Kingsclere primary school's glowing Ofsted

Pupils' outstanding behaviour praised

Staff and pupils at Kingsclere Primary School have been celebrating after the school received a ‘good’ Ofsted marking.

A huge focus on teaching, along with strong leadership, saw the 232-pupil school improve to a grade 2 following a two-day Ofsted inspection in February.

The school was dealt a grade 3 (requires improvement) rating by inspectors when they visited in February last year.

This time, pupil’s behaviour was marked as outstanding (grade 1), as was school safety, with inspectors noting that pupils’ conduct in lessons and around the school was ‘excellent’, as they frequently displayed outstanding attitudes to learning, listened carefully in class and applied themselves well to tasks.

Good teaching enabled pupils to learn well, with work planned by teachers at the right level and accurate plans were made of pupils’ future learning, along with a focus on specific vocabulary and grammar, especially in literacy and numeracy lessons.

As a result, pupils’ achievement was good, as was progress in reading, writing and mathematics at Key Stages 1 and 2.

The most able pupils were achieving well, while progress of disabled and special needs pupils was also good.

Headteacher Steve Wells was praised for his strong leadership, and he was well supported by the deputy headteacher Harriet Spencer-Healey.

In addition, the school’s curriculum was said to be well adapted to meet pupils’ needs, with a good range of visits, visitors and musical activities.

Early years provision, however, was found to still require improvement.

Inspectors noted that the early years and Key Stage 1 leader was fairly new to the role, with planning and staff involvement with the children not ensuring that work matched children’s abilities or challenging them sufficiently.

Early years teachers did not provide sufficient opportunities for pupils to write in different subjects, or for problem solving and mathematical investigations.

Before writing the report, Ofsted inspectors observed 18 lessons, or part lessons, held meetings with two groups of pupils, the chair of the governing body and five other governors, headteacher, senior staff and a local authority officer.

Inspectors also took into account 70 responses to an online parent view survey.

They also spoke to several parents and considered responses to 20 staff questionnaires.

Documents looked at included the school’s information on pupil progress, planning and checks on teaching quality, assessment of a new curriculum, the school’s self-evaluation, records relating to behaviour and attendance, the sports premium action plan and documents relating to safeguarding.