Tibberton Community Primary School and Early Years

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Tibberton Community Primary School and Early Years continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Tibberton Community Primary School is a caring environment with a strong community feel. Relationships between pupils, parents and teachers are strong and supportive.

All staff have high expectations. This helps pupils become keen and confident learners. Pupils are considerate about each other's well-being.

They understand each other's learning needs and how to support their peers.

Clear routines make the school a calm and purposeful place. Issues with behaviour are rare as a result.

Parents and pupils say that there is no bullying, but... are confident that staff would deal with it well if it occurred.

Pupils value the experiences offered to support their personal development and build their confidence. They enjoy clubs like Lego and choir and competing in events such as mountain biking.

They enjoy the whole-school plays they take part in. They value taking on responsibility, for example as reading ambassadors or members of the school council. They take these roles seriously and say their teachers support them to carry them out.

Pupils feel safe at school. Parents agree. Pupils understand how to keep themselves safe online.

They also learn how to look after their mental health.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

Leaders have created a well-designed curriculum. This identifies the knowledge that they want pupils to learn and revisit in later years.

This means learning builds on what pupils know. In history, for example, pupils revisit the concepts of monarchy and power in different contexts. Pupils can talk about the skills historians need to help them learn about history.

They also know how historians learn from artefacts. They understand how history is passed on as stories and that these can change over time, making them hard to interpret. Sometimes, however, pupils are not developing their knowledge in sufficient depth.

Leaders prioritise reading and pupils are keen readers as a result. All staff have good subject knowledge. Staff are well trained so that there is a consistent approach to reading and phonics lessons.

Teachers provide support if pupils fall behind and this helps them to catch up quickly. Pupils read books that help them to become fluent by practising the sounds they know. They enjoy the books teachers read to them.

Leaders have introduced ways to help pupils choose books that interest them. Pupils value the book reviews written by their peers.

Staff in the Nursery plan activities that help children get off to a strong start.

This prepares them well for Reception. All staff from Nursery upwards model the use of ambitious vocabulary effectively. For example, in Reception and Year 1, pupils use vocabulary such as 'orb' and 'sceptre'.

Teachers' and teacher partners' subject knowledge is strong across different subjects. This means staff explain things well. Teachers use questioning well.

They use assessment to plan to meet pupils' individual needs and provide the right support. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities are being well supported. This means they can follow the same curriculum as their peers and achieve success.

Pupils are keen to talk about their learning. They know and remember what they have learned across different subjects well. In reading, for example, Year 5 pupils can recall the books that were previously read to them.

In mathematics, Year 2 pupils can answer questions involving reasoning about money based on work from the previous year.

Leaders are aspirational for the school. New leaders have been quick to prioritise areas to improve and the impact of this is clear.

School staff and parents recognise this and support it. Subject leaders are passionate and knowledgeable about their subjects. This has been an area that leaders have been focusing on and the impact of this work is evident.

There is a high level of commitment from all staff. Staff feel well supported by leaders to manage their workload.

Governors use their expertise well to support and challenge leaders.

They have a clear understanding of the strengths and areas for development for the school.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders are committed to creating a culture of safeguarding.

They have robust processes in place that all staff understand and use. Leaders have strong systems to check that safeguarding is effective. All staff have had safeguarding training, including safer recruitment for key staff.

There are clear systems for identifying pupils at risk and getting multi-agency support for them. Leaders provide support for pupils and their families to help pupils to thrive.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The implementation of the curriculum in a few subjects does not enable pupils to deepen their knowledge and understanding sufficiently well.

This can impede their learning. Leaders need to ensure that the implementation of the curriculum helps pupils to acquire a rich and deep knowledge of what they are learning about.

Background

When we have judged good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good/outstanding.

This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in September 2012.