Ashton-under-Hill First School

Inspection of a good school: Ashton- under-Hill First School Elmley Road, Ashton-Under-Hill, Evesham, Worcestershire WR11 7SW

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Outcome

Ashton-under-Hill First School continues to be a good school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils at this school thrive. They feel happy and enjoy school. Parents and carers say ‘This is a fabulous school. The staff are so caring and helpful.’

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school is calm and orderly. Bullying is rare. Pupils say that if children are unkind to each other, adults sort it out quickly. Pupils learn how to be responsible and considerate. For example, Year 5 pupils act as buddies at playtime and take care of children from Nursery. As a result, pupils say they feel safe in school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Leaders have high aspirations for what the pupils can achieve. They continually look at how they can make the school even better. For example, they have recently improved the library.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils have many opportunities and experiences beyond the classroom. They speak with pride about the many roles they can take on. This includes being a member of the school council, a house captain or a playground leader. Pupils enjoy their visits to museums and their residential trips.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school is a valued part of the community. Parents actively support the school. For example, they volunteer to listen to pupils read in school. Leaders value this support.

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

All pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), follow a broad and balanced curriculum. Subjects are well planned and sequenced. Teachers have sound subject knowledge. Subject leaders provide staff with effective support for planning and preparing resources. This means that pupils build on what they know year on year.

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

Pupils in Nursery get off to a good start. Adults are attentive to their needs. They focus on developing pupils’ independence and a curiosity for learning. Pupils in Nursery and 15 March 2022

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Reception work well together. They share toys and take turns. The younger pupils learn from their older peers. Leaders check how well pupils are developing. Extra help is put in place quickly if it is needed. This includes adults using advice from the speech and language therapist to support pupils’ language development. Consequently, pupils with SEND achieve well.

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Reading is a priority for the school. The school library has been revamped. Every classroom has a reading corner. There is an effective reading programme in place. This starts in Reception. Leaders regularly check how well pupils are learning to read. Most pupils develop into confident, fluent readers. If pupils fall behind, leaders provide pupils with extra help. Recently, leaders have made this help even more effective by providing it every day to those who need it. Pupils have precise targets for improvement and individual work packs. However, it is too early to see the difference this extra help is making.

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In the early years, adults use resources well to support pupils’ learning in mathematics. This focus on number continues into key stages 1 and 2. Pupils say that they enjoy mathematics. They particularly liked the treasure hunt they had on ‘number day’.

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Adults have a good understanding of the individual needs of pupils, including those with SEND. They create individual education plans (IEPs) to support their learning. The plans describe what the pupils need help with. However, they are not as effective as they could be in supporting pupils to make good progress.

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Teachers find ways to make learning enjoyable for pupils. They bring subjects like science alive by enabling pupils to observe duck eggs hatch and see a brain-powered drone. Staff dressed as gladiators to introduce the topic of Romans for an online lesson. As a result, no low-level behaviour interrupts pupils’ learning.

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Leaders promote pupils’ personal development well. Opportunities such as the ‘huff and puff’ sessions at lunchtime help pupils maintain an active lifestyle.

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Leaders take care of their staff. Staff described the many ways leaders support them with professional and personal issues. This includes additional training in areas of staff’s interest. As a result, staff feel valued by leaders.

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Governors are committed to ensuring the school continues to improve and that pupils are happy and achieve well. They consider staff’s welfare. They make sure that the headteacher has appropriate support from the local authority. Minutes of their meetings show how they hold leaders to account effectively. They ensure that new ventures, such as managing the pre-school provision, are financially viable.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

Adults take pupils’ welfare seriously. Leaders make sure that staff know how to report a concern. Staff do this, confident in the knowledge that leaders will take effective action. 15 March 2022

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This includes making referrals to external agencies when necessary. This means families get the help they require when they need it.

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Leaders complete the appropriate checks on all adults who work at, or visit, the school. Pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe online through the curriculum. They know not to tell anyone their personal details. Consequently, parents say their children are safe at school.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Leaders have put in place more interventions for pupils falling behind with their reading. However, these are still relatively new and have not had enough time to fully support all pupils who need to catch up with their reading. Leaders should embed improvements and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to ensure that all pupils make rapid and sustained improvement to become confident, fluent readers.  IEPs are not as effective as they should be in supporting the learning of pupils with SEND. Information about what support will look like for individual pupils is not precise enough. This means that pupils may not get the specific support they need to achieve well. Leaders need to ensure that staff are provided with the appropriate support and training they need to enable them to plan and deliver additional support for pupils with SEND.

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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 second section 8 inspection since we judged the school to be good in March 2017.

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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. 15 March 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. 15 March 2022

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Website www.ashton.worcs.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 7 March 2017, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school does not use alternative provision.  The school provides a before-school club.

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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 headteacher, other leaders, staff, members of the governing body, including the chair, and pupils. The lead inspector spoke to a representative of the local authority on the telephone.  The inspectors carried out deep dives in reading, mathematics and history. For each deep dive, the 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. The lead inspector also listened to pupils read to a familiar adult. 15 March 2022

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 The inspectors talked to pupils at unstructured times during the day.  The inspectors evaluated a range of school documents and looked at information on the school’s website.  The lead inspector checked the single central record and met with the school’s safeguarding leader.  The inspectors considered the responses to the online questionnaire, Ofsted Parent View, including free-text responses.

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Inspection team

Lesley Yates, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Sarah Steer Ofsted Inspector 15 March 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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