Freshwater & Yarmouth Church of England Aided Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Freshwater & Yarmouth Church of England Aided Primary School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils thrive at this welcoming school. Leaders have developed a 'conscious community' approach to encourage everyone to be the best that they can be. As a result, pupils learn to be respectful, develop resilience and build positive relationships.

This helps them to create a secure foundation for their next stage in education and future life.

Leaders and staff share high ambitions for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Pupils respond positively to these expectations and work hard.

One... pupil described how 'teachers inspire us!'. Consequently, pupils usually achieve well across the curriculum.

Pupils are polite and caring.

Staff explicitly teach them how to behave, including by discussing different emotions. This enables pupils to make good choices independently. They appreciate how staff care for them, and this builds their confidence.

Staff are quick to resolve worries that pupils may have. One pupil reflected, 'There is always a teacher who will listen.'

Pupils benefit from a broad range of leadership opportunities that help them to make a valuable contribution to the school.

For example, as learning leaders, pupils meet with governors to suggest school improvements, and peer mentors support younger pupils if they have a concern.

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

Leaders' work to promote pupils' wider development is a strength of the school. They plan opportunities to build pupils' knowledge and experiences of the world beyond the island, especially for those who are disadvantaged.

Pupils visit places in the local community, such as the library and the causeway, and benefit from routine trips to the mainland, including to Winchester Science Museum. Pupils appreciate singing with the dementia choir as they recognise what a positive impact it has for everyone involved. Staff use different scenarios to promote pupils' moral development.

Pupils are encouraged to discuss actions they might take in different situations and are guided to make sensible choices.

In Nursery, staff skilfully develop children's communication and language. Children are encouraged to broaden their vocabulary, and staff share rhymes and poems to improve children's speaking and listening skills.

This helps to prepare children well for learning phonics in Reception. Throughout the school, staff read books aloud to foster a love of stories and to deepen pupils' knowledge of the topics they are studying, such as Earth and space.

Leaders prioritise pupils' learning to read, so that they can access the rest of the curriculum.

From Reception onwards, staff follow the phonics scheme closely, which helps pupils to get off to a secure start in learning to read. Pupils read books that match the sounds they have learned. Weaker readers are given effective extra support to help them to keep up.

Staff swiftly check new pupils' reading to work out what additional help they might need.

The curriculum in other subjects is usually well developed. Leaders have identified and sequenced the most important content they intend pupils to learn.

This is typically well considered, but in a few subjects, some aspects need further refinement. For example, in mathematics, there is not yet sufficient emphasis on reasoning in all year groups.

Staff use secure subject knowledge and follow planning closely, which usually supports pupils to learn well.

For example, pupils have an impressive knowledge of the work of different artists. There is some variation, but teachers typically design tasks that help pupils to learn the curriculum effectively and that capture their interest. Staff recap previous lessons before moving on and break learning down into small chunks, which supports pupils' understanding and confidence.

Leaders have introduced careful checks to make sure that pupils learn the most important content, and staff use this information to adjust their teaching. Leaders are committed to swiftly identifying the needs of pupils with SEND. Staff carefully adapt their teaching so that they successfully provide bespoke provision to meet pupils' needs.

Leaders and staff have successfully merged two schools on one site into a positive and friendly community. However, some of the 2022 results were not as strong as they could have been. Leaders are focused on addressing this, but their identification of the most important tasks lacks precision to bring about the most important changes swiftly.

Staff overwhelmingly appreciate how leaders and governors consider their workload. They value how leaders listen and respond. Enthusiastic governors know the school very well.

They provide robust challenge and support to leaders for the benefit of pupils. The collaborative approach between everyone involved means that governors, staff and pupils are proud of this school.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders are diligent in their approach to safeguarding. They routinely provide high-quality training and thoroughly check that staff understand their responsibilities. Staff report concerns promptly, and leaders are tenacious in working with external agencies to get pupils the help that they need.

Leaders maintain a strong oversight of comprehensive record-keeping.

Pupils learn how to keep themselves safe in the community. Leaders prioritise teaching pupils about beach and water safety because of the island location.

Governors take firm action to assure themselves that safeguarding is effective. They check records and talk with staff and pupils, acting quickly to address any issues.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Leaders have not prioritised the most important actions to improve the school further.

This means that they have not been sufficiently focused on the key steps to address the variations in the quality of subject planning and implementation. Leaders and governors should ensure that they refine their thinking to prioritise the things that will make a difference to pupils' learning and closely check the impact of their actions.

Background

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

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 January 2013.

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