudes experienced by some people. The pupils have a good understanding about issues surrounding respect for others and bullying.  The curriculum is well designed to support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The rich diet of activities, including working with twinned schools, in South Africa and Stoke on Trent, the signing choir and the much celebrated annual arts exhibition, does much to help pupils understand and celebrate diversity.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

 further developing personal, social and health education to be more explicit about the occurrence and impact of discrimination and harassment experienced by different people  building on the strong ethos that enables pupils to have their views heard to involve them more fully in developing school policies around behaviour and anti-bullying and to ensure that the policies are explicit about all aspects of practice in the school.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

I hope that this visit has been useful in the further development of this aspect of the school’s work.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

As I explained previously, a copy of this letter will be published on the Ofsted website. It may be used to inform decisions about any future inspection. A copy of this letter is also being sent to your local authority.

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