Leighton C.P. School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Leighton Community Primary is a welcoming school where pupils and their families are supported and nurtured. Leaders, including governors, have positive working relationships with the whole-school community and place a high priority on developing well-being. However, leaders do not evaluate the school's work robustly enough and as a result they do not always address important areas in need of improvement.

Staff have close working relationships with all pupils. They provide an engaging environment for pupils, which includes well-planned indoor and outdoor areas. Teachers plan a broadly suitable curriculum, which includes a range of experiences, including opportunities to enable pupils to develop an understanding of their community a...nd what it means to be Welsh.

However, teaching does not always engage all pupils successfully, and teachers do not always plan well enough to improve pupils' writing, numeracy and digital skills. Most pupils are respectful towards staff and show courtesy to each other. Many work hard and have a positive attitude towards learning, although a few do not always listen attentively.

The majority of pupils develop their literacy and numeracy skills suitably, but generally the pace of teaching does not challenge all pupils well enough. As a result, pupils' progress as they move through the fluctuates too much and many do not achieve their full potential. The school's systems for safeguarding pupils are not robust enough and there are important shortcomings in the school's culture of safeguarding.

Recommendations R1 Address the safeguarding concerns identified during the inspection R2 Improve leadership and self-evaluation in order to identify and address areas for improvement more accurately and promptly R3 Improve the pace and challenge of teaching R4 Improve pupils' progress within and across year groups, particularly their digital and numeracy skills across the curriculum What happens next In accordance with the Education Act 2005, HMCI is of the opinion that this school is in need of significant improvement. The school will draw up an action plan to show how it is going to address the recommendations. Estyn will monitor the school's progress about 12 months after the publication of this report.