Slade Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school The headteacher has built a highly effective and cohesive leadership team. This exceptional leadership has led to significant improvements across the school over the last three years.

Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive excellent support. All staff understand these pupils' individual learning needs. Staff provide high-quality support to help pupils make strong progress.

The quality of teaching has improved rapidly and is now consistently good or better. However, on occasion, teachers do not challenge the most able pupils sufficiently, which limits their progress, especially in writing and mathematics. ...Disadvantaged pupils have previously underachieved.

These pupils now receive effective support which is helping them to make better progress. However, the most able disadvantaged pupils make less progress than other pupils. The early years provision is of a very high quality.

The excellent teaching enables children to make outstanding progress in all areas of the curriculum. Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is a significant strength of the school. Pupils are very considerate and show a high level of respect for all faiths and cultures.

The governors and multi-academy trust (MAT) provide leaders with excellent support, but also make sure that leaders are continuing to improve the school further. Published outcomes in 2018 show that some pupils made weak progress, especially in mathematics. However, the majority of pupils in school now make strong progress in reading, writing and mathematics from their different starting points.

Pupils' behaviour is excellent. They are polite and respectful and show a true desire to learn. The pastoral care for pupils is exceptional and staff ensure that pupils' well-being is always a high priority.

This helps pupils to have very positive experiences in school. Leaders have developed a rich and broad curriculum. Pupils show a great interest in the topics they learn about.

However, leaders do not yet have a precise enough overview of how well pupils achieve in subjects other than reading, writing, mathematics and science. While the majority of pupils make strong progress in writing, teachers do not address basic mistakes in grammar, punctuation and spelling, so pupils repeat mistakes. Some work is also poorly presented.

This does not enable pupils to make as much progress as they could.

Information about this school

Over the last three years there have been a number of staffing changes. A new headteacher was appointed in June 2015.

Slade primary is a larger-than-average-sized school. The school is part of the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership MAT and is governed by the board of trustees. A local governing body is in place to hold leaders to account and this governing body reports to a hub governing body.

The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is above average. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is above average. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is above the national average.

The proportion of pupils with SEND is similar to the national average. The number of pupils who have an education, health and care plan is below the national average. A breakfast club is provided for the pupils.