Boddington Church of England Primary Academy

Boddington Church of England Primary Academy

Address: Church Road, Upper Boddington, Daventry, Northamptonshire, NN11 6DL Unique reference number (URN): 140056

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, pupils are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect schools for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The school has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. All legal requirements are met. Not met: The school has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Attendance and behaviour Expected standard

Pupils enjoy school, and their rates of attendance are high. Leaders keep a close eye on pupils’ absence from school. They take prompt action when there is a concern, providing helpful support when necessary to make swift improvements. As a result, rates of persistent absence are consistently below average. Parents and carers are supportive of the school’s work to promote regular and punctual attendance.

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Attendance and behaviour Expected standard

Pupils’ positive behaviour and attitudes are a strength of the school and rarely falter. Leaders and staff hold high expectations for behaviour, which pupils meet routinely due to the warm and respectful relationships they have with staff. Pupils treat both adults and their peers with courtesy and respect. As a result, incidents of poor behaviour, bullying or discrimination are rare. When issues do arise, leaders and staff respond swiftly and effectively to prevent them from recurring. In spite of periods of turbulence within the school, staff maintain a consistent and calm approach to managing pupils’ behaviour. They provide clear routines to support pupils effectively. Generally, staff adapt their approaches instinctively to support pupils who find it difficult to manage their emotions. On occasion, this support is inconsistent because expectations and strategies are not clearly defined in pupils’

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The importance of pupils’ personal development and wellbeing is woven into the fabric of the school. The school’s values of respect, courage and service, for example, underpin the personal development programme, and pupils are keen to demonstrate these.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education curriculum has a coherent order of what staff will teach and when. Staff adapt their teaching of PSHE and relationships to suit the mixed-age classes. This ensures that pupils learn in an age-appropriate way about healthy relationships and how to keep themselves safe. Pupils know about road and water safety and how to stay safe online. They can talk about ways to stay physically and mentally healthy too. They enjoy celebrating events such as ‘World Mental Health Day’, which remind them to speak to a trusted adult about any worry or concern. The school provides pupils with helpful pastoral support. Some vulnerable pupils have access to a counsellor to learn techniques to manage their emotions.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The school prepares pupils well for life in modern Britain. Pupils recognise the importance of treating people equally and understand how discrimination can occur. They show a secure understanding of right and wrong. While pupils’ knowledge of different religions and cultures is less secure, they are respectful of different viewpoints. Pupils develop an age-appropriate understanding of fundamental British values and apply these in school. For example, they lobby and vote for the school council and head pupil roles. Pupils learn well about personal responsibility and active citizenship. Older pupils commit responsibly to roles such as helping to clear the hall at lunchtime or acting as play leaders on the playground.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The school’s wider enrichment programme, which includes trips, forest school, sporting tournaments, musical instrument lessons and a range of clubs, engages most pupils.

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Needs attention

Leaders work proactively to identify and remove potential barriers to taking part, ensuring that all pupils can benefit.

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Achievement Needs attention

The school does not prepare some pupils sufficiently well for their next steps in learning. Weaknesses in both the design and delivery of the curriculum result in pupils making uneven progress over time. Pupils’ acquisition of essential knowledge is more secure in some areas than in others. Recent improvements mean that younger pupils now develop their phonics knowledge more securely, providing the foundations for fluent reading. Gaps in this knowledge are closing more swiftly. Pupils are increasingly confident in their arithmetic skills. Sometimes however, they do not have the necessary knowledge to build a secure understanding of broader mathematical concepts. Due to there being small cohorts, there is no recent published data to explain how well pupils achieve.

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Achievement Needs attention

Similar inconsistencies are evident across the curriculum. Pupils acquire knowledge of individual topics, and their work reflects this learning. However, the security of their understanding varies considerably between year groups and depends on pupils’ prior experience of the curriculum. Misconceptions or gaps in pupils' knowledge persist. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities experience the same inconsistencies, and poorly matched support plans further limit their progress.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

The curriculum, which leaders introduced following the last inspection, does not consider well enough the needs of the school’s mixed-age classes. The design of the curriculum does not enable pupils to build successively on their knowledge over time in all subjects. Leaders recognise this and plan to review the curriculum.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

Inconsistencies in the delivery of the curriculum are partly rooted in weaknesses in its design. Staff attempt to adapt the design and learning activities to address this. However, these adaptations do not take sufficient account of pupils’ age-related needs or their starting points. This means pupils sometimes lack the prior knowledge that they need to build new learning securely. Leaders have not ensured that staff check pupils’ knowledge and understanding with enough rigour. Consequently, staff do not identify and address misconceptions or gaps in pupils’ knowledge in a timely manner. Staff make adaptations for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, but typically these adaptations do not match precisely these pupils’ specific needs.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

The curriculum prioritises the key foundations of reading, writing and mathematics. The sequences of knowledge that staff follow for these subjects are more suitable. Leaders recently trained staff to improve the delivery of the phonics programme. Staff identify pupils who need extra help with their reading and largely provide effective support.

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Early years Needs attention

The curriculum and teaching across the early years is too inconsistent. As a result, children are not as well prepared as they should be for their next stages of learning. Recently, leaders began to redesign the early years curriculum to define more clearly what children will learn at different stages of their development. While the curriculum is ambitious and covers all areas of early learning, the design is not complete and is imprecise in some places.

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Early years Needs attention

Recently, leaders have redeveloped the learning environment to support all areas of children’s development through a proportionate emphasis on play. In the pre-school, children enjoy a range of activities, such as mixing colours in the outdoor kitchen. In Reception Year, children engage in topical role-play areas. Sometimes however, it is not clear what children should learn in the activities that staff provide. Additionally, staff do not engage children through high-quality talk or check their learning consistently well.

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Early years Needs attention

Staff build positive relationships with children. Children enjoy coming together to sing songs and rhymes after snack time, promoting their language and communication. From the start of Reception Year, children learn to read using phonics. Following recent training, staff generally teach phonics well. They encourage children to use this knowledge when they write.

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Inclusion Needs attention

Leaders do not ensure that pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) get precisely the support they need to overcome barriers to their learning. Recently, leaders improved how they ensure they identify pupils’ needs promptly and accurately. These new ways of working are still being established. The targets set for pupils with SEND in their individual support plans are not specific enough to support their access to the curriculum and their continued progress. Targets that staff set do not consider the breadth of needs identified for pupils with education, health and care plans. This is because staff receive insufficient training and guidance in devising suitable targets or in using them to make adaptations to the support for pupils' needs. Leaders do not check sufficiently the quality of support that pupils with SEND receive or its impact when reviewing support plans.

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Inclusion Needs attention

Leaders work closely with parents and carers to develop the school's understanding of the barriers that pupils face. They also engage with external agencies to gain appropriate expertise and guidance when identifying and assessing pupils’ needs.

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Inclusion Needs attention

The school has a clear, thought-out approach to identify and address the barriers that disadvantaged pupils encounter. Extra funding is used effectively to strengthen phonics provision, supporting disadvantaged pupils’ academic progress. Additionally, the funding is used well to enhance pupils’ personal development by enabling full access to enrichment opportunities.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

While leaders focus on broadly the right areas, their actions to make improvements lack precision and, subsequently, impact. Additionally, leaders at all levels do not monitor the school’s work closely enough. Therefore, they do not identify weaknesses quickly enough or where policies and approaches are not implemented as intended.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

The school has experienced a significant period of turbulence. The considerable changes in leadership and staffing have slowed the pace of improvement. Those responsible for governance have put support in place to overcome the challenges, leading to recent improvements in the early years, for example. They fulfil their statutory duties and have a clearer strategic view for the school. In the best interests of pupils, trustees recognise the need to make more sustained improvements. Accordingly, they have embarked on a process to transfer the school to a new trust to strengthen governance, leadership and the school's journey of improvement.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

The professional learning programme for staff has been limited. Recently however, leaders have considered carefully the training that staff need, such as in phonics. With the support of the new trust, there is a clear plan to ensure staff receive more regular high-quality training. Despite the considerable turbulence, staff feel that leaders consider their wellbeing and appreciate the recent improvements in communication and support.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

Leaders and trustees value the engagement of parents and carers. Largely, parents have confidence in the care and education their child receives. Like staff, they feel informed and assured by the imminent changes.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils are happy and secure. They enjoy school and their attendance is high. The school community welcomes new pupils enthusiastically, so they settle quickly into school life. Pupils benefit from warm, respectful relationships across the school and receive nurturing care from staff. However, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities do not consistently receive the right support to thrive.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils behave very well. They understand the school’s routines and follow them consistently, thus benefiting from a calm and orderly environment. Through high expectations, pupils grow to work independently and diligently in lessons. Playtimes are harmonious, and bullying or unkind behaviour is rare.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils work hard, but they do not achieve as well as they should. This is due to weak curriculum design, hampering how well staff can teach it. Additionally, pupils have gaps and misconceptions in their knowledge, which staff do not identify and address quickly enough. The progress children make in the early years is varied because staff do not consistently move children’s learning on through high-quality talk. Leaders made improvements recently, but some of this work is still in the early stages of being established.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

The school has experienced a turbulent time, which has hindered improvement in pupils’ achievement. Leaders and those responsible for governance do not act precisely in the right areas but are taking more pivotal actions now. The school is embarking on a new journey of improvement to ensure all pupils achieve as highly as possible.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils benefit from a range of opportunities that broaden their experiences and support their personal development well. Furthering their sense of personal responsibility, pupils enjoy contributing to the school community through nominated roles. Pupils value how leaders listen to their collective voice. School council members take pride in making a difference, such as by helping the school to introduce a wildlife garden and expand the extra-curricular clubs on offer.

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Next steps

Leaders should ensure the curriculum is suitable and coherently sequenced for all subjects and for the early years, enabling pupils in all year groups to build knowledge successfully and consistently over time. Leaders should ensure that staff check pupils’ learning systematically and use assessment effectively to adapt their delivery of the curriculum and address gaps and misconceptions in pupils’ knowledge. Leaders should ensure that the delivery of the early years provision, including through high-quality interactions and the use of assessment, is consistently effective. Leaders should ensure that the individual support plans and targets for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities are suitable, covering the breadth of these pupils' needs. They should support staff to use the plans and targets effectively to inform the support they provide. Leaders and governance should ensure that their actions to make improvements are

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Next steps

precise. They should ensure that their processes for checking the deployment of improvement plans and the school’s work are robust, ensuring that staff implement actions and intentions consistently, while identifying any weakness quickly.

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About this inspection

This school is part of Evolve Church Academy Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the interim chief executive officer (CEO), David Rosevear, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Karen Falvey.

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About this inspection

Inspectors carried out this full inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMIs) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

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About this inspection

Inspectors spoke with the interim executive headteacher and trust leaders. They also spoke with leaders about their oversight of the school’s work in a particular aspect, such as

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Lead inspector:

Claire Stylianides, His Majesty's Inspector

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This was the data available at the time of the full inspection, taken from different sources . More recent data may have been published since the full inspection took place.

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Facts and figures used on inspection

The inspector(s) used this data during the full inspection on 28 April 2026

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils currently at this school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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70

The lead inspector met with members of the board of trustees and representatives of the local governing body. The lead inspector also met with the CEO.

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70

The inspectors confirmed the following information about the school:

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70

The interim executive headteacher took up her post in January 2026.

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70

The school currently uses no alternative provision.

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70

Interim Headteacher: Janet Robinson Well below average

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils who can attend the school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan. This covers pupils with more support than is available through special educational needs support.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with reported special educational needs support at the school.

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What does this mean?

Based on the English indices of deprivation (2019) and the school's location, we have calculated whether the school is located in a more or less deprived area.

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What does this mean?

Whether school has Resourced provision or SEND unit (if applicable).

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standards in a combined reading, writing and mathematics measure.

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading.

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing.

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics.

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average

2022/23 (final) 78% 73% Close to average

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average

‘S’ in the table above indicates the data has been suppressed, which is usually due to small cohorts. The suppression rules applied by the DfE when publishing the data have been mirrored and applied in the report card.

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Disadvantaged pupils' performance

Disadvantaged pupils are those who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years and children looked after.

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mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher- assessed writing.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics.

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average

‘S’ in the table above indicates the data has been suppressed, which is usually due to small cohorts. The suppression rules applied by the DfE when publishing the data have been mirrored and applied in the report card.

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Disadvantaged pupils' performance gap

Disadvantaged pupils are those who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years and children looked after. The school disadvantage gap is the difference between the performance of the school's disadvantaged pupils compared to the performance of all non-disadvantaged pupils nationally.

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mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics, including the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading and the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher- assessed writing and the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics and the disadvantaged gap.

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average

‘S’ in the table above indicates the data has been suppressed, which is usually due to small cohorts. The suppression rules applied by the DfE when publishing the data have been mirrored and applied in the report card.

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Overall absence

The percentage of all possible mornings and afternoons missed due to absence from school (for whatever reason, whether authorised or unauthorised) across all pupils.

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Persistent absence

The percentage of pupils missing 10% or more of their possible mornings and afternoons.

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national average

2022/23 (3 term) 17.0% 16.2% Close to average

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other schools can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The school reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The school is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The school needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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