Sandling Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Key findings

Sandling Primary is a good school. Leaders, including the governing body, have high aspirations for the pupils.

The school has maintained levels of attainment in English and mathematics at the end of Years 2 and 6 that are significantly above average. Parents and carers have considerable confidence in the work of the school, with almost all indicating that they would recommend it to others. The quality of teaching and achievement, although good, remain the key priorities for improvement in the drive to make the school outstanding in the future.

Children are helped to make a strong start in the Early Years Foundation Stage and from this point they make good overall progress as they move through... the school. Achievement overall is good, although sometimes a little uneven within a few of the year groups. In addition, leaders are working to ensure that disabled pupils and those with special educational needs make as consistently good progress in all areas of learning as their peers, particularly in reading.

As a result of good teaching, pupils enjoy learning, work hard and achieve well. The school is correctly focused on making more teaching outstanding. Although teaching of basic skills is good, with some interesting links with different subjects of the curriculum, there remain improvement areas linked to reading, writing and mathematics in order to ensure that all pupils achieve exceptionally well.

Pupils enjoy school and show positive attitudes to learning. Their behaviour in class and around school is often exemplary. However, overall behaviour and being safe are good.

This is because parents, carers and pupils noted that although pupils are safe at school, there have been some instances of bullying. Inspectors confirm that bullying is taken seriously by school leaders. The effective leadership team are fully focused on improving further the teaching and pupils' progress in reading, writing and mathematics and are aware of what requires improving.

Leaders' perceptive self-evaluation, together with good monitoring of teachers' performance, successfully underpins the school's on-going improvement.

Information about the school

This school is larger than the average-sized primary school. Early Years Foundation Stage children work in two adjoining Reception classes.

Almost all pupils come from White British backgrounds, although a few pupils are from Asian, European or Black African heritages. A few pupils speak English as an additional language. The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is below average.

The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals, although increasing, is much lower than average. The school meets the government's current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress. The school has several awards, including effective financial management and the Healthy Schools award.

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