Silchester Primary School's glowing Ofsted

'Good' overall grade sustained since 2010

SILCHESTER Primary School has secured a ‘good’ Ofsted rating in a report following an inspection made earlier this year – retaining the grade given to the school five years ago.

The 189-pupil primary school, in School Lane, was given an overall good (Grade 2) marking by Ofsted inspectors, in the recent report, with leadership and management, behaviour and safety of pupils, quality of teaching, achievement of pupils and early years provision all marked ‘good’.

The school has sustained the same marking since the last Ofsted report was published in January 2010.

Teaching was found to be “consistently good”, with teachers having a good understanding of pupils’ needs and abilities and providing them with consistently helpful written guidance.

Pupils attained high results in reading and mathematics at the end of Key stages 1 and 2 in 2014.

Their results in writing were very high at the end of Key Stage 2 in 2014, but not as strong at the end of Key Stage 1.

The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure was “outstanding”, as was the school curriculum.

Senior leaders had high expectations of teachers and managed their performance well.

The headteacher made sure that staff understood where their teaching needed to develop and take action to improve it further.

Regarding early years provision, children entered the reception class with skills “more or less typical for their age” and made good progress across all areas of learning during their time there.

The report stated: “Their skills and abilities at the end of reception in 2014 were much higher than those typically expected of their age.

“Children share, work and play happily and co-operatively together. They are keen to learn and proud to show off their work.”

To improve further, pupils of all abilities, including the most able, should be given work containing consistently high levels of challenge and teachers should consistently check that all pupils remained focused on their work.

Subject leaders should increase their responsibilities for checking and improving the quality of teaching and the school development plan should reflect this.

Before compiling the report, inspectors observed nine lessons, along with playground and lunchtime behaviour and held discussions with pupils, two members of the governing body, the headteacher, other members of staff and a representative from the local authority.

Documents examined included attendance records and those relating to the monitoring of pupils’ learning and the quality of teaching.

The views of parents were taken into account through an online survey.