Petersfield CofE Aided Primary School

Inspection of a school judged good for overall effectiveness before September 2024: Petersfield CofE Aided Primary School Hurdleditch Road, Orwell, Royston, Hertfordshire SG8 5QG

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Outcome

Petersfield CofE Aided 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?

The school sits at the heart of the village communities it serves. Pupils arrive with smiles on their faces. They value the kind and welcoming environment created by staff. As a result, pupils feel safe and happy.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The curriculum is broad and ambitious and offers pupils exciting learning opportunities. Pupils are benefiting from the improved curriculum put in place since the previous inspection. They enjoy sharing the knowledge they are learning more successfully as a result of these changes.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils meet the school’s behaviour expectations. They move around the school safely and considerately. Pupils know the school rules and follow them consistently. Equally, they recognise the importance of the school’s values in guiding them to make the right choices. This makes classrooms calm, orderly and cohesive.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are able to fulfil the school vision to ‘live life to the full’. They enrich their learning in the curriculum through trips to museums and places of worship. Pupils compete in sporting events and musical concerts, developing their wider talents and interests. School councillors gain self-confidence and leadership skills. Specific roles such as being the health and safety lead mean pupils contribute meaningfully to making their school a safe and positive environment.

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

Children get off to a strong start in the early years. They learn key skills such as how to 23 April 2025

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form letters correctly and how to recognise numbers. Children develop positive attitudes to learning and learn the routines and expectations of school quickly.

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Reading is a priority. Children begin the phonics programme as soon as they start in the Reception Year. Pupils who find reading more challenging receive the right support, which helps them to catch up quickly. Pupils become increasingly confident in decoding and blending words. As a result, pupils become fluent readers over time.

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The school’s English and mathematics curriculum has been developed significantly since the previous inspection. The school has adopted agreed approaches to the teaching of these subjects. Typically, this makes lessons effective and supports pupils in building on what they already know. Teaching strategies, such as daily fluency tasks in mathematics, support pupils to revisit prior learning and remember key knowledge precisely. As a result, pupils achieve well in English, mathematics and science. Occasionally, inconsistencies remain in the implementation of the curriculum. For example, sometimes staff’s explanations and chosen activities do not help pupils learn new knowledge as well as they should.

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The school has introduced more effective approaches to teaching the wider curriculum. These are helping many pupils remember new knowledge well in most subjects. However, this is not consistently the case in all subjects, and some pupils do not learn parts of the curriculum as well as they could. In these subjects, the school has not yet fully considered the needs of different pupils. These pupils do not always build their knowledge consistently over time.

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The school supports pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) well. It identifies these pupils’ needs quickly. Staff make some successful adaptations to learning. For example, in mathematics, some pupils attend pre-learning sessions, which introduce them to new knowledge before their peers. These approaches enable pupils with SEND to achieve.

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The school has high expectations of behaviour. Staff manage behaviour consistently well. This creates an atmosphere where pupils listen attentively to adults and classmates alike and work hard in lessons.

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Through personal, social, health and economic education, pupils learn deeply about relationships, cultures and faiths. Pupils are highly respectful of each other and people’s differences. Staff teach pupils how to stay healthy, both mentally and physically. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe, including online. The school has a wide programme of events to enrich the curriculum, including fundraising projects, performances and careers events. Staff prepare pupils well for life in modern Britain.

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Governors provide effective and robust oversight of the school. They hold leaders to account and are accurate in their identification of school priorities. Staff enjoy working at the school because the school promotes teamwork, staff well-being and ongoing professional development effectively. 23 April 2025

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Occasionally, staff’s explanations and the tasks they give pupils are not linked closely enough to what they want pupils to learn. When this happens, pupils do not retain the key knowledge that is intended in some subjects. The school should ensure staff present new information and give pupils tasks that consistently help them to remember key knowledge across subjects.  In some subjects, the school has not yet fully embedded its new approaches to teaching the wider curriculum. As a result, some pupils’ needs are not consistently met, and they do not build or retain knowledge as securely as they could. The school should ensure the recent improvements to the wider curriculum are implemented consistently across all subjects, so all pupils can build and retain knowledge securely over time.

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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 overall effectiveness in February 2020.

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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 23 April 2025

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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). 23 April 2025

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Chair of governing body Linda Meredith and Jane Johnson (Joint chairs) Headteacher Laura Penrose and Lynsey Perkins (Co- headteachers) Website www.petersfield.cambs.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 4 February 2020, under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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Information about this school

 This is a Church of England school in the Diocese of Ely. The last section 48 inspection of the school’s religious character took place in September 2023.  The school does not make use of alternative 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. Inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  During the inspection, inspectors met with the co-headteachers, subject leaders and teachers. They also met with a group of governors and spoke with a representative from the local authority.  The inspectors visited a sample of lessons in a range of subjects, spoke with pupils 23 April 2025

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about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work.  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’ interest first.  The inspectors considered the views of parents through responses to the online survey, Ofsted Parent View.  The inspectors gathered the views of pupils and staff through Ofsted’s pupil and staff surveys, as well as discussions conducted throughout the inspection.

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Inspection team

Jonny Wallace, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Shelley Desborough Ofsted Inspector 23 April 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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