Powell’s Church of England Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is an outstanding school. The headteacher provides exceptional and inspired leadership. Her high aspirations for the school are shared by senior leaders, staff, members of the governing body, and parents and carers.

Together, they are all totally dedicated to achieving their vision of 'Inspiring Individual Excellence' and to making sure that the school gets even better every year. Pupils' achievement is outstanding. They make excellent progress in reading, writing and mathematics throughout the school.

The great majority of teaching is outstanding. It caters extremely well for all groups of pupils, including those with special educational needs and those ...who are gifted and talented. The school's outstanding provision for pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development underpins pupils' exemplary attitudes to learning and their impeccable behaviour.

Pupils emphatically say there is no bullying and incidents of unacceptable behaviour are extremely rare. Reception children make excellent progress because staff are highly skilled at seeing they are happy, very well cared for and that they enjoy just the right balance of work and play activities. The governing body has exceptionally good knowledge of how well the school is performing, and the high quality of teaching and learning.

It challenges the leadership robustly while offering unstinting support, enthusiasm and commitment to its work. The highly imaginative and stimulating way that subjects and topics are taught successfully meets the interests and needs of all pupils. The school not only stretches all pupils academically, but also across a wide range of exciting activities such as mock-trial competitions and performing arts.

Pupils feel extremely safe at school and clearly enjoy all aspects of school life, as shown by their exceptionally high attendance.

Information about this school

Powell's is much larger than most primary schools. It serves the town of Cirencester and also admits some pupils from the surrounding villages.

The school is consistently oversubscribed and all classes have waiting lists. There are 14 classes in the school, with two classes in each year group. Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage are taught in the two Reception classes.

The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action is lower than most other schools, as is the proportion of pupils supported at school action or with a statement of special educational needs. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium (additional government funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals, children who are looked after by the local authority and the children of service families) is lower than average. The very small proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language are bilingual and no pupil is at an early stage of speaking English.

The school meets the government's current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress. Powell's has close links with the Diocesan Board for Education and the local parish church. It was very recently judged to be outstanding in all areas in its February 2013 'Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools Report.'

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