Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School

Inspection of a good school: Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School Forge Lane, Kirkby Fleetham, Northallerton, North Yorkshire DL7 0SA

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Outcome

Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School continues to be a good school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

This very small school is at the heart of the village. The parent body is a tight-knit group. Parents say their families are all friends together. Pupils say that their school friends are more like brothers and sisters to them. Parents and pupils highly value the ‘family feel’ of the school community. Parents say this helps pupils to feel safe and secure. In our survey of their views, 100% of parents and pupils said that they would recommend this school to others.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The experienced headteacher, and her long-serving staff team, are very well respected by parents and pupils. Since academy conversion, leaders have strengthened their partnership with staff in the other primary schools in the four-school group. Leaders continue to develop closer ways of staff working together to improve the quality of education for pupils in all of these schools.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The Christian ethos remains central to leaders’ improvement plans. Pupils are taught to respect each other and to be kind. Pupils say there is no bullying. Pupils behave well consistently.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Subject leaders in all four primary schools have worked together to develop the curriculum. They have been successful. There are a few subjects where this improvement work is still ongoing.

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

The curriculum for early reading is very effective. Phonics is taught well and assessed frequently. Pupils read books that are matched to the phonics programme. Pupils rapidly progress on to reading interesting novels with fluency, expression and comprehension. As a result, pupils are very well prepared for the next stage of their education. 11 February 2022

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Leaders in the four-school collaboration within the multi-academy trust have employed some staff centrally to work in several of their schools. The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) shares the best ideas from each school with the other schools in the partnership. Leaders want all pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to achieve as well as their peers. Consequently, the curriculum is designed to meet all pupils’ needs consistently. Sometimes, resources that are designed specifically to support pupils with SEND are used with all pupils, because staff and pupils have realised that all pupils can benefit from these high-quality materials.

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Leaders make the most of the four-school collaboration to help pupils succeed in sport. When year groups are tiny, leaders group pupils from their different schools together to make one netball or football team. The combined teams practise together, learning the skills they need to play well together when passing or defending. As a result, the 2021 football team was victorious, winning the local small schools’ league competition last year.

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The curriculum for pupils’ personal development is fully embedded. Leaders successfully adapted the Leeds diocese’s agreed syllabus for religious education. Leaders redesigned the curriculum to teach pupils about other faiths. They identified the most important knowledge and revisit this learning more frequently. This is helping pupils to remember what they have learned about other faith traditions long term. Leaders are developing their curricula for history and geography in a similar way. Staff say leaders give them the time they need to do this work.

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Leaders have carefully designed the curriculum for pupils’ economic education. For example, in a history topic about census data, teachers explained different income bandings within the census. Pupils learned about income and expenditure, budget planning and the importance of savings. Pupils reflected on the emotional impact of not having enough money and the way that money worries can affect good mental health. Leaders have established a group of alumni who inspire pupils to be ambitious, providing age-appropriate careers advice.

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Pupils are really interested in their learning, and they understand the school rules, so they always behave well. Pupils do not disrupt learning for other pupils. One parent said, ‘I cannot praise the teachers highly enough for the contribution they have made in assisting me in raising my children to be the characters they are.’

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

The headteacher has established effective arrangements for managing safeguarding concerns.

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Safeguarding

Leaders check that staff are suitable to work with children. They train staff well. All staff can identify safeguarding concerns accurately. Leaders work closely with other professionals to make sure that pupils are protected from harm. 11 February 2022

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Governors have had the necessary training to oversee safeguarding arrangements.

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The curriculum is designed to teach pupils how to stay safe, including online. The SENCo has introduced a range of curriculum materials that help to ensure pupils’ good mental health.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Subject leaders have not identified substantive and disciplinary knowledge in sufficient detail for each year group in every foundation subject. Consequently, pupils are not achieving as well as they could in history and geography. Leaders should continue to develop detailed medium-term curriculum and assessment arrangements in every subject.  The school’s curriculum is not yet sufficiently well planned and sequenced in some subjects. 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 curriculum in all subjects within their identified timescale. For this reason, the transitional arrangements have been applied.

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Background

When we have judged 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, Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School, to be good on 5 December 2013.

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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.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school. 11 February 2022

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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. 11 February 2022

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School details

Inspection number 10212313 Type of school Primary

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School details

Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School converted to become an academy school in November 2017. When its predecessor school, Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School, was last inspected by Ofsted, it was judged to be good overall.  This school is a member of the Dales Academies multi-academy trust.  The school uses no alternative provision.  The school’s religious character is Christian. The diocese inspects this separately under section 48 of the Education Act 2005.  The predecessor school’s last section 48 inspection took place in January 2016. It was judged to be good. Section 48 inspections are currently scheduled within eight years of the previous inspection. This cycle has been extended to allow for the period when inspections were paused due to COVID-19 restrictions. 11 February 2022

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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 school leaders and have taken that into account in their evaluation.  Inspectors met the headteacher and the base leader for this school. The base leader is the teacher in charge of this school when the headteacher is out of school. The deputy headteacher and the SENCo, who are employed directly by the multi-academy trust and work part time in this school, also met inspectors. Inspectors met the reading, mathematics and history subject leaders.  The chief executive of the multi-academy trust met inspectors in person. The advisor representing the Leeds diocese was interviewed by telephone.  Inspectors met a group of five governors, including the chair of the local governing body. One governor joined this meeting remotely via a computer link.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in these subjects: early reading and phonics, history

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Information about this inspection

and mathematics. For each deep dive, inspectors discussed the curriculum with subject leaders, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work.  There are currently no children in the Nursery Year and there is only one child in the Reception Year. Provision in the early years has not been reported because this child would be identifiable.  Pupils’ behaviour and safety was evaluated on arrival at school, in the dining room and at breaktimes.  Senior safeguarding leaders and the school administrator met inspectors to discuss recruitment and safeguarding records.  Inspectors checked all pupil leavers and their destinations to rule out off-rolling.  Several parents spoke to inspectors during the inspection. Inspectors reviewed the 11 parents’ and pupils’ responses, and six staff responses to Ofsted’s surveys of their views.

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Inspection team

Tracey Ralph, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Sarah Birch Ofsted Inspector 11 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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