Beswick and Watton CofE (VC) School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Key Findings

Beswick and Watton is a good school where leaders are passionate about making improvements. This ensures that all staff have a consistent approach to raising standards.

Parents and carers are extremely positive about the standard of education their children receive. Achievement is good. Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage make a good start to their education and quickly become confident and inquisitive.

Good assessment ensures that the next steps in learning are clearly identified so that children make good progress in learning letters and sounds. By the end of Year 2, pupils read well. Pupils make at least good progress from generally below average starting points.

Attainmen...t has been broadly average in reading, writing and mathematics for a number of years. Standards in Year 6 are currently above average in reading and writing but average in mathematics. Teaching is good overall, with some that is outstanding.

Work is matched well to pupils' abilities and teachers use a wide variety of strategies to engage pupils and promote learning. In mathematics, teachers' questions do not always develop pupils' thinking skills and pupils are not always challenged to use and apply what they have learnt. Behaviour is good.

Pupils clearly understand how to keep themselves safe and have full confidence in their teachers to deal with the rare instances of bullying that occur. Attendance has greatly improved since the last inspection. The federation with another small school has made a seamless contribution to effective leadership and management.

Staff regularly teach in both schools and this promotes the sharing of good practice. The information gained from rigorous monitoring ensures that leaders and the governing body clearly know the strengths of the school and areas to develop. These are reflected in astute strategic plans.

The curriculum promotes good spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The school is well placed to improve further.

Information about the school

This is a smaller than average-sized primary school.

Its pupils are all from White British backgrounds. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is below average. The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, including those with statements of special educational needs, is below average.

Most of these pupils have moderate learning difficulties. The school meets the current floor standard. The headteacher retired last term and a new headteacher will take over the leadership of the school at the beginning of the summer term 2012.

The proportion of pupils who join and leave the school at other than the usual times is high. The school is in a hard federation with another school, which means the two schools have the same governing body. It has gained a number of awards including Healthy School Status.

Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms