OFSTED
View our latest OFSTED report on the OFSTED website »
OFSTED Actions
In their report, Ofsted said that ‘this is a good school which serves its community well. Its outstanding care and support places a high priority on enhancing pupils’ self-esteem and raising achievement.
The report states that ‘accurate assessment procedures support successful teaching, which engages pupils and motivates them with creative and imaginative activities.’
‘Pupils are progressing well in lessons that are, typically, pitched at the right level and hold their interest.’
Commenting on the curriculum, they wrote that ‘Topics, such as those that encourage imaginative writing and link different subjects, successfully capture pupils’ interest and grab their attention.’
They stated there were two areas we could improve further:
To improve further they have stated:
To ensure teaching is consistently good or better by always providing challenging tasks that are pitched at the right level, particularly for the more-able pupils.
What is a challenging task?
It is not just: bigger numbers / more writing / longer words / more subject specific knowledge
It should also be: learning from failure / self learning / knowledge and skills applied in a variety of contexts to achieve different results / academic and/or social learning / engaging and meaningful
What are we doing?
- Building upon the good teaching and learning by developing specific challenging task for all abilities.
- Developing strategies for the children that learning is often about getting it wrong the first time.
- Continuing to produce carefully differentiated well planned lessons, which allow adults to provide a greater level of challenge to specific groups.
- Consider even more creative ways to use adults allowing more focussed teaching. For example if one ability is being challenged by an adult this allows the teacher to provide a greater level of challenge for other ability groups.
- By providing ongoing professional development for teachers to explore current thinking. For example: working with advisors to investigate different levels of questioning.
- Impact noted by OFSTED who observed the ‘Use of incisive questioning’
What can you do?
- Talk to your child about their learning
- Question your child about their understanding
- Encourage their inner desire for knowledge and understanding
- Learn alongside them. Something new that you can all learn together.
To improve further Ofsted have stated:
The school needs to extend the strategy for promoting community cohesion by:
- Ensuring that these are included in planning when linking subjects
- Creating more opportunities for pupils to appreciate and value people from communities in this country and around the world.
What is community cohesion?
By community cohesion, we mean working towards a society in which there is a common vision and sense of belonging by all communities; a society in which the diversity of people’s backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and valued; a society in which similar life opportunities are available to all; and a society in which strong and positive relationships exist and continue to be developed in the workplace, in schools and in the wider community.
Community from a school’s perspective
For schools, the term ‘community’ has a number of dimensions including:
- the school community – the children and young people it serves, their parents, carers and families, the school’s staff and governing body, and community users of the school’s facilities and services
- the community within which the school is located – the school in its geographical community and the people who live or work in that area. This applies not just to the immediate neighbourhood but also to the city or local authority area within which a school is located
- the UK community – all schools are, by definition, part of this community
- the global community – formed by EU and international links.’
What are we doing?
- Creating a yearly calendar of events with sustainable activities
- The use of the Newsboard, which highlights current news stories locally, nationally and internationally.
- Developing curriculum links with other schools in this country and beyond, e.g links with a school in India as part of the topic on India.
What can you do?
- Talk to your child about the local area and its history. Improve their understanding of where they live.
- Watch the news with your child (e.g Newsround)
- Have maps and globes at home and spend time looking at them.
- Use holidays abroad and in this country to look at local customs, geography, languages, currency, weather etc. Things that are similar and different to your home location.