Great Wood Community Primary School

Inspection of a good school: Great Wood Community Primary School Vicarage Road, Upper Tean, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire ST10 4LE

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Outcome

Great Wood Community Primary School continues to be a good school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are happy, enthusiastic and confident learners. Teachers plan exciting lessons and develop pupils’ skills and knowledge in a wide range of subjects. Children in Reception are eager to learn. They develop strong early reading and mathematical skills which prepares them well for Year 1 and beyond.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Leaders have high expectations of pupils. They have created a highly inclusive school in which all pupils thrive and achieve well. Staff encourage pupils to be responsible, caring and ambitious. Pupils take part happily in fundraising activities, both in and out of school. The large collection of badges worn on their school ties demonstrate how busy and active citizens they are.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Behaviour across the school is consistently good. At social times, pupils are kind, polite and articulate. They treat staff and others with respect. They understand and know about the different forms of bullying. Leaders act promptly when any incidents arise to make sure these are nipped in the bud.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils feel safe at school. They learn about online safety, healthy relationships and staying safe on their bicycles. They are confident to approach staff with any worries or concerns.

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

Leaders have designed and implemented a broad and well-balanced curriculum in most year groups. Pupils build their knowledge and skills in a clear sequence from Year 1 to Year 6. However, the curriculum in the early years is less well developed. Leaders have not identified the specific skills, knowledge and vocabulary they want children to know and remember by the end of Reception Year. This means children are not as well prepared for Year 1 in some areas of learning as they could be.

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

The mathematics curriculum is delivered well. Teachers, including in the early years, have good subject knowledge. They model and explain new concepts effectively. They question 16 February 2022

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pupils skilfully. This helps them identify how much pupils understand and where pupils have gaps in their learning. Leaders have recently introduced a new assessment system. While it is too early to assess its effectiveness, it gives staff an indication of how well pupils are achieving. Pupils enjoy mathematics. They are enthusiastic and understand and remember what they learn.

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Leaders understand the importance of reading and have prioritised this across the school. They ensure that pupils read regularly in class and at home. Books are carefully matched to pupils’ abilities. Reading books contain the letters and sounds pupils learn in phonics lessons. A wide selection of good-quality reading material is available for older pupils. This encourages them to become confident and avid readers. Appropriate support is provided for lower-attaining pupils to help them achieve as well as others.

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Staff deliver phonics well. They group pupils by attainment and match work to their different needs. Pupils quickly learn their letters and sounds. They use their skills to work out tricky words. However, when pupils begin to apply their phonics skills to their writing, some staff do not pick up words that are misspelt or incorrect grammatically. As a result, pupils do not develop their writing skills as well as they should.

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The school has a very small number of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Leaders follow up any concerns parents raise and access professional services to establish what support staff can provide. Pupils receive tailored support that enables them to succeed and enjoy learning.

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Through the curriculum, pupils have many opportunities to develop their interests and talents. For example, all pupils learn an instrument. Other activities and events help enrich pupils’ experiences, for example bug club, bushcraft and sports tournaments. Pupils readily take on different roles and responsibilities such as house captain and school council members.

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Pupils are enthusiastic learners. Their behaviour in lessons is excellent. They listen attentively and contribute answers when asked. The school is calm and orderly throughout the day, and lessons are seldom disrupted.

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Staff are proud to work at this school. They describe it as ‘one big family’. Trust and school leaders are mindful of staff’s well-being and workload. They are consulted about changes and deadlines, and time is provided to carry out tasks.

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Trust leaders provide effective levels of support and challenge to leaders and staff. All schools in the trust work in close collaboration with each other. Good practice is regularly shared. This has strengthened and enhanced leaders’ and teachers’ professional development.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 16 February 2022

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Leaders and staff care deeply about pupils and their well-being. They are vigilant and fully trained to recognise signs of abuse. Staff report any concerns to leaders, who act swiftly to provide pupils with the right support. Safeguarding records are well organised and stored safely. Leaders’ checks on new staff joining the school are robust.

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Pupils feel safe in school. They know how to keep themselves safe through teaching in the curriculum and assemblies. They have been taught about ‘trusted adults’ and know they should talk to one of these if they have a worry or problem.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 The school’s early years curriculum is not yet sufficiently well planned and sequenced in some areas of learning, such as understanding the world. However, it is clear from leaders’ actions that they are in the process of bringing this about. Leaders need to complete the process of reviewing the early years curriculum in all areas of learning within their identified timescale. For this reason, the transitional arrangements have been applied.  Some staff do not identify and address errors in pupils’ writing. This means that pupils continue to misspell key words and do not learn to write grammatically correct and accurate sentences from an early stage. Leaders should ensure that staff check pupils’ writing and provide feedback to help improve their grammar, spelling and punctuation.

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Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good. This is called a section 8 inspection of a good or outstanding school, because it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on a section 8 inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a section 5 inspection. Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the section 8 inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the section 8 inspection as a section 5 inspection immediately.

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Background

This is the first section 8 inspection since we judged the predecessor school, Great Wood Community Primary School, to be good in November 2015.

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How can I feed back my views?

find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection. 16 February 2022

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The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school.

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If you are the school and you are not happy with the inspection or the report, you can complain to Ofsted .

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Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

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Further information

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ refers to those pupils who attract government pupil premium funding: pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years and pupils in care or who left care through adoption or another formal route. 16 February 2022

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School details

Headteacher Ben Adamson (Head of School)

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School details

Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 The school joined the Moorlands Primary Federation on 1 September 2017. This school is one of five primary schools in the federation.  The school has increased from four classes to five classes. Most classes are mixed age.  The school does not use any alternative providers.

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Information about this inspection

 This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Inspectors discussed the impact of the pandemic with leaders and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  The inspectors met with the acting head of school, representatives from the trust for literacy and early years and three trustees, including the trust’s principal. Some meetings were carried out online.  The inspector carried out deep dives in these subjects: early reading, mathematics and music. For each deep dive, the inspector discussed the curriculum with subject leaders, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers and pupils and looked at work in pupils’ books. 16 February 2022

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 The inspectors met with teaching staff to talk about curriculum, staff’s workload and the behaviour and personal development of pupils. They also met with groups of pupils to talk about their learning.  The inspectors looked at curriculum plans and observed some pupils from Years 1 to 3 reading to staff.  The inspectors checked the school’s single central record and spoke to leaders about safeguarding procedures. A selection of safeguarding records were examined.  The inspectors considered a range of documents, including behaviour and attendance records.  The inspectors observed pupils’ behaviour at playtime and talked to them about behaviour, bullying and welfare.  The inspectors talked to parents at the end of the school day and considered the responses to the online questionnaire, Ofsted Parent View, and their free-text responses. They gathered the views of pupils and staff on site through discussion with

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these groups and from their online questionnaire responses.

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Inspection team

Heather Simpson, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Alun Williams Her Majesty’s Inspector 16 February 2022

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regulates and inspects to 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, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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