Funtington Primary School

Inspection of Funtington Primary School Heather Close, West Ashling, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8DR

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Inspection dates: 22 and 23 October 2024

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The quality of education Good Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Outstanding Leadership and management Good Early years provision Good Previous inspection grade Good 22 and 23 October 2024

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils at Funtington flourish personally. The exceptional personal development programme brings out pupils’ wonderful character attributes. The school acts as one family. Pupils see the good in others and are very accepting of those who may be different. The school’s highly inclusive approach carefully supports pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to access all the school has to offer.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school expects pupils to do their best. Pupils eagerly respond to this and love learning new things. The ‘Funtington Footprints’ guide their learning and behaviours. Caring pupils behave well in lessons and at playtimes. Children in the early years settle in confidently and follow routines quickly. Pupils know they are safe here.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils have rich experiences that broaden their awareness of life beyond their small school. This includes thoughtfully planned trips, including overnight stays. Pupils develop healthy lifestyles and know how important it is to be physically active. The school also ensures that every pupil can swim. The school offers everyone a chance to join in music and sports activities. The school’s productions excite pupils to share their talents. Pupils are actively involved in the community, for example, fundraising and supporting the elderly who may live alone.

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

Rapid and highly effective work has addressed previous shortfalls in the quality of education. The school redesigned its curriculum so that essential knowledge is carefully sequenced across all classes. A two-year cycle ensures that the school’s curriculum remains ambitious for mixed-aged classes. Pupils achieve well as reflected in published outcomes. Nevertheless, some teachers have not checked pupils’ understanding over time. This has led to some pupils with knowledge gaps in their learning and, therefore, hindered them from reaching higher standards.

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

Staff greatly appreciate the investment in their professional development. The school has focused on training staff to teach the curriculum in a consistent and effective way. Teachers explain new ideas clearly and they revisit important content that pupils need to remember. There is also a big push on pupils’ vocabulary development in different subjects. However, the school can see that teachers are not always setting the right work and also not providing pupils with enough opportunities to extend and practise their writing skills. Where this happens, pupils do not learn as well as they could.

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

A vibrant reading culture enthuses pupils to read widely. The brand-new library is a centrepiece that motivates pupils to visit. After the last inspection, the school has retrained all staff to improve the teaching of reading. This has made the implementation of the phonics programme much stronger. Children in the Reception Year start this curriculum early on and pupils’ progress across the phonics curriculum is now more regularly checked. Consequently, the school quickly spots struggling readers. However, some older pupils still lag behind. To address this, the school has boosted the amount of 22 and 23 October 2024

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daily intensive English support for these pupils. This is becoming more effective in helping them to catch up faster.

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In the early years, adults plan purposeful activities that highly promote children’s language development and interests. Children are absorbed in their play and are keen to tell others about what they are doing. Staff use questions well to help children gain new knowledge and words. Well-rehearsed routines develop children’s independence. A strength is how quickly the school identifies pupils with SEND. Staff work extremely well with families. This ensures that pupils are fully included in school life. In lessons, teachers are developing their skills in how best to adapt learning tasks for some pupils with SEND.

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The work to improve pupils’ attendance has been relentless. The school is using research and government guidance to shape an effective attendance strategy. The school leans well on professional services to help families. Though not yet shown in historical attendance data, the school is removing barriers for vulnerable pupils. As a result, more pupils are attending regularly.

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An exemplary personal development offer runs through everything in the school. The curriculum for personal, social, health and economic education is uniquely designed to best serve pupils’ needs. Pupils strongly enact the school’s values. They build their resilience, confidence and outlook on life. Pupils are taught how to stay healthy, manage money and value different cultures and diversity. The many clubs and visitors inspire and enrich pupils’ character formation. This prepares pupils very well for secondary school.

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Governors strongly support and challenge the school. They keep the pace of the school’s key priorities moving. Parents unanimously see positive changes and praise highly the staff’s care and commitment to pupils.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 The school’s assessment checks are not always identifying the right knowledge gaps that pupils might have. This then impacts negatively upon the progress that some pupils make through the planned curriculum and in how highly they achieve. The school should further train all staff to check how securely pupils are knowing more and remembering more of the curriculum.  Some work set for pupils does not help them to learn key essential knowledge. At times, there are also underdeveloped opportunities for pupils to write across the curriculum. This means that some pupils, including those with SEND, do not achieve as strongly as they could. The school should continue to support staff in planning high- quality activities to ensure pupils acquire deep knowledge of the curriculum. 22 and 23 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). 22 and 23 October 2024

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Chair of governing body Michael Gauntlett

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School details

Date of previous inspection 18 July 2023, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school does not currently use any alternative provision.

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Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this graded inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. During a graded inspection, we grade the school for each of our key judgements (quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management) and for any relevant provision judgement (early years and/or sixth form provision). Schools receiving a graded inspection from September 2024 will not be given an overall effectiveness grade.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time judgement about the quality of a school's education provision.  Inspectors discussed any continued impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school. 22 and 23 October 2024

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 Inspectors met with the headteacher and other staff. The lead inspector met with four governors, including the chair. He also spoke with a school improvement adviser from the local authority.  The inspection team carried out deep dives in these subjects: early reading, mathematics and physical education. To do this, they met with teachers, looked at curriculum plans, had discussions with staff and pupils, visited lessons, listened to pupils read and looked at pupils’ work.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, 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.  The views of staff and parents were gathered through discussions and Ofsted’s online surveys.  Inspectors scrutinised a range of documentation provided by the school. This included

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the school’s school improvement priorities, policies, curriculum documents, behaviour and attendance records, and published outcomes.

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Inspection team

James Broadbridge, lead inspector His Majesty's Inspector

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Inspection team

Vickie Farrow Ofsted Inspector 22 and 23 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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