Cropthorne-with-Charlton CofE First School

Cropthorne-with-Charlton CofE First School Main Street, Cropthorne, Pershore, WR10 3NB

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Good 2 Leadership and management Good 2 Behaviour and safety of pupils Good 2 Quality of teaching Good 2 Achievement of pupils Good 2 Early years provision Good 2

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Pupils make good progress and leave with standards that are usually well above the levels expected for their age.  The curriculum, clubs and other activities on offer help pupils to reach high standards in the arts.  Teachers have high expectations of what most pupils can achieve, especially the most able.  Teachers use the results of assessments well to group pupils and deploy teaching assistants.  Pupils usually concentrate well in lessons. Their behaviour in assemblies and on trips is often exemplary.  The curriculum provides well for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils leave as caring and respectful individuals with a keen interest in the wider world.  The school’s leaders, including governors, make good use of assessment information to identify any pupil who is falling behind.  The headteacher is a strong leader who has tackled weaknesses in teaching decisively. As a result, the

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

school has maintained its strengths from the previous inspection and successfully improved the areas of weakness identified at that time.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 The least-able pupils do not make as much progress as others because teachers sometimes give them work that is too easy.  Pupils sometimes have to wait too long to have their special educational needs assessed by an external specialist.  Pupils do not know enough about life in urban areas.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed seven lessons, including three seen jointly with the headteacher. In addition, the inspector listened to pupils reading and analysed the work in their books.  Meetings were held with staff, pupils, members of the governing body and representatives of the local authority.  The inspector took account of the 48 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View. He spoke to parents formally and informally during the inspection to gather their views and also considered the views that some parents expressed in letters.  The inspector observed the school’s work, including arrangements for keeping pupils safe. He looked at a number of documents including: the school’s own information on pupils’ progress; the school’s evaluation of its performance; records relating to attendance; and documents relating to safeguarding.

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Inspection team

David Driscoll, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 The school is much smaller than the average-sized primary school.  Almost all pupils are White British.  No pupils have a statement of special educational needs. The very few pupils who do have special educational needs are not necessarily low attainers, but need support for emotional or behavioural difficulties.  A below-average proportion of pupils are supported through the pupil premium (additional funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and looked-after children).

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Ensure that teachers always set suitably demanding work for the least-able pupils.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Reduce the time that some pupils have to wait before seeing a specialist to determine their special educational needs.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Provide more opportunities for pupils to learn about life outside of rural areas.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher leads by example and is driving the school forward. She has successfully forged the staff into a team where all aim to improve the education the school provides. Staff morale is high. The school is well organised, operates smoothly on a day-to-day basis and provides a highly stimulating learning environment.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher and governors identify and tackle weaknesses in the school’s performance well. Pupils have not made as much progress in mathematics as they have in other subjects in recent years and progress in the Early Years was not good. Leaders improved teaching so that pupils are better challenged. As a result, they now make good progress throughout the school. Leaders have maintained the strengths from the previous inspection and continue to improve the quality of education offered by the school.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school’s leaders rightly evaluate the school’s overall effectiveness as good. Checks on teaching provide an accurate picture of its quality and impact. Data on pupils’ progress are used well to manage the performance of teachers. The headteacher has taken decisive and successful action to tackle teaching that has not been good enough. Governors are kept well informed about the school’s performance.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher and governors set high standards and expect staff and pupils to meet them. Assessments of pupils’ achievements are accurate and used well to make sure that any pupils who start to fall behind are quickly identified and provided with the support they need to catch up. Leaders have decided upon an approach to the assessment of the new National Curriculum and are preparing for its implementation.

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The leadership and management are good

 Pupil premium funds have been carefully targeted at pupils who are most in need of support so that they perform equally as well as other pupils in the school. Several are among the most-able pupils and have made excellent progress.

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The leadership and management are good

 The extra funds for school sport have been used outstandingly well. The coordinator has increased participation in sport, especially among girls, introduced pupils to a wide range of new sports and allowed pupils to reach very high standards in their chosen sports; several have been selected for specialist sport academies for soccer and tennis, for example.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school’s curriculum is balanced and broad. There is an exceptional range of extra-curricular activities, including musicians and artists in residence that allow pupils to excel in these areas. Although taught in mixed-ability classes, pupils are grouped within them according to how well they understand a particular topic, and the groups change from one lesson to the next. This is generally effective in ensuring that pupils are given work that is matched to their abilities.

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The leadership and management are good

 Staff who are responsible for subjects and other areas of the school’s work are not involved in observing lessons but they play a good part in checking the achievement of pupils by, for example, looking at their books.

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The leadership and management are good

 The local authority accurately evaluates the school as providing a good education and so it provides only limited support.

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The leadership and management are good

 Good provision is made for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils learn a lot about current affairs and about other faiths and cultures. They are given ample opportunities to think for themselves and help others, such as through their extensive charity work. Pupils come to respect the differences that make individuals special. The visit by a Paralympian proved to be an inspiring and uplifting experience that helped pupils understand how obstacles to greatness can be overcome. Pupils have a deep understanding of life in the countryside but are not fully prepared for life outside school because they are not taught enough about what life is like in cities and urban areas.

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The leadership and management are good

 Pupils with special educational needs receive good support once their needs have been identified. However, the school relies on the services of the local authority to carry out initial assessments and this leads to delays for some pupils in finding out exactly what help they need and what the school can do to best support them.

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The leadership and management are good

 The governance of the school:  Governors keep a close eye on the school’s performance through their frequent visits and their own analysis of information about pupils’ progress. They use such information to ask searching questions of the headteacher and focus strongly on what is being done to support individual pupils, especially through the use of additional funds. Governors have supported the headteacher in taking difficult decisions that have been necessary to improve the school. Governors’ analyses are used well to draw up priorities for improvement and plans to implement them.  Governors check the curriculum, to ensure that requirements are met and how well pupils are being prepared for life outside of school. They also review assessment systems to make sure that the information with which they are provided is accurate. They have checked that teachers’ pay rises depend upon their pupils making good progress.

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The leadership and management are good

 Governors meet most of their statutory requirements. Not all the required information was previously provided on the school website, but this was rectified during the inspection. All the required checks had been carried out to ensure the suitability of staff to work with children. However, these had not all been properly recorded owing to clerical errors; governors had not checked the records for themselves, instead relying on what they were told. These errors were rectified during the inspection. Governors are easily accessible to parents and their work is transparent and open.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Parents, pupils and staff feel that pupils behave well. Pupils get on with others outstandingly well, reflecting the school’s strong provision for their social development. They work and play happily together. Pupils are very quick to help others who may be struggling with their work or unhappy in any way, understanding that they have a part to play in improving life for others. Visitors to school often comment on pupils’ excellent manners, while others say that their behaviour on trips is exemplary.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils take a great pride in their school and in their schoolwork. They have high regard for the work of others; there is never any damage to the displays of beautiful artwork on the corridors, for example. Pupils come to school well prepared and eager to learn.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Incidents of misbehaviour are rare and always tackled quickly and effectively. The school has a strong track record of helping pupils with special educational needs with behavioural difficulties to control their emotions and learn to behave well. There have been no exclusions since at least the time of the previous inspection.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Attendance is average, but would be significantly better if it were not for some long-term illness and keeping a family on the school’s roll when they left the area so that staff could be sure that the children were safe. Pupils are extremely punctual to school, partly because they are so keen to take part in the daily ‘wake-up, shake-up’ sessions with parents and staff.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Behaviour in lessons is usually good. Children in the Early Years and in Years 4 and 5 behave impeccably. However, in Years 1, 2 and 3, some pupils do not pay attention to their teacher or concentrate for the full lesson, which means they make less progress than they could.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Pupils feel safe in school and have a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe in a wide range of situations.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school has appropriate procedures for keeping pupils safe, and the shortcomings identified in record- keeping were immediately rectified. The site is kept secure and full checks are carried out on visitors and the suitability of staff.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Parents, staff and pupils all agree that bullying is almost unknown, and that it is quickly nipped in the bud should it start. The school sends a strong message through its teaching of good morals that discrimination is wrong, and pupils respond to this exceptionally well. Name-calling and bad language are very rare.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Marking is frequent and accurate. Teachers use their assessments of what pupils know, understand and can do very effectively to put them into groups according to their ability. The groups change from lesson to lesson and within lessons as teachers move pupils to groups where they receive harder or easier tasks as appropriate. Those who are struggling are quickly taken to one side for an intensive ‘catch-up’ session and soon rejoin the rest of the class.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The progress that pupils make in reading is particularly good because, from the Early Years onwards, pupils benefit from good-quality teaching in phonics (the sounds that letters make) that is reinforced well by immediately getting pupils to write words with the sound in and to use the words in a sentence.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teaching assistants are used effectively, especially with the most able and those who have had their special educational needs identified. Teaching assistants have high expectations of the most able, such as asking them to add the cost of items together and calculate change in Years 1 and 2. They know what support pupils with special educational needs require to build their self-confidence and ensure that they do not become frustrated.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers expect pupils to do as they are asked and are quick to implement the school’s discipline policy when needed. Pupils usually respond well to sanctions and quickly get back to work.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Parents and pupils agree that homework is used well to improve pupils’ progress. Pupils are assigned research projects which help them to find things out for themselves and which involve parents in their children’s education. The most-able pupils often throw themselves into such tasks and produce copious amounts of written work. All pupils enjoy the homework, which helps them to develop positive attitudes to learning.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers have high expectations of most pupils, especially the most able, which engages them for the duration of the lesson. Pupils know that they must get straight down to work as soon as the lesson starts and all do so. The most-able pupils are given very demanding tasks, such as solving difficult calculations in mathematics. The result is that the most able make consistently good progress and achieve well.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Some of the least-able pupils are sometimes given work that is too easy for them. They are set spellings or sums, for example, that they can already do. The pupils are happy that they get all the answers correct, but, where such repetition occurs, it does not move them on in their learning.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 With small numbers of pupils in each year group, the standards reached by pupils vary from year to year. However, pupils generally leave school with standards that are well above those expected for their age in reading, writing and mathematics having made good progress at each key stage. They are well equipped with the skills and knowledge needed for the next stage of their education.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Standards in the arts and sport are very high by the end of Year 5. All pupils learn to play an instrument, and can choose from a wide range that includes, for example, the ukulele and clarinet. Pupils receive teaching from coaches from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Worcester County Cricket Club and Worcester Warriers Rugby Club, among others. This helps them to excel in their chosen fields.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Children’s attainment on entry to the school varies considerably, from below average to very high. The current children in Reception started school with knowledge, skills and understanding that are very high for their age. Progress in the past had not been good, so children who started with standards that were expected for their age left with just average standards. Significant improvements have been made to the quality of teaching and children now make consistently good progress.  All pupils pass the phonics check by the time they leave Year 2. Very few have to resit the test as so many pass at the end of Year 1. Results at the end of Year 2 are usually above average in reading, writing and mathematics. However, results dipped to average in 2014, reflecting the lower starting points that this group of pupils had when they started school. Their results in the Year 2 assessments represented good

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Standards in mathematics and progress of the most able have improved since the last inspection, when they were identified as areas for improvement. Progress in mathematics is now equally as good as that in reading and writing and the most-able pupils do particularly well; many have already exceeded the standards expected at the end of Year 6 by the time they leave Year 5.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils usually concentrate well in lessons and work hard to complete their tasks. Most are keen to learn and to do their best.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Very few pupils have special educational needs, and several of them are among the most able in the school. They are set challenging tasks that make them think and work hard so they can achieve well. As a result, some reach exceptionally high standards. By contrast, less-able pupils do not always make the same good progress as other pupils.

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The early years provision is good

 The Early Years provision is well led and managed. Good improvements have been made since the school was last inspected; children now make good progress in the Reception Year and are well equipped with the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to start Year 1.

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The early years provision is good

 No children In the Early Years have special educational needs. However, currently many are very able. These children do particularly well. When learning about homes, for example, they are not limited to learning about flats and houses, but instead are taught how to recognise detached, semi-detached and terraced housing, and are soon using the terms in their own work.

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The early years provision is good

 The teaching is well planned to cater for children’s different abilities and build upon their interests. They receive outstanding guidance when moving from a teacher-led activity to activities that they have chosen for themselves. In following up the work on homes, for example, children moved to different areas in the classroom to design and make their own homes. Those interested in fish were guided towards the water, and those interested in dinosaurs made homes for them in the sand.

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The early years provision is good

 The school provides well for children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development through a broad and stimulating curriculum. The strong focus on children’s interests keep them fully engaged. Their behaviour is usually impeccable. Children receive good-quality care and guidance on how to interact with each other.

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The early years provision is good

 Standards on starting Year 1 are now usually above average, although writing lags behind other areas a little. Leaders have focused on this aspect and made changes to the way that children are grouped in order to raise standards further.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding An outstanding school is highly effective in delivering outcomes that provide exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. This ensures that pupils are very well equipped for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 2 Good A good school is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for all its pupils’ needs. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 3 Requires improvement A school that requires improvement is not yet a good school, but it is not inadequate. This school will receive a full inspection within 24 months from the date of this inspection. Grade 4 Inadequate A school that has serious weaknesses is inadequate overall and requires significant improvement but leadership and management are judged to be Grade 3 or better. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors. A school that requires special measures is one where the school is failing

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Grade Judgement Description

to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the school’s leaders, managers or governors have not demonstrated that they have the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors.

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School details

Unique reference number 116800 Local authority Worcestershire Inspection number 448485

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Type of school First School category Voluntary controlled Age range of pupils 4–10 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 89 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Ginny Getting Headteacher Sally Martin Date of previous school inspection 22 September 2009 Telephone number 01386 860246 Fax number 01386 861439 Email address office@cropthorne.worcs.sch.uk guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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School details

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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School details

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk, or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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School details

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please

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School details

telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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School details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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