Bidston Village CofE (Controlled) Primary School

Inspection of Bidston Village CofE (Controlled) Primary School Ballantyne Drive, Bidston, Prenton, Merseyside CH43 7XG

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Inspection dates: 12 and 13 September 2023

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

The quality of education Requires improvement Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Good Early years provision Good Previous inspection grade Good 12 and 13 September 2023

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What is it like to attend this school?

Bidston Village School is a harmonious place where pupils feel valued and cared for. Pupils enjoy coming to school. They develop strong and trusting bonds with their friends and with staff. Pupils told inspectors that this helps them to feel happy and safe at school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Staff expect pupils to behave well and to be respectful. Pupils respond positively to these high expectations. This helps to ensure that the atmosphere throughout the school is calm and purposeful.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations of pupils’ achievement. However, in some areas of the curriculum, pupils do not achieve as well as they should. The school has recently refined some subject curriculums. Nevertheless, these new curriculums are in the early stages of delivery.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are active and responsible citizens. For example, they enjoy raising funds for different charities and worthy causes. Pupils take their leadership roles seriously. For instance, they express their views confidently through the pupils’ parliament and they demonstrate their maturity as anti-bullying ambassadors.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school encourages pupils to develop their talents in different areas, including in sports and music. Pupils benefit from educational visits to different local places of interest, as well as to museums. Older pupils look forward to their annual residential trip where they engage in different outdoor activities, such as rock climbing and abseiling.

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better?

The school has ensured that children in the early years, including those in the two- year-old provision, benefit from a strong and effective curriculum. This helps to develop these children’s language and communication skills well. However, the curriculum in key stages 1 and 2 is less effective. Consequently, some pupils do not learn as well as they should over time across the curriculum.

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better?

Some staff use effective strategies to help pupils to remember their learning. These staff also routinely check what pupils know and recall. Nonetheless, these checks and strategies are not used routinely across the school. This means that some pupils struggle to recount essential facts and information. This makes it difficult for these pupils to make sense of new learning.

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better?

The school places reading at the centre of the curriculum. Staff share books with pupils that reflect a wide variety of genres and a broad range of authors. Children in the Nursery class relish story time. Typically, they listen intently and join in with familiar storylines. Older pupils enjoy reading. They look forward to attaining certificates for reading regularly. 12 and 13 September 2023

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The school ensures that well-trained staff deliver the phonics and early reading curriculums effectively. Children in the early years learn phonics from the start of the Reception Year. Pupils read books that match the letters and sounds that they know. This helps them to develop fluency and accuracy in their reading. Pupils who find reading difficult receive well-tailored support. This support helps these pupils to catch up quickly with their peers.

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The school ensures that staff are suitably equipped to identify pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). When necessary, staff work closely with many different specialists to make sure that pupils receive timely and appropriate support. In the specially resourced provision for pupils with SEND, teachers adapt learning activities well so that pupils develop their knowledge and skills well in a range of subjects. Across the rest of the school, pupils with SEND successfully access the same learning as their peers.

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Pupils have positive attitudes to learning. This starts with the two-year-old children who learn to share resources, persevere when tasks are tricky and listen carefully to adults. Pupils in the nurture base learn different strategies to help them better manage their own behaviour. Pupils move around the school sensibly and safely. This helps to ensure that lessons proceed with minimal disruption.

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The school promotes pupils’ personal and social development well. Pupils learn about different faiths and cultures. They told inspectors that they do not judge people because of where they are from or what they believe in. Pupils know how to maintain a healthy mind and body. They participate in after-school clubs regularly and achieve success in sporting tournaments. Pupils also enjoy performing in concerts. They like to hone their skills in playing the guitar, xylophone, glockenspiel and clarinet.

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Staff enjoy working at the school. They told inspectors that leaders and governors are mindful of their well-being, mental health and professional development. The training and support that staff receive helps them to deliver most areas of the curriculum well.

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The school has strong links with the local community. Staff provide different opportunities for parents and carers to be involved in the education of their children. Parents are especially positive about the school. Typically, they told inspectors that Bidston Village is a ‘responsive’ and ‘caring’ school.

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Governors know what the school needs to do to further improve. They hold the school to account for pupils’ academic achievement. Governors have successfully supported the school to improve different aspects of the quality of education that pupils receive.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 12 and 13 September 2023

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 The school has recently made adaptations to the curriculum in some subjects. In these subjects, the roll out of this curriculum is in its early stages. Some older pupils have not benefited from these strengthened curriculums and therefore have some gaps in their knowledge. The school should ensure that teachers are equipped to identify and address the gaps in these pupils’ knowledge before they move on to new learning.  The strategies used by some staff to help pupils to remember their learning are not as effective as they could be. As a result, some pupils have not gained the knowledge and skills that they need to deepen their understanding. The school should ensure that staff receive the support that they need to help pupils remember essential knowledge long term.

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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’ is used to mean pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND); pupils who meet the definition of children in need of help and protection ; pupils receiving statutory local authority support from a social worker; and pupils who otherwise meet the criteria used for deciding the school’s pupil premium funding (this includes pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children (children in local authority care) and/or children who left care through adoption or another formal route). 12 and 13 September 2023

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Website www.bidstonvillage.wirral.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 28 March 2018, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 Leaders do not make use of alternative provision.  Since the previous inspection, a new chair of the governing body has been appointed.  The school provides specially resourced provision for pupils from across the local authority. This provision caters for 25 pupils aged five to eleven years old. All pupils have an education, health and care plan for moderate learning difficulties. Pupils’ additional learning difficulties include autism spectrum disorder and speech, language and communication difficulties.  A small number of pupils in Years 1 to 3 learn in the school’s nurture base. These pupils have social, emotional and mental health difficulties.  The school has provision for a small number of two-year-old children.  The school is a voluntary-controlled Church of England school. The last section 48 inspection was conducted by the Diocese of Chester in April 2016. The school’s next section 48 inspection is planned for this academic year.

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Information about this inspection

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

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time judgement about the quality of a school’s education provision.  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 held meetings with the headteacher and deputy headteacher. They also held meetings with other staff, including those responsible for SEND, attendance and pupils’ behaviour, welfare and personal development.  Inspectors met with the staff responsible for the school’s specially resourced provision, nurture group and provision for two-year-olds.  The lead inspector met with members of the governing body. He held telephone conversations with a representative from the local authority and a representative from the Diocese of Chester.  Inspectors carried out deep dives into these subjects: early reading, mathematics,

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Information about this inspection

history, computing, and art and design. For each deep dive, inspectors discussed the curriculum with subject leaders, visited a sample of lessons, spoke with teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work. The lead inspector listened to pupils read.  Inspectors met with pupils to discuss their learning in some other subjects. They spoke with staff about their workload and well-being.  Inspectors met with parents and reviewed the responses to Ofsted Parent View, including the free-text comments. There were no responses to Ofsted’s staff and pupil surveys.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspectors: reviewed the single central record; took account of the views of leaders, staff and pupils; and considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first.

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Inspection team

Lenford White, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Samantha Birchall Ofsted Inspector 12 and 13 September 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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