Buildwas Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school The leadership team has a detailed knowledge of the school's strengths and areas for improvement. The team evaluates the school's performance accurately and constantly seeks ways to bring about further improvement.

Leaders are determined that all pupils will have a positive experience of school. Their vision that provision will meet the individual needs of all pupils is shared by staff at the school. As a result, most pupils make good progress in a variety of subjects across the curriculum.

Governors are strongly committed to the school and improving provision for its pupils. They carry out their roles with professionalism and provide eff...ective challenge and support for leaders. They ensure that safeguarding is effective.

Leaders have brought about significant improvement to the quality of teaching. As a result, teaching across the school is typically good. Teachers have secure subject knowledge in all areas of the curriculum and use this to plan lessons that meet most pupils' needs.

Occasionally, in mathematics, the most able pupils complete work they find too easy before they tackle more challenging tasks. This means that some pupils do not make the progress of which they are capable. Teachers ensure that pupils acquire a good understanding of grammar, punctuation and spelling rules.

Pupils have opportunities to apply their knowledge in writing tasks in a variety of subjects across the curriculum. However, in some year groups, teachers' expectation of the amount of writing pupils can produce is too low. Children in the early years make good progress throughout the year.

They enjoy coming to school because they are interested in their learning and because they are well looked after. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive high-quality support based on their individual needs. As a result, this group of pupils make strong progress from their starting points.

Leaders have planned a broad and balanced curriculum that builds subject-specific knowledge and skills through each key stage. However, in some year groups and in some subjects the most able pupils are not provided with sufficient challenge. Pupils behave well and have positive attitudes to learning.

Relationships between pupils of all ages are good. Older pupils are very nurturing towards others in lower year groups.

Information about this school

Buildwas school converted to become an academy 1st February 2016.

When its predecessor school, Buildwas Primary School, was last inspected by Ofsted it was judged to be inadequate. It is one of two academies that are part of the Priorslee Multi-Academy Trust (MAT). The executive principal leads both schools in the trust.

There is also an executive assistant principal at Buildwas. The MAT has a board of trustees and each school has its own advisory board which includes members of the trust. The advisory board reports directly to the trust board.

The trustees, through the scheme of delegation and funding agreement with the Department for Education, has oversight of the academies within the trust. The trust board has direct responsibility for the management and devolvement of governance, finance and human resources for both schools. This is a smaller-than-average-sized primary school.

The vast majority of pupils are White British. The proportion of pupils with SEND is above the national average. The proportion of pupils who are disadvantaged and eligible for the pupil premium is below the national average.