Lyne and Longcross CofE Aided Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 28 February 2024

Pupils and parents like the small 'village feel' of the school. The school is inclusive and ensures that all families are made to feel welcome within the school community. Staff in Nursery help children to settle in and begin building their confidence right from the start. Pupils in different year groups can get to know and support each other through the school's 'buddy' system. Pupils are friendly and welcoming. They told the inspector that if anyone new came to their school, everyone would want to be their friend. Pupils are confident in expressing their thoughts and feelings. They know they can talk to staff or use the 'talking trees' in their classrooms if they have a worry. The school has high expectations for all pupils' achievement. Pupils enjoy their learning and work hard to live up to the school's high expectations. As a result, most pupils achieve well. The achievement of a small number of pupils is not as strong as it could be, because not every pupil receives consistently effective support in reading. The school has an active 'junior leadership team'. Pupils enjoy the trips and enriching experiences the school provides. The school thinks carefully about how to provide increased opportunities for independence as pupils get older. For example, younger pupils enjoy the shorter overnight and residential trips, while Year 6 undertakes a longer stay, further from home.

What the school should improve

• A small number of pupils who have fallen behind in reading, including some pupils with SEND, do not receive fully effective support to catch up. While these pupils are carefully supported in class with their reading, they require more opportunities to plug gaps in their knowledge and understanding of the alphabetic code, and more opportunities to apply their knowledge to reading decodable books. The school should ensure that these pupils receive even sharper catch-up support, and more opportunities to practise their reading.
• In some subjects, the sequencing of some knowledge lacks clarity. As a result, learning lacks depth and pupils are not given enough opportunities to revisit and secure core knowledge. The school needs to refine the curriculum so that there is a common understanding in all subjects about the core knowledge that pupils need to learn and remember at each stage to make progress through the school's curriculum.

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