Leedstown Community Primary School

Inspection of a school judged good for overall effectiveness before September 2024: Leedstown Community Primary School Townshend Road, Leedstown, Hayle, Cornwall TR27 6AA

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Outcome

Leedstown Community Primary School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

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Outcome

The headteacher of this school is Hannah Bennett. This school is part of Kernow Learning Multi Academy Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer, Clare Crowle (CEO), and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by David Parker.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils learn happily at this friendly, community-focused school. They make a flying start from the moment they arrive in Nursery. They learn the well-constructed curriculum enthusiastically as they grow up through the school. The school has formed close links with its rural community. For example, the school has established positive relationships with parents, staff and those who live in the village by leading on regular and well-loved community events. Pupils benefit from well-planned extra-curricular opportunities that underpin their learning in class.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations. Staff share in leaders’ aspirations. They care deeply about pupils and their learning. They know each pupil as an individual. Staff use this to ensure lessons are interesting, impactful and fun. Everyone works together to ensure learning links to pupils’ direct experiences. Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), participate and learn together collaboratively. As a result, pupils achieve well.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Staff secure positive relationships with and between pupils. Bullying is very rare and, if it does happen, staff deal with it effectively. Pupils show strong attitudes to their learning and look out for one another. As a result, pupils’ behaviour is excellent and they attend regularly. 4 March 2025

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

Trust and school leaders, including local governors, work together effectively to realise their ambition for pupils. They have managed changes in leadership and staffing seamlessly, since the last inspection. They are compassionate and systematic in how they plan to improve provision. For example, the school has strengthened significantly how it identifies and meets the needs of pupils with SEND and those who speak English as an additional language, putting the curriculum at the heart of how to improve outcomes. Similarly, the school’s work to improve attendance and reduce persistent absence has been very successful. The school considers staff well-being carefully. The trust invests in staff development effectively. As a result, staff are highly committed and work diligently with leaders to find ways to keep improving.

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

The school has a clear rationale for its curriculum. It prioritises broadening pupils’ experiences, making learning relevant and ensuring pupils do not miss out because of any social isolation. The school has sequenced the curriculum carefully and meets at least the expectations of the National Curriculum, including meeting the national expectations in the early years. This helps to ensure that teachers can check how well pupils learn the curriculum systematically, particularly in more established subjects. The trust has secured targeted training for staff in specific subjects. As a result, staff have the right expertise to teach mathematics and reading well. In other subjects, staff teach sequences of learning that build effectively on what pupils, including those with SEND, know and can do. Consequently, pupils learn the curriculum well.

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

The school’s high ambition is reflected in what it expects pupils to learn across subjects. Nevertheless, some changes to the curriculum are newer, such as in history and geography. This means that pupils’ achievements remain more varied in some subjects compared to others, including in some areas of the early years. For example, pupils learn key facts about the past and can talk through key points in history in detail and with accuracy. However, although they use evidence to be historians themselves, they are less adept at recalling this important knowledge. This demonstrates that the newer parts of the curriculum need more time to embed before pupils’ learning is fully secure.

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

Pupils learn, and love, to read. Staff follow the school’s approach to teaching reading consistently and skilfully. Pupils practice reading with books that are well matched to the sounds they know. Staff identify quickly those pupils at risk of falling behind and provide targeted support. As a result, pupils learn to read quickly and well. The school uses a range of reading strategies effectively to make reading books meaningful. Staff are all passionate about reading. They make reading enticing and enjoyable. Collectively, this helps pupils develop good attitudes towards reading, as well as the ability to read effectively.

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

Pupils' wider development is promoted very well. Trips and visits are used whenever possible to enrich and enhance pupils’ learning. This promotes pupils’ physical and mental wellbeing. Pupils learn positive attitudes to being healthy. They enjoy physical education, the games they can play and the well-being that the school promotes through outdoor 4 March 2025

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learning on the extensive grounds available to them. Pupils learn to celebrate diversity. They understand how fundamental British values link to the school’s values and what they learn in lessons.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Improvements to the curriculum need more time to embed in some subjects. This means that pupils’ learning is more secure in some subjects than others, because they know less of the intended curriculum in subjects that have been improved more recently. The school should continue to embed and refine the curriculum so that pupils know and remember more of the intended knowledge consistently across 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 second ungraded inspection since we judged the predecessor school, also called Leedstown Community Primary School, to be good for overall effectiveness in July 2013.

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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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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). 4 March 2025

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School details

Website www.leedstown.kernowlearning.co.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 29 October 2019, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 Leedstown Community Primary School is part of the Kernow Learning multi-academy trust.  Since the last inspection, there have been two changes in headship and most teaching staff are new to the school.  The school does not use alternative provision.  The school runs its own before- and after-school childcare provision.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school's education 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 their evaluation of the school. 4 March 2025

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 The inspector met with the headteacher and the former headteacher. He met with staff, including the special educational needs coordinator.  The inspector spoke to the CEO, deputy CEO and subject specialists from the trust.  The inspector looked at curriculum plans, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at a sample of pupils’ work.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspector: 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 inspector took account of the responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Ofsted Parent View, including the free-text responses. He also considered the responses to the Ofsted staff survey.  The inspector reviewed a range of documentation, including leaders’ self-evaluations,

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their plans for school improvement, information relating to pupils’ attendance and behaviour and documents relating to the school’s curriculum.

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Inspection team

Matthew Barnes, lead inspector His Majesty's Inspector 4 March 2025

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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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