St Andrew's Ceva Primary School

Inspection of a school judged good for overall effectiveness before September 2024: St Andrew’s Ceva Primary School Ecton Brook Road, Ecton Brook, Northampton, Northamptonshire NN3 5EN

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Outcome

St Andrew’s Ceva Primary School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils like coming to this school because it is a happy place where everyone gets on and where they feel safe. They say that staff are kind and set a good example to them. They feel listened to.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Everyone upholds the school values, such as integrity and empathy. Pupils are proud to describe how these are part of the school’s ‘I ASPIRE’ values that are the heart of the school’s culture.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils find lessons interesting, and appreciate how teachers help everyone to learn. Staff help the many pupils who enter the school needing to catch up with their education. They provide effective support to pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Pupils quickly learn to read fluently and become confident in mathematics and science. Lessons flow smoothly because pupils behave well. They pay attention and try hard. Expectations are high, and pupils achieve well.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Breaktimes and lunchtimes are friendly and fun. Here, pupils love learning with the visiting basketballers, or joining school clubs such as hockey and gymnastics. The Wombles visit the school to show pupils how to keep the school tidy. Pupils go on exciting trips to places, including a learning and activity centre in Wales.

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

Many pupils enter this school with lower skills in communication than would normally be found in children of the same age. A good number speak English as an additional language. Others have SEND. Nevertheless, staff at St Andrew’s are highly ambitious for 8 and 9 October 2024

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success for every pupil. They waste no time in welcoming any child and assessing their needs. They then make sure all pupils receive a broad, high-quality curriculum so that they learn and remember content across subjects.

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Progress is brisk from the start in the Reception year. Skilled and dedicated staff teach children phonics every day. Children learn to spell ‘map’ and ‘sip’ and are eager to show the letters they have learned to write. Staff give intense help to those needing to catch up. Children read books which match the sounds they are learning. These build their confidence and fluency. Staff plan fun, engaging activities that make children keen to learn more.

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The impact of the well-planned curriculum is not limited to reading. Pupils also make sustained progress in mathematics. By Year 4, for example, they can count up and down in tenths, double and halve numbers, and know many of their multiplication tables. In writing, they can transcribe and compose creatively. They enter key stage 2 already writing sentences such as ‘At last, Ellie arrived, slamming the door behind her to calm her beating heart.’ However, pupils do not have enough opportunity to write at length across subjects.

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Staff have good subject knowledge. They deliver lessons clearly. Staff include all pupils with SEND, adapting teaching where needed, while balancing their support with building these pupils’ independence. All groups learn well. Pupils are well prepared for secondary school.

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The previous inspection found that teachers did not repeat content enough or check that pupils remembered it sufficiently. School leaders have addressed this weakness so effectively that it is now a strength. Across different subjects, teachers revisit learning from previous terms and years frequently. A system of regular questioning means that teachers check pupils’ knowledge with accuracy.

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A revised curriculum for some subjects, such as science, is further improving the education pupils receive. Pupils learn about electrical conductors and insulators, and about condensation. In history, they study the Romans and the rebellion of Boudicca. In geography, they learn about the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, and compare how woodland in England differs from a rainforest.

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From the moment they enter early years, children learn how they are expected to behave. As a result, they focus on their lessons from the start and do not get distracted. They follow the school’s behaviour policy in classrooms and around the school. They are consistently polite and respectful.

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The school prepares pupils well for the wider world. Valuable information about relationships, and how to stay healthy, enables them to take well-informed decisions. Pupils know how to report concerns and are supported, where needed, by a caring and dedicated well-being mentor. The school has received a gold award for its work on well- being. Pupils are also taught about citizenship and practise it enthusiastically by, for instance, helping local charities and a school in Indonesia. 8 and 9 October 2024

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Governors provide effective support and challenge. Leaders undertake their role with integrity. Staff work in shared ways and morale is good. Staff say leaders are mindful of their workload and that they support staff well-being.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Pupils currently have very few opportunities to write in an extended form across the curriculum. This limits their ability to explain and express themselves in detail in subjects such as science, history and geography. Leaders should ensure that staff provide regular occasions and guidance for them to draft, compose and refine longer pieces of writing in different subjects.

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Background

Until September 2024, on a graded (section 5) inspection we gave schools an overall effectiveness grade, in addition to the key and provision judgements. Overall effectiveness grades given before September 2024 will continue to be visible on school inspection reports and on Ofsted’s website. From September 2024 graded inspections will not include an overall effectiveness grade. This school was, before September 2024, judged to be good for its overall effectiveness.

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Background

We have now inspected the school to determine whether it has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at that previous inspection. This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school’s work has improved significantly or that it may not be as strong as it was at the last inspection, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection. A graded inspection is carried out under section 5 of the Act. Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

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Background

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good for overall effectiveness in November 2019. 8 and 9 October 2024

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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.

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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). 8 and 9 October 2024

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Chair of governing body Shelley Buckingham

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School details

Dates of previous inspection 19 and 20 November 2019, under section 5 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school does not currently use any alternative provision.  The school is part of the Diocese of Peterborough. St Andrew’s Ceva Primary School received a Section 48 (SIAMS) inspection in March 2024. These inspections normally take place every five years.  The school offers a breakfast club to its pupils.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school’s educational provision.  This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and has taken that into account in his evaluation of the school.  To judge whether leaders have taken effective action to maintain and improve the school’s performance across all areas of the school’s work and have taken decisions in the best interest of pupils, the inspector investigated the curriculum in reading, 8 and 9 October 2024

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writing, mathematics, science, history and geography, and its delivery in these subjects. He held discussions about the curriculum; visited a sample of lessons with leaders; met with teachers; spoke to pupils from different year groups about their learning and looked at many samples of pupils’ work. He heard pupils reading to a familiar adult.  The inspector met with members of the governing body and the special educational needs and disabilities coordinator. He held telephone conversations with representatives of the local authority and the diocese. He scrutinised a range of school documents.  The inspector also visited the school’s breakfast club.  The inspector took note of the responses to Ofsted Parent View and considered the response to the Ofsted staff questionnaire, as well as the Ofsted pupil questionnaire. He met pupils from different year groups to ask about their views of the school.  In order to evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspector reviewed the

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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

Roary Pownall, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector 8 and 9 October 2024

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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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