Cotford St Luke Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 29 January 2025

Cotford St Luke is a friendly school. The school values encourage pupils to appreciate, believe and challenge. The school has raised its expectations of what pupils can achieve. Published outcomes are now broadly in line with national average for many areas of the curriculum. However, some pupils are not developing the necessary knowledge and skills they need to be successful in their next steps. Pupils feel happy at school and enjoy their learning. Parents and carers praise the care and nurture that staff provide to their child. In lessons, pupils listen well to staff and work positively with their peers. However, in less structured times, some pupils display challenging and disruptive behaviours. This also includes some children in the early years. Despite this, most pupils feel safe in school. Pupils benefit from a wide extra-curricular offer. This includes a range of clubs such as gymnastics, archery, chess and dodgeball. Pupils speak enthusiastically about trips and visits. For example, visiting a museum, going to the theatre to watch a pantomime or taking part in a residential trip. These broaden pupils' experiences and develop their independence. Older pupils are proud to take on roles of responsibility. Many are peer mediators or members of the school council.

What the school should improve

• Some teaching does not check pupils' understanding of the curriculum carefully enough. This results in staff not addressing gaps in pupils' knowledge before they move on to new concepts. The school should ensure that assessment is used effectively in all subjects and that leaders have sufficient oversight of the impact on pupils.
• Staff's expectations of behaviour are not consistent across the school. Incidents of challenging behaviour occur too often and are at times not dealt with appropriately. Therefore, some poor behaviour continues to disrupt school life. The school needs to embed its behaviour policy, and ensure it is fully understood by all stakeholders, so that standards of behaviour improve.
• Some of the school's record-keeping is not robust enough. Most significantly, the actions, decisions and outcomes of incidents around behaviour and safeguarding are not always recorded clearly. Governors do not currently have an accurate oversight of this. In addition, this information is not stored in an accessible and logical way. The school must work urgently to ensure that systems and processes are improved.
• Children in the Reception Year have limited access to meaningful activities in their outdoor provision. Therefore, they have less opportunity to develop their gross motor skills. The school should ensure that the outdoor provision is purposeful so children can develop the skills they need to support their development.
• Governors do not provide robust challenge to the school. They are not sufficiently assured about the impact of the school's work around safeguarding or on improving pupils' behaviour. Governors should ensure that they gather the necessary information to carry out their strategic work and challenge leaders effectively.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)