Caversham Primary School

Inspection of Caversham Primary School Hemdean Road, Caversham, Reading, Berkshire RG4 7RA

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Overall effectiveness Good

The quality of education Good Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Good Early years provision Good Previous inspection grade Inadequate 21 and 22 June 2023

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are proud to be part of the Caversham community. They are resilient and determined to do their best. Pupils respect each other and their teachers. The school’s values are lived and breathed by pupils and adults alike.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Younger children settle quickly into the school. They develop warm relationships with their older ‘buddies’, who look after them well. Pupils feel safe and happy at school. They trust staff to take care of them. If worries arise, adults are on hand to help. Year 6 pupils enjoy relaxing and chatting with their friends in their ‘privilege area’ during social times.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school environment is friendly, calm and purposeful. Pupils are very polite and well behaved, as their teachers expect them to be. When reminders are necessary, adults help pupils to make positive choices and learn from their mistakes.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Adults inspire pupils to aim high and achieve their goals. Pupils work hard and learn well. They are well prepared for the next stage of their education, both academically and socially. Teachers ensure that pupils read widely and often across a broad range of topics and genres. This helps pupils to learn about complex issues and social dilemmas, such as the Windrush generation and political prisoners.

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better?

The school’s work to address previous weaknesses has been swift, thorough and effective. Straight after the last inspection, useful advice was sought from beyond the school. In particular, this helped leaders to understand fully the extent of the weaknesses in safeguarding arrangements and prioritise what needed to be done. Ongoing and determined work has ensured that the improvements made have gone beyond the essential changes that were needed. Additional training has given teachers and support staff the confidence to spot and pass on signs that a pupil may be at risk of harm. Leaders have made it easier for staff to report and record a concern. Records now give a clear and detailed picture of concerns about pupils.

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better?

Work to address weaknesses in breaktime supervision and monitoring of pupils’ attendance reflects the same rigour and success. Pupils describe how the new playground zones make them feel safer at breaktime, because adults are easier to find. The outside space is calm. Expectations for attendance and punctuality have been raised through ongoing communication with parents. Leaders identify quickly where attendance may be a concern and take swift action to help pupils to come to school more often.

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better?

Staff are constantly focused on doing their very best for the pupils in their care. They are universally positive about how leaders help them to improve their practice via planned training and helpful advice. Staff consistently model behaviours that help pupils understand what it means to be successful, confident, responsible and 21 and 22 June 2023

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caring citizens – the values that the school aspires for every pupil to develop during their time at Caversham.

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Governance is on a journey of improvement. The governing body’s knowledge of the school’s strengths and improvement priorities has grown significantly. Governors’ checks on safeguarding arrangements are now thorough and have helped leaders to refine this part of their work even more. The evident rigour around safeguarding is spreading into other areas of the governing body’s work, but there is more to do.

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Learning in the early years gives children a firm foundation on which to build. Children learn how to cooperate with each other and to work independently, as well as developing their early reading, writing and mathematics. Their wider experiences during the early years are deliberately planned to prepare them well for studying a broad range of subjects during key stage 1 and beyond.

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Reading is taught consistently well across the school by adults who are well trained and skilled in their craft. Pupils at risk of falling behind are identified quickly and get extra support that helps them to keep up with their peers. Adults encourage pupils of all ages to read books from a range of authors, including deliberately chosen texts that link to topics pupils are learning about in their different subjects. Older pupils read confidently and enthusiastically, reflecting thoughtfully on the content of their books.

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Pupils learn well across the range of national curriculum subjects. The well-planned curriculum enables them to develop a broad body of knowledge. This equips pupils well for moving on to secondary school. Pupils try their best in lessons and produce high-quality work. They talked enthusiastically to inspectors about how teaching has developed their love of science, describing how practical work has deepened their knowledge of light and sound.

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Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) access the same learning as everyone else. Adults are alert to pupils’ needs and adapt tasks accordingly, so that pupils can complete them to a high standard. Current work to further improve the quality of teaching across the school is helping all pupils, including those with SEND, to do even better than in the past.

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The personal development programme successfully promotes the school’s ethos of acceptance and inclusion. A well-planned curriculum helps pupils to become kind, thoughtful young people who respect and appreciate the diversity of the world they live in. Leaders make the most of opportunities for pupils to learn about the many different cultures and religions represented in the school community, such as through inviting parents to talk to pupils.

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Senior and middle leaders are enthusiastic about their areas of responsibility and are keen to make them the best that they can be. Priorities for improvement are identified more precisely for some aspects of the school’s work than for others. Leaders’ approaches to checking the quality of the school’s work across the whole 21 and 22 June 2023

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curriculum are being refined, so they can better understand what changes will benefit pupils’ learning the most.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

A positive culture of safeguarding now pervades the school. Detailed and relevant training ensures that all staff fully understand their role in keeping children safe. The legally required recruitment and vetting checks are now fully in place for all adults working at the school. Governors understand and fulfil their legal safeguarding duties. Risks to pupils are well understood and potential concerns are reported promptly. All staff now have access to the school’s chosen system for recording and managing concerns.

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Safeguarding

The designated safeguarding team acts quickly if concerns arise about pupils. Their work is well supported by the effective records that chronicle what staff report, the actions leaders take and the next steps required. Leaders are persistent in pursuing and securing extra help for vulnerable children and their families.

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Safeguarding

The school’s safeguarding curriculum supports pupils to stay safe from harm. For instance, recent work has helped them to learn about consent in an age-appropriate way. As a result, pupils are more alert to when their actions might risk making others feel uncomfortable, and they are more confident to speak up if it happens to them.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Governors do not check other aspects of the school as rigorously as they oversee the arrangements for safeguarding. Consequently, their oversight of the school is not as comprehensive as it could be. Governors should ensure that they are sufficiently well informed about all aspects of the school, so that they can hold leaders more effectively to account for the whole breadth of the school’s work.  Leaders do not monitor some aspects of the school’s wider curriculum as effectively as the rest. This leads to some variability in leaders’ plans for ongoing improvement. The school should ensure that leaders at all levels look systematically at how to further improve the areas for which they are responsible so that, across the breadth of the curriculum, learning is consistently of the very high quality to which leaders aspire. 21 and 22 June 2023

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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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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. 21 and 22 June 2023

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Headteacher Clare Jones-King and Jo Grover (acting co-headteachers) Website www.cavershamprimary.org

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School details

Date of previous inspection 15 and 16 November 2022, under section 5 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 This is an average-sized primary school for pupils age 4 to 11 years.  The acting co-headteachers took up their posts in January 2023. They were previously deputy headteachers at the school. The chair of governors was in post when the last inspection took place in November 2022.  The school does not use any alternative provision.  There is a breakfast and after-school club on site run by the school.

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Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this inspection under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. They deemed the inspection a graded (section 5) inspection under the same Act.

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Information about this inspection

In accordance with section 13(5) of the Education Act 2005, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that the school no longer requires significant improvement. 21 and 22 June 2023

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 Inspectors met with the co-headteachers, other senior and middle leaders, and with groups of teachers and pupils. They spoke with representatives of the governing body and of the local authority.  Inspectors gathered evidence about the quality of education. This included deep dives into reading, science and geography. For reading, this involved meeting with the reading leader, visiting lessons where phonics was being taught, listening to pupils read and talking to teachers about the teaching of reading. In science and geography, inspectors met with relevant leaders, talked to pupils and looked at their work. Inspectors also spoke to leaders about the curriculum in mathematics, art and design technology, and visited lessons to consider the effectiveness of provision in mathematics and for pupils with SEND.  Inspectors reviewed safeguarding arrangements in full. They looked at the school’s record of recruitment checks of adults employed at the school. They met

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with the school’s designated safeguarding leads and scrutinised the school’s records of concerns about pupils and the actions taken. They considered relevant policies, training and monitoring arrangements, as well as the school’s safeguarding curriculum.  Inspectors gathered other relevant evidence, including about pupils’ behaviour, attendance and personal development. They spoke to groups of pupils and staff, including early career teachers. They took account of responses to the staff survey and to the Ofsted Parent View online questionnaire, including free-text comments.

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Inspection team

Kathryn Moles, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Laura James His Majesty’s Inspector 21 and 22 June 2023

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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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