Yorkley Primary School

Inspection of Yorkley Primary School Lydney Road, Yorkley, Lydney, Gloucestershire GL15 4RR

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Overall effectiveness Good

The quality of education Good Behaviour and attitudes Outstanding Personal development Outstanding Leadership and management Outstanding Early years provision Good Previous inspection grade Good 17 and 18 May 2022

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are very proud of their school. It is easy to see why. It is a caring, cohesive community where everyone has pupils’ best interests at heart. Everyone strives to make every day the best it can be for each pupil.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils’ happiness and confidence are clear to see in their smiles. They feel completely safe. Pupils look after one another. There is always someone on hand for anyone who needs a friend to play with or someone to cheer them up.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils behave beautifully. They like the rewards that come with behaving well and see little point in behaving badly. They are eager to make the most out of all that school has to offer.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils play an active role in shaping school life. Well-being champions ensure that playtimes are happy times. Older pupils organise clubs for other pupils to join. The school council gets involved in decisions about how the school is run.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils achieve well in this positive climate. Even so, leaders are not complacent. They strive to make the curriculum as good as it can be. They want pupils to have the best education possible, and are well on the way to achieving this goal.

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better?

The school is exceptionally well led and managed. Leaders and governors have a clear vision to help pupils to be the best they can. They have established a set of values and principles that drive the work of the school. Everyone works together to turn the vision into reality. Staff feel privileged to work here.

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better?

All decisions are informed by a set of aims for pupils (the ‘drivers’). These are: ‘Creativity; Building Me; Belonging; Communication; Active Adventure.’ Through the drivers, leaders have developed a school experience that encompasses an ambitious academic curriculum and an extremely wide range of opportunities to develop pupils’ character.

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better?

The school provides exceptionally well for pupils’ personal development. There are wide-ranging opportunities to learn a new skill, to be active, to take part in a competition or to take on responsibility. Leaders use the drivers to determine what might be missing from the options. Then, they set up what is needed to fill the gap. Individual pupils’ needs inform these decisions. For example, the well-being champions are the result of leaders getting to the heart of a falling-out between pupils.

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better?

By putting pupils’ needs at the heart of their experience, the school provides well for all. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities thrive in this climate. Disadvantaged pupils are helped to reach their full potential, as are their classmates. 17 and 18 May 2022

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Pupils’ behaviour contributes much to how well they achieve. They pay attention and work very hard. Beyond that, they listen to, and learn from, one another. They treat each other with a tangible degree of respect.

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The curriculum is designed to ensure that pupils learn, step by step, what they need in each subject. This starts in the Reception Class. Leaders make sure that staff know what pupils need to learn at each stage and how best to teach it. Teachers carefully choose the right approaches to teach each part of the curriculum. As they go along, they check that pupils have learned what they need to be ready for the next step. Where necessary, teachers go over something again or give more time to it. As a result, pupils are learning what leaders intend they should.

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Leaders have invested much time and money into ensuring that every pupil learns to read well. A ‘reading squad’ of highly trained teachers and teaching assistants delivers a systematic programme of phonics teaching from the moment children enter school. Pupils learn new sounds and practise reading daily. This helps them learn to read fluently and independently. Anyone who falls behind receives high- quality support to keep up with the programme.

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Pupils achieve exceptionally well in some subjects. This is down to the quality of thinking that has gone into curriculum planning. For example, in physical education (PE), pupils do not just learn to run, jump, throw, catch, dance and so on. They learn exactly why they are performing the action, what effect the activity has on their body and how to improve the way they carry out the activity. Pupils, even those in the early years, can explain such things in precise detail.

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Similar thought is evident in other subjects, such as science and mathematics. The remaining subject leaders are going through a process of refining planning to match the exceptional quality of the best.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

Leaders have created a culture where all staff take very seriously their responsibility to protect pupils. They are well trained to do so. Staff know each pupil as an individual. Even the smallest indicator that a pupil might be at risk of neglect or harm is acted upon. Leaders leave no stone unturned in their efforts to secure the right help for pupils and their families.

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Safeguarding

Pupils learn how to manage risk and protect themselves, as in the example of a pupil who spotted a scam while playing a video game because of what he had learned in school. 17 and 18 May 2022

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Leaders are going through a process of making further refinements to the curriculum. They are identifying in even finer detail the intended knowledge that pupils should learn at each stage in each subject, from the early years to the end of Year 6. This exists in some subjects and is leading to exceptional achievement. Leaders need to complete the process so that pupils achieve exceptionally well in every subject.

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How can I feed back my views?

or to 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.

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How can I feed back my views?

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. 17 and 18 May 2022

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Dates of previous inspection 2 and 3 November 2016, under section 5 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school does not use any alternative provision.

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Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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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.  Inspectors met with the headteacher, the deputy headteacher, the special educational needs coordinator, other school staff, the chair of governors and three other members of the governing body. A meeting was held with a representative of the local authority and a telephone conversation was held with the school improvement partner.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in these subjects: reading, science and PE. 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. 17 and 18 May 2022

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 Inspectors also spoke to the leaders of mathematics and art, discussed curriculum planning and looked at the quality of pupils’ work in these subjects. Inspectors also scrutinised curriculum planning in history and geography.  Inspectors inspected safeguarding by meeting with the headteacher and family support worker in their role as designated safeguarding leads, speaking to teaching and support staff, talking to pupils and parents and scrutinising documents relating to staff recruitment and child protection.  Inspectors inspected pupils’ behaviour and attitudes and personal development by observing them in lessons and as they moved around the school, by looking at documentation and by meeting with staff with responsibility for these aspects.  Inspectors spoke to a sample of pupils from Reception to Year 3. They met with every pupil in Years 4 to 6 who was in school during the inspection.  Inspectors considered responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaires for staff and

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pupils and Ofsted’s online survey for parents, Ofsted Parent View. This included comments received via the free-text facility.

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Inspection team

Sandy Hayes, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Steve Wigley Ofsted Inspector 17 and 18 May 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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